ZEUS' GARDEN: Supplies of rare earth elements pedicted to be exhausted by 2017

The future of photovoltaics might not be so sunny.

http://slashdot.org/~tomhudson/journal/206171

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Supplies of rare earth elements exhausted by 2017.

Flat-panel LCDs, high-output solar cells, nuclear reactor control rods (extinct: 2017 due to the world's indium supply - currently at 6,000 tons, gone) - even galvanized steel (extinct: 2037 - world's zinc supply exhausted) - all gone. Rare-earth lasers? Ditto. Doped semi-conductors? Buh-bye. Automotive and cell-phone electronics, and pcs? Don't throw out that old P1 with the crt just yet ... 15 years from now, it may just be state-of-the-art, as newer boxes succumb to tin whiskers, lack of replacement parts, etc.

Even the Wall Street Journal is starting to "get it"..

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A Metal Scare to Rival the Oil Scare

Indium, gallium and hafnium are some of the least-known elements on the periodic table, but New Scientist warns that reserves of these low-profile minerals and others like them might soon be exhausted thanks to the demand for flat screens and other high-tech goods. Scientists who have tried to estimate how long the worlds mineral supply can meet global demand have made some gloomy predictions.

Armin Reller, a materials chemist at the University of Augsburg in Germany, estimates that in 10 years the world will run out of indium, used for making liquid-crystal displays for flat-screen televisions and computer monitors. He also predicts that the world will run out of zinc by 2037, and hafnium, an increasingly important part of computer chips, by 2017.

Researchers worry that a supply crunch in some metals and minerals could kill off promising new technologies. Rene Kleijn, a chemist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, says that a new design for solar panels that would make them twice as efficient as most current panels might not get built for lack of gallium and indium. Estimates of reserves vary widely, and scientists say it is difficult in some cases to accurately forecast demand, says New Scientists David Cohen. Whats more, it is possible that demand for some metals will plateau. Tom Graedel, a professor of industrial ecology at Yale University, found that per capita consumption of iron leveled off around 1980, suggesting that at some point people in technologically advanced societies might only need so much of any one metal. But Prof. Graedel notes that this hasnt been the case with copper, a crucial component of wiring and computer chips. He predicts that by 2100, global demand for copper might outstrip mineable supplies.

If the most dire predictions are true, recycling of rare metals will be the only way to manufacture some gadgets and machines as demand grows in the developing world. Mr. Kleijn says that a lot of copper could be freed up by replacing cities copper pipes with plastic ones. Hazel Prichard, a geologist at the University of Cardiff in the United Kingdom, also is developing ways to extract platinum, a vital component in catalytic converters and fuel cells, from the dust and grime of city streets. Apparently, urban grit contains 1.5 parts per million of platinum.

We are starting to run out of gallium and other rare earth elements.

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The element gallium is in very short supply and the world may well run out of it in just a few years. Indium is threatened too, says Armin Reller, a materials chemist at Germany's University of Augsburg. He estimates that our planet's stock of indium will last no more than another decade. All the hafnium will be gone by 2017 also, and another twenty years will see the extinction of zinc. Even copper is an endangered item, since worldwide demand for it is likely to exceed available supplies by the end of the present century.

Gallium's atomic number is 31. It's a blue-white metal first discovered in 1831, and has certain unusual properties, like a very low melting point and an unwillingness to oxidize, that make it useful as a coating for optical mirrors, a liquid seal in strongly heated apparatus, and a substitute for mercury in ultraviolet lamps. It's also quite important in making the liquid-crystal displays used in flat-screen television sets and computer monitors.

As it happens, we are building a lot of flat-screen TV sets and computer monitors these days. Gallium is thought to make up 0.0015 percent of the Earth's crust and there are no concentrated supplies of it. We get it by extracting it from zinc or aluminum ore or by smelting the dust of furnace flues. Dr. Reller says that by 2017 or so there'll be none left to use. Indium, another endangered element - number 49 in the periodic table - is similar to gallium in many ways, has many of the same uses (plus some others: it's a gasoline additive, for example, and a component of the control rods used in nuclear reactors) and is being consumed much faster than we are finding it. Dr. Reller gives it about another decade. Hafnium, element 72, is in only slightly better shape. There aren't any hafnium mines around; it lurks hidden in minute quantities in minerals that contain zirconium, from which it is extracted by a complicated process that would take me three or four pages to explain. We use a lot of it in computer chips and, like indium, in the control rods of nuclear reactors, but the problem is that we don't have a lot of it. Dr. Reller thinks it'll be gone somewhere around 2017. Even zinc, commonplace old zinc that is alloyed with copper to make brass, and which the United States used for ordinary one-cent coins when copper was in short supply in World War II, has a Reller extinction date of 2037. (How does a novel called The Death of Brass grab you?)

Zinc was never rare. We mine millions of tons a year of it. But the supply is finite and the demand is infinite, and that's bad news. Even copper, as I noted above, is deemed to be at risk. We humans move to and fro upon the earth, gobbling up everything in sight, and some things aren't replaceable.

Platinum, a key ingredient for fuel cells may be approaching decline.: http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/027ns_005.htm

http://blog.techfun.org/can-we-build-the-future

Fuel cells?

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It has been estimated that if all the 500 million vehicles in use today were re-equipped with fuel cells, operating losses would mean that all the worlds sources of platinum would be exhausted within 15 years. Unlike with oil or diamonds, there is no synthetic alternative: platinum is a chemical element, and once we have used it all there is no way on earth of getting any more.

The price of indium has already gone up over 1500% in 3 years ... it's needed for that new generation of high-output solar cells, as well as lcd displays. Extinct by 2017.

Armin Reller, a materials chemist at the University of Augsburg in Germany, and his colleagues are among the few groups who have been investigating the problem. He estimates that we have, at best, 10 years before we run out of indium. Its impending scarcity could already be reflected in its price: in January 2003 the metal sold for around $60 per kilogram; by August 2006 the price had shot up to over $1000 per kilogram.

http://www.takeonit.com/compare.aspx?rightexpertid=3&leftexpertid=24

Got bicycle?

NOTE: One more story (editorial) that might be of interest.

Ramped-up production of flat-panel displays means the material to make them, as well as other electronics, could be "extinct" by 2017.

quote:
The element gallium is in very short supply and the world may well run out of it in just a few years. Indium is threatened too, says Armin Reller, a materials chemist at Germany's University of Augsburg. He estimates that our planet's stock of indium will last no more than another decade. All the hafnium will be gone by 2017 also, and another twenty years will see the extinction of zinc. Even copper is an endangered item, since worldwide demand for it is likely to exceed available supplies by the end of the present century.

Price evolutions :