China’s dominance will end due to getting huge reserves of rare earth in Turkey?
Europe is struggling hard to end its dependence on Russian energy. For this it is necessary to promote the source of renewable energy. Rare earth rare metal is much needed to promote the sources of renewable energy. Until now, Europe was completely dependent on China for this metal, because China has the largest reserves of rare earths. However, now Turkey can solve this problem by reducing Europe’s dependence on China.
The Turkish government has this month announced the discovery of a vast reservoir of rare earth elements. It can be processed to make electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels. To find out this reserves, excavation was being done in Turkey for the last almost a decade. Turkish geologists have estimated that about 694 million tonnes of rare earth metal is present near the country’s north-western city of Eskiehir. At the same time, China has reserves of 800 million tonnes. According to this, it is the second largest reserve of rare earth after China.
Rare Earth is actually not such a rare metal as it is told about. The reason for calling them ‘rare’ is that they exist in mixed state with other metals and separating them is a complicated process. This leads to the manufacture of magnets, which are used in commercial and military technology. They are also used in the manufacture of things like lighters, lasers, batteries, fiber optic cables, super conductors.
Turkey adamant about quality
Turkey believes that the reserves found in its country are enough to meet the needs of the whole world for the next 1,000 years. However, due to lack of sufficient information about the quality of the elements found here, many analysts are confused.
Christopher Ecclestone, principal and mining strategist at UK research house Hallgarten & Co, told DW: “If they’re claiming to have such a huge stockpile, they must have done a lot of digging and they’ll know what the quality of the metal is like. After all. Where is all the information?”
Lithium will bring economic growth or disaster
David Merriman, director of research for rare earths at global consultancy firm Wood McKinsey, told DW that reserves found in Turkey are likely to contain more of the rare earth elements lanthanum and cerium, which are “presently available in sufficient quantities” and “high Rare demand for quality manufacturing magnets are not included.
British geologist Catherine Goodenough recently told Wired magazine that Turkey’s reserves are estimated to contain about 14 million tons of rare earth oxide, less than a third of China’s estimated reserves.
China’s dominance threatens the European Union and America
China supplies 80 percent of the world’s demand for rare earth materials. 98 percent of the rare earth magnets in the European Union are imported from China, which is about 16,000 tonnes per year. The big reason behind this is that the biggest companies involved in China’s supply chain are owned by the government and they get a lot of subsidies. As a result, magnets made in Asia cost about a third less than in Europe.
Belgium, Germany, and America have expressed concern about this monopoly of China. He says that China can use Rare Earth to its advantage during business and geopolitical disputes. In 2010, China banned exports of rare earths to Japan over a border dispute.
Recycling of rare metals
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said this week that her country was trying to reduce its “too much reliance” on Chinese rare earths. He alleged that China “put pressure on many countries that did not obey”.
Two years ago, the EU created the European Raw Materials Alliance. Its purpose was that EU member countries should not depend on any one country for the import of raw materials of other metals including rare earth and they import from different countries of the third world. At the same time, in view of the situation arising out of the Corona epidemic, efforts have been intensified to strengthen the regional supply chain.
Doubts about huge stock
What Turkey is claiming about rare earth reserves, if it is true, then it will increase the stature of President Recep Tayyip Erdovan among NATO allies than before. Also, this will strengthen Turkey’s weak economy.
However, this is not the first time that Erdoan’s announcement has been viewed with suspicion. Two years ago, Turkey announced the discovery of vast reserves of natural gas in the Black Sea. Regarding this, Erdovan had said that this would significantly reduce the expenditure on import of energy. Analysts doubt whether the reserves will be about 320 billion cubic meters (11.3 trillion cubic feet) higher than initially estimated. Also, according to the promise made at that time, will the extraction of gas be started from here by 2023?
The strategic importance of Rare Earth to Western countries is so great that many other related projects have increased their capacity in recent years to attract investors.
