raw materials
:
Not that rare, but urgently needed
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The Swedish mining company LKAB in the industrial area: Significant deposits of rare earths have been discovered in the far north of Sweden.
(Photo: Maja Suslin/dpa)
Batteries, wind turbines and motors: rare earth metals are necessary for a CO2-neutral future. So far, the largest quantities have come from China to Europe. Can the find in Sweden change that?
from
Hanno Charisius, Thomas Fromm, Gunnar Herrmann and Alex Rühle
On Thursday, the Swedish mining group LKAB announced that it had discovered the largest known deposit of rare earths in Europe. The Per Geijer deposit near a large iron ore mine in Kiruna contains more than one million tons of rare earth oxides, the state-owned company announced before a visit by the EU Commission to the region. This amount would be enough to cover a large part of the future EU demand for the production of permanent magnets, which are needed for electric motors in e-vehicles and wind turbines, among other things, and make Europe less dependent on imports. Politically, this is celebrated as a success. But experts take a more sober look at the find.
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