Wind power and solar require rare earths, silver and several other green metals for production plus Lithium and Vanadium for storage.
It is interesting that China is dropping its REE export quotas in 20014. In earlier posts I have argued that this would occur as China is well aware that its population requires, and will not continue to tolerate poor air quality, and so would shift to green energy as soon as possible. Given that the Heavy Rare Earths are in worldwide supply shortage it makes sense that China restricts H-REEs exports as in terms of
REE resources : population ratio - China is one of the world's poorest countries. (Greenland and Australia are the world's richest).
Given that Australia has several ASX listed companies with world class Heavy Rare Earths resources on the verge of production Australia seems to be well placed to fill the emerging supply deficits.
AustralianRareEarths.com is designed to give investors an overview of Australia's REE companies.
China's renewable energy - a green shift
China responding to clean air - see chart above.
These results for 2013 reveal just how strongly China is swinging behind renewables as its primary energy resource. This is consistent with the
12th Five Year Plan (running from 2011 to 2015) which projects that China will be generating 30 per cent of its electric power from non-fossil sources overall by 2015. This is a level far higher than comparable industrialised countries.
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One of the big surprises is likely to come from silver but this is a topic for another day. But I have explored this in my
Australian Gold Blog