Europe’s largest rare earth deposit discovered in Sweden
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It is one of the most important mineral discoveries of recent decades in Europe: Sweden has announced that it has found in the northern region of Kiruna a maxi deposit of over one million tons of rare earths, i.e. the 17 metals essential for the production of a wide range of electronic components and microchips, from those that operate TVs and cell phones to wind turbines, photovoltaic panels and electric cars. This is the largest deposit of its kind ever discovered in the Old Continent.
The discovery was made by publicly owned Swedish mining group Lkab. “This is the largest known rare earth deposit in our part of the world and could become an important building block for the production of critical raw materials absolutely crucial to the green transition,” group chief executive Jan Jan said in a statement. Moström. “It’s good news not only for the Lkab, the region and the Swedish people, but also for Europe and the climate,” he added. The term rare earths indicates a group of 17 chemical elements, namely cerium (Ce), dysprosium (Dy), erbium (Er), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), holmium (Ho), lanthanum (La), lutetium ( Lu), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), scandium (Sc), terbium (Tb), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), and yttrium (Y).
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Europe will need many more metals and rare earths for the energy transition
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Among their numerous properties there are magnetic and conductive properties, which have allowed, for example, the reduction of the dimensions of many electronic devices. World reserves of rare earths are found throughout the world, but are especially prevalent in China, Brazil and Russia. China is the main producer and Baotou has its largest deposit.
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Between the 1950s and 1980s, the USA was the world leader in the extraction and use of rare earths: but the high impact on the environment deriving from mining led to restrictive laws which effectively limited both extraction and refining. At the beginning of the 1990s – in parallel with the exponential increase in the use of rare earths in technologies – Chinese hegemony began to assert itself, a dominance that today Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia are trying to counter by looking to Africa: South Africa, Angola, Namibia and Madagascar are the countries with the largest deposits, which, however, require huge investments to exploit.
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