Barriers to China's wind power target: waste generation and supply risks analysis

IF 5.3 2区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Environmental Development Pub Date : 2025-09-10 DOI:10.1016/j.envdev.2025.101352

Fei Huang, Yangyang Liang, Jinhui Li, Lili Liu

{"title":"Barriers to China's wind power target: waste generation and supply risks analysis","authors":"Fei Huang, Yangyang Liang, Jinhui Li, Lili Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.envdev.2025.101352","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The large-scale development of wind power is a critical pathway for achieving China's carbon neutrality goals. However, its rapid expansion faces multiple challenges, including constraints in material supply and end-of-life (EoL) management. This study develops a top-down dynamic material flow analysis (dMFA) model and systematically assesses the intensity of material demand, the spatial and temporal distribution of EoL wind turbines, and supply risks by integrating multiple energy and technology scenarios. Our study reveals that the primary barriers lie in the heavy reliance on rare earth elements (REEs) and EoL management in the North, Northwest, and East China. By 2050, the cumulative REEs demand would be 155.1–246.8 kt, with dysprosium (Dy) and terbium (Tb) facing high risks. Recycling EoL turbines in key regions could mitigate material shortages by contributing 28 %, 22 %, and 18 % of national secondary supply by 2050. This reduces the supply pressure for Dy from 55.6 % to 49.6 %, although a shortfall remains for Tb. To ensure long-term material security, it is imperative to further expand REEs recycling or explore recovery through urban mining.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54269,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Development","volume":"57 ","pages":"Article 101352"},"PeriodicalIF":5.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Environmental Development","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211464525002180","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

The large-scale development of wind power is a critical pathway for achieving China's carbon neutrality goals. However, its rapid expansion faces multiple challenges, including constraints in material supply and end-of-life (EoL) management. This study develops a top-down dynamic material flow analysis (dMFA) model and systematically assesses the intensity of material demand, the spatial and temporal distribution of EoL wind turbines, and supply risks by integrating multiple energy and technology scenarios. Our study reveals that the primary barriers lie in the heavy reliance on rare earth elements (REEs) and EoL management in the North, Northwest, and East China. By 2050, the cumulative REEs demand would be 155.1–246.8 kt, with dysprosium (Dy) and terbium (Tb) facing high risks. Recycling EoL turbines in key regions could mitigate material shortages by contributing 28 %, 22 %, and 18 % of national secondary supply by 2050. This reduces the supply pressure for Dy from 55.6 % to 49.6 %, although a shortfall remains for Tb. To ensure long-term material security, it is imperative to further expand REEs recycling or explore recovery through urban mining.

查看原文本刊更多论文

中国风电目标的障碍：废物产生和供应风险分析

大规模开发风电是实现中国碳中和目标的重要途径。然而，其快速扩张面临着多方面的挑战，包括材料供应和报废管理方面的限制。本研究建立了自顶向下的动态物料流分析（dMFA）模型，通过整合多个能源和技术场景，系统评估了物料需求强度、EoL风力发电机组的时空分布以及供应风险。研究表明，华北、西北和华东地区对稀土元素的严重依赖和EoL管理是主要障碍。到2050年，稀土的累计需求量将达到155.1-246.8 kt，其中镝（Dy）和铽（Tb）面临高风险。到2050年，在重点地区回收EoL涡轮机将贡献28%、22%和18%的全国二次供应，从而缓解材料短缺问题。这将镝的供应压力从55.6%降低到49.6%，尽管结核病仍然短缺。为确保物资的长期安全，进一步扩大稀土资源的回收利用或探索城市采矿回收利用势在必行。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Environmental Development Social Sciences-Geography, Planning and Development

CiteScore

8.40

自引率

1.90%

发文量

审稿时长

74 days

期刊介绍： Environmental Development provides a future oriented, pro-active, authoritative source of information and learning for researchers, postgraduate students, policymakers, and managers, and bridges the gap between fundamental research and the application in management and policy practices. It stimulates the exchange and coupling of traditional scientific knowledge on the environment, with the experiential knowledge among decision makers and other stakeholders and also connects natural sciences and social and behavioral sciences. Environmental Development includes and promotes scientific work from the non-western world, and also strengthens the collaboration between the developed and developing world. Further it links environmental research to broader issues of economic and social-cultural developments, and is intended to shorten the delays between research and publication, while ensuring thorough peer review. Environmental Development also creates a forum for transnational communication, discussion and global action. Environmental Development is open to a broad range of disciplines and authors. The journal welcomes, in particular, contributions from a younger generation of researchers, and papers expanding the frontiers of environmental sciences, pointing at new directions and innovative answers. All submissions to Environmental Development are reviewed using the general criteria of quality, originality, precision, importance of topic and insights, clarity of exposition, which are in keeping with the journal''s aims and scope.