It is undoubtedly a very important brick on the road to European autonomy. In Kiruna, a city located in the far north of Sweden, an exceptional deposit of rare earths was discovered last week by the country’s mining operator, LKAB. On this territory, where the company has operated the deepest iron mine in the world since 1899, the vein discovered at a depth of 540 meters could contain up to 1.4 million tonnes of ore. “It’s a significant mining asset. We’re talking about 1% of world reserves, which are estimated at 120 million tonnes. It’s obviously interesting to have these reserves located in Europe, which today imports between 98 and 99% of the rare earth elements for its consumption”, comments Emmanuel Hache, economist at IFP Énergies nouvelles
The CEO of the Swedish mining group, Jan Moström, obviously welcomed the discovery, explaining that it was “the largest known deposit of rare earth elements in our part of the world”, which “could become a basic element important for the production of critical raw materials absolutely crucial for the green transition”. Rare earths – a group of 17 minerals with similar properties, have become essential in recent years for the production of offshore wind turbines or electric cars, catalysts for the energy (and digital) transition, alongside copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel or even zinc. According to the International Energy Agency, they could be in demand three to seven times higher in 2040 than today.
Problem, it is today a market where China reigns almost without division. “They represent 60% of the extraction of rare earths, and between 85% and 90% of the rest of the value chain between treatment, purification or refining”, figures Emmanuel Hache. Europe is cruelly dependent on this partner. Can the Swedish discovery allow the Old Continent to challenge Chinese hegemony? For Luc Aixala, head of the Circular Economy of Materials program at the CEA, this is “excellent news”. “We knew that the lands of northern Europe have significant resources. This deposit seems very concentrated in rare earths, which will put exploitation on the right track in economic terms”. According to this expert, the European consumption of neodymium magnets, equivalent to 16,000 tonnes per year, could largely be covered by this production. “That doesn’t solve the problem until the mine opens,” he explains, however. Indeed, LKAB does not aim to start production before 10 to 15 years, in the best case. In this period of time, Europe will therefore have to rely on imports from its trading partners, including the Chinese.
“This discovery and the exploitation would only solve a small node in the chain of metals”, adds Emmanuel Hache. On treatment, purification or refining, the stranglehold of Chinese groups is such that even if Europe were to extract rare earths from its subsoil, it would probably have to send these minerals back to China to obtain the precious ones. magnets necessary for its industries. Hence the importance, underline the two experts, of accelerating the development of an industry capable of addressing the entire value chain. According to Luc Aixala, if Europe is starting to move under the impetus of certain chemists on the separation of materials, or on the production of magnets with a few pilot projects, the movement is probably too timid. “China’s strength in rare earths is also that they have located the whole value chain next to the mines. If you imagine the same conditions in Europe, with mines coupled with factories of treatment, there will be a strong issue of acceptability”, warns Emmanuel Hache. Good news however, the industrial time necessary for the development of these activities downstream of the extraction is according to the specialists much shorter than the development of the mines. “We have lost this know-how, but we can reasonably say that in 3 to 5 years, Europe is capable of creating capacities”, indicates Lux Aixilia.
Despite the importance of the Swedish deposit, the Old Continent will also have to look for other opportunities to beef up its energy independence strategy. “This deposit could restore some autonomy to Europe, but it is not certain that this will be sufficient to meet demand. In the long term, it is possible that it will be necessary to take an interest in other deposits, more concentrated in heavy rare earths, and for which there are currently no mining projects in Europe”, summarizes Christophe Poinssot, Director General of the Geological and Mining Research Bureau (BRGM)
Couldn’t part of the demand also be met by recycling the magnets already used on wind turbines and electric vehicles? “There are quite significant possibilities for recycling and actors capable of doing so. But economically, it is absolutely not viable today. There is a physical problem because the concentrations of rare earths in these products are very weak, it is very difficult to separate them”, regrets Emmanuel Hache. “If we manage to recover all the rare earths tomorrow via recycling, which would also require a real regulatory framework, we could have a fifth of the demand covered. Even with recycling, we will need mines and factories”, abounds Luc Aixala.
An idea that should make some teeth cringe. In Karuna, the concern is about the environmental impact of this new deposit and its future exploitation. Rare earth mining projects are particularly polluting, and the effects of a mine are heavy for the environment. European regulations – one of the most demanding in the world in terms of eco-responsibility – and the mastery of new mining solutions, give hope that these impacts will be as moderate as possible. “Sweden, and Scandinavia in the broad sense, have remained mining countries and are present at all stages of the value chain: from prospecting, to exploitation, and to the development of new processes. The Swedes have been investing for a long time date on the issue of responsible mining, and this strongly gives credibility to their desire to have a low-impact mine”, justifies Christophe Poinssot.
The firm recalled when announcing this new deposit that it was developing new processes to improve the treatment of mining waste, in particular through the creation of an industrial park not far from Kiruna dedicated to the optimization of these residues. . But in reality, the impact of the mine and the new deposit is already there. In this polar territory, Sweden has been exploiting this richly iron-rich subsoil for more than a century. The colossal mine of Kiruna is so sprawling that in 2019 it required the displacement of the city center by 3 kilometers…
An argument for the actors of the mining world who believe that the acceptability of the project is already made. “The impacts are heavy that’s undeniable, but there is no brutal contestation in Sweden because the mine is now part of the landscape. The debate is therefore not against the mine, but rather on how to develop these essential practices for the transition, with the lowest possible impact”, emphasizes the Director General of BRGM. “LKAB is a Swedish company that meets the most advanced mining standards (use of low-carbon electricity, use of hydrogen in reduction processes, compensation for occupied land, re-vegetation, post-mining management, etc.) Add to this, high standards in terms of worker protection… the criteria seem to me to be met”, considers Luc Aixala of the CEA.
According to LKAB, the company has already started to prepare a kilometer-long gallery at a depth of about 700 meters in the existing mine towards the new deposit in order to be able to investigate in depth and in detail. The concern comes above all from the indigenous populations, the Sami reindeer herders, who fear that their territories will once again be reduced. “We do not yet know how their activities will be impacted because we do not yet know how the deposit will be exploited,” Anders Lindberg, spokesperson for the Swedish company, warned on Twitter. The latter recognizes that the deposit is located on an important reindeer migration route, and warns that there will be compensation in the event of an impact.
“A clean mine does not exist,” explains Emmanuel Hache of IFP Energies nouvelles. But according to him, this implementation project is no less essential. In his eyes, there was indeed until now a form of hypocrisy in Europe, which wanted the energy transition without its negative side effects, which are mines and the economy of critical metals or rare earths essential to making this transition. With this mine, and no doubt new ones in the coming years, the Old Continent is entering this bend.
