Hoenderdaal produced a thesis in 2011 as part of the master program of Energy Science at the Utrecht University. He reported that Dysprosium, one of the various rare earth elements, is currently only mined in China and Russia (2011). China accounts for over 97% of the total supply of rare earths and is reducing its exports to the rest of the world. New projects outside China are therefore necessary to sustain the supply and meet future demands. Dysprosium is mainly used in permanent magnets to increase the magnets strength at elevated temperatures. Therefore, the use of dysprosium-doped permanent magnets is preferred in electric vehicles (cars, motors and bicycles) and direct-drive wind turbines.
Besides the use in permanent magnets, dysprosium is also used in Terfenol-D, multilayer ceramic capacitors and numerous other applications which do not play an important role in the total dysprosium market as they only account for a small amount of the total dysprosium demand. According to four different scenarios (established at Fraunhofer ISI) it is likely that demand will outstrip supply in the short-term (2010-2020). Although currently new mining projects are emerging, it takes several years for them to become productive. With an expected increase in dysprosium demand due to developments in the hybrid and electric vehicles industry, direct-drive wind turbine capacity and other applications, Hoenderdaal concluded that there will be a shortage of dysprosium which can eventually hamper the growth of these 'low-carbon' technologies in the short-term.
For the long-term it is expected that enough dysprosium oxide is available in the earth crust (which is economically feasible to mine with current dysprosium prices) to fulfill the demand of dysprosium up to 2050. Currently, the recycling of rare-earth metals is not widely introduced yet. As a shortage of dysprosium can be expected, more research and development programs concerning recycling possibilities should be carried out. However, Hoenderdaal also concluded in 2011 that even by assuming a recycling percentage of 80%, a shortage of dysprosium can still be expected in the short term. Nevertheless, recycling of rare-earth metals can decrease the dependence on Chinese exports.
“Dysprosium is the key heavy rare earth metal, which is critical for manufacturing rare earth permanent magnets that can operate at high temperatures, such as under the hood of a car or in newly designed wind turbines”
– Jack Lifton, Strategic Metal Expert
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