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Europe aims to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. In this context, Rare Earth Elements (REE) play a key role in both Europe’s economic landscape and its commitment to environmentally sustainable policies. Particularly, the demand for REE is driven by the production of Permanent Magnets (PM) containing neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), and dysprosium (Dy) for high energy-efficient electric motors, renewable energy technologies, robotics, as well as aerospace and defence applications. Nevertheless, a significant challenge in the REEs European value chain is the dependency on imports from third countries, notably China. Additionally, the recent European energy crisis has further raised tensions within the EU’s high-tech and green industries.

Given these circumstances, the European Union has labelled REE as critical raw materials (CRM) and ranked them among the highest supply risk in all the four lists of CRMs released since 2011. In March 2024, the Council adopted the European Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) to ensure a sustainable green and digital transition by securing a stable and strategic supply of CRM.

The benchmarks set for domestic capacities are at least 10 % for extraction, 40 % for processing, and 25 % for recycling. Furthermore, according to the draft regulation, the Union’s annual consumption of each strategic raw material at any relevant stage of processing should not exceed 65 % sourced from a single third country.

Ready to learn how the SUPREEMO project will solve this issue? Keep reading!

About

The SUPREEMO project will set the first sustainable and resilient pre-commercial European Rare Earth Elements (REE) value chain (TRL7), leveraging European primary sources as feedstock.

Objectives

The upscaled SUPREEMO process will demonstrate and validate the production of 50-100 kg of permanent magnet treated all the way from ores using European resources.

Concept

The developed solutions will bolster the European industrial leadership and enhance autonomy in critical strategic value chain, ensure a secure supply of raw materials.

Impact

These innovative solutions will play a crucial role in securing strategic sectors and addressing the growing EU demand for REE driven by the green transition.

Exploring potential European REE sources

Despite the availability of relatively abundant resources in Europe, with incredible opportunity to seize, we are still almost 100 % dependent on REE imports. Although there are presently no mining exploitation activities for REE’ in Europe, the continent has a tremendous potential to explore them. With more than 60 REE-occurrences and deposits known, the most well-known are located in Greenland, Sweden and Norway.

According to REE Minerals, these deposits contain REE-reserves enough to secure the European REE demand for decades to come. The SUPREEMO project will develop a complete magnet value chain based on European REE sources, notably the Fen deposit located in Norway.

SUPREEMO HIGHLIGHTS

Groundbreaking for sample extraction at Fen Field

REE Minerals has started preparatory work for the extraction of rare earth elements from the Fen Field near Ulefoss, Norway. Europe’s largest deposit of light rare earth elements.

The SUPREEMO project at REESILIENCE Conference!

On Thursday, March 28th, the SUPREEMO project participated in the REESILIENCE Conference organised by The Global Rare Earth Industry Association (REIA) in Brussels.

SUPREEMO welcomes the CRMA

On March 18th, the Council adopted the regulation to set a framework to ensure a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials (CRM).

Six-months progress meeting in Slovakia

On 5-6 June 2024, the SUPREEMO consortium gathered at Technical University of Košice (Slovakia) to discuss the project progress.

UPCOMING EVENTS

SlovakiaTech conference (24/09/2024)
Dubrovnic - DIM-ESEE mining School (16-18/10/2024)
Košice - International Science Conference Strategies and innovations in the Raw Materials Policy of the Slovak Republic and the European Union (06/12/2024)

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