Les « terres rares », au coeur des conflits économico-politiques de demain

Jacques Fontanel ()
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Jacques Fontanel: CESICE - Centre d'études sur la sécurité internationale et les coopérations européennes - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes - IEPG - Sciences Po Grenoble-UGA - Institut d'études politiques de Grenoble - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes

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Abstract: Rare-earth are essential for the development of modern technologies. They have exceptional natural qualities for making clean electricity and for producing new information and communication technologies. These productions require the use of rare metals, which have three drawbacks: firstly, they are available or listed in limited quantities in relation to potential demand; they are therefore today assumed to be rapidly exhaustible; secondly, their extraction is both expensive and highly polluting. Finally, most of these metals are poorly distributed throughout the world, to the great advantage of China, which is currently taking advantage of this form of monopoly to attract numerous high value-added activities dependent on rare metals to its territory. Economic, political and military conflicts can arise from this scarcity and the balance of power between states.

Keywords: Rare-earth; conflicts; pollution; environment; scarcity; new technologies; Terres rares; Conflits; environnement; rareté; nouvelles technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-01-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-env
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