Austin News

As the nation anticipates much renewable energy-focused legislation to come in President Biden's administration, Texas is pumping the breaks on solar renewables investments. 

Texas lawmakers recently introduced Senate Bill 1278, which would ensure renewable energy companies provide efficient and reliable energy production at competitive prices.

With the U.S. relying heavily on Chinese exports of these vital materials for renewable energy production, skepticism on the future of renewable energy in America has increased. 

Renewable energy sources rely on rare earth materials, such as neodymium, terbium, indium, dysprosium and praseodymium. These materials are of extremely limited supply and largely controlled by China. It holds domain of more than 80% of the entire global rare earth element supply, making China responsible for 95% of all rare earth element refinery. 

"China has dominated the production of rare earth metals since the 1990s, driven largely by two factors: low prices and state-backed investment in infrastructure and technology," said the National Bureau of Asian Research's Kristin Vekasi in August 2019. "In prior decades, the United States had dominated this market, largely through production at the Mountain Pass mine in California. However, as Chinese output began to reach levels that could fulfill global demand at a much lower price point, the U.S. was unable to compete. By the 2000s, China had near complete domination of rare earths production."

The result, many say, is a carrot-and-stick dynamic between China and the U.S. over the rare earth material supply amid the two nations' ongoing trade war. In May 2019, CNBC reported that China told the U.S. that the rare earth element supply would be cut off in response to the trade turbulence the two countries were experiencing during the Trump administration. 

Vesaki said that China's development in their rare earth industry has been deliberate since the 1980s, knowing that it holds the power to cause a major supply chain interruption in the U.S. Despite recent federal attempts to decrease America's reliance on China for rare earths, what little materials mined here still need to be sent to China for refining.

"The U.S. does not have domestic rare earth refinement facilities and so it needs to send its mined rare earths to China for that crucial process," Wall Street Journal reported. "China has flaunted their rare earth dominance in the past and have recognized that this dominance also means that they have serious leverage over critical technology industries in the United States, including renewable energy sources."