Technology Critical Elements (TCEs)

Subject: Science & Tech

Context- Climate-positive, high-tech metals are polluting Earth.

Concept-

Green energy technology growth (especially wind, solar and hydropower, along with electric vehicles) rely on technology-critical elements (TCEs), whose production and disposal can be environmentally harmful.
Mining and processing of TCEs requires huge amounts of energy.
Mines use gigantic quantities of fresh water; can drive large-scale land-use change; and pollute air, soil and water — threatening biodiversity.
TCEs may also become pollutants themselves when they are disposed of as waste.
The mining of TCEs can also exacerbate climate change.
Mining activities and leaching of TCEs can pose significant hazards to human health.

About Technology Critical Elements (TCEs):

A technology-critical element (TCE) is a chemical element that is critical to emerging technologies.
Many advanced engineering applications, such as clean-energy production, communications and computing, use emergent technologies that utilize numerous chemical elements.
The set of elements usually considered as TCEs vary depending on the source, but they usually include:
- Seventeen rare-earth elements
  - cerium, dysprosium, erbium, europium, gadolinium, holmium, lanthanum, lutetium, neodymium, praseodymium, promethium, samarium, scandium, terbium, thulium, ytterbium, yttrium
- Six platinum-group elements
  - iridium, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium
- Twelve assorted elements
  - antimony, beryllium, caesium, cobalt, gallium, germanium, indium, lithium, niobium, tantalum, tellurium, tungsten.