Evaluation of Ecological and Environmental Cost of Rare Earth Resource Exploitation in China from 2001 to 2013
Scientific evaluation of ecological and environmental cost of rare earth (RE)resources exploitation is very important for designing the strategy of the sustainable utilization of rare earth resources and reforming the pricing policy of the rare earth market in China.The paper aims to quantitatively assess the ecological and environmental cost of RE resources exploitation in three major production bases in China from 2001 to 2013.To achieve this goal,the paper constructed an accounting framework of ecological damage loss and environmental pollution loss during the process of RE resources mining and smelting with the consideration of the characteristic that "light rare earth in north and heavy rare earth in south" in China.The qualitative data used were remote sensing images,pollution sources census,dynamically update data of pollution sources census and environment statistics.The results showed as follows:1) The total ecological and environmental cost for RE resources development was 76.17 billion yuan from 2001 to 2013,of which 72.18 billion yuan was the ecological damage loss caused by mining,3.99 billion yuan was the environmental pollution cost caused by smelting.2) In the three main production bases of RE resources,ecological and environmental cost of Baotou ore was mainly for environmental pollution caused by RE smelting,and the environmental pollution control cost is 2.55 billion yuan,accounting for 74.3％ of the total cost in Baotou.The ecological and environmental cost of bastnaesite and ionic rare earth ore was mainly caused by ecological damage loss,which was 5.43 billion yuan and 65.86 billion yuan,respectively,accounting for 89.5％ and 98.8％ of their respective ecological and environmental cost.3) As for per unit of rare earth oxides (REO),the ecological and environmental cost of ionic rare earth ore was high,which was 9.6 times of the cost of bastnaesite,and 41.4 times of the cost in Baotou.4) Ecological and environmental cost of RE exploitation in China is more than 45％ of its price.Considering the ecological and environmental cost and scarcity cost of RE resource under the current market prices,China's rare earth industry profit is negative.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
