It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
China leads global energy export race as clean tech shipments hit record highs
The green tech race is on to see who can produce the clean energy to power the transition to a renewable new century and China is winning. / bne IntelliNews
China is outpacing the United States in the global race to dominate energy exports, as demand for clean technology surges and fossil fuel revenues plateau. The country exported $120bn in green technology through July 2025, surpassing the $80bn in US oil and gas exports over the same period, Bloomberg reported on October 12.
With the AI revolution in full swing, the country that masters the supply of cheap, clean and renewable power supplies will win. The Trump administration is betting on boosting fossil fuel supplies and ramping up its LNG gas production and export, while China has thrown everything into the renewables pot and has already emerged as the global green energy champion.
According to Ember, a climate and energy think tank, Chinese exports of solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles and other carbon-cutting equipment reached a record $20bn in August.
“China reached a record value in cleantech exports even as technology prices have fallen sharply,” Euan Graham, a data analyst at Ember, told Bloomberg.
While the US set its own record for oil exports in 2024, China’s clean energy exports were $30bn higher. The US has positioned itself as a dominant fossil fuel supplier in recent years, significantly increasing output under both President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden. Trump, now in his second term, is seeking to further expand fossil fuel production by rolling back regulations and scaling down support for clean technologies. The US president is openly hostile towards renewables and recently moved to gut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of its Obama-era "endangerment finding” – a scientific conclusion that is the legal basis for US climate regulations.
Despite falling prices for solar equipment, China continues to increase export volumes. In August, it shipped 46,000 megawatts of solar power capacity abroad — a record high in volume, even if revenue remained below the peak set in March 2023.
More recently, Beijing has overseen a second revolution in battery technology that addresses the key renewables problem of covering the baseload demand when the wind is not blowing, or the sun is not shining.
Thanks to more heavy investment and its control over rare earth metals (REMs), China has raced ahead in the production of batteries that are rapidly becoming an integral part of any renewable energy product, fuelled by plunging battery prices. China holds a commanding position in the global battery manufacturing industry, particularly in the production of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs), consumer electronics, and energy storage systems. China dominates the refining and processing of key battery minerals, including: lithium, cobalt, graphite and nickel.
According to data from BloombergNEF and the International Energy Agency (IEA), China currently accounts for over 75% of global lithium-ion battery production capacity. This includes the production of battery cells as well as upstream components such as cathodes, anodes, and electrolytes. China’s dominance is so complete that Sweden’s battery-maker Northvolt recently went bust, billed as Europe’s battery national champion.
Chinese electric vehicle exports are also expanding rapidly in developing markets. According to Ember, more than half of China’s EV exports in 2025 have gone to countries outside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, underlining a strategic shift toward emerging economies.
While China remains a significant importer of fossil fuels, it is deploying the majority of its clean technology domestically. In the current quarter, China is expected to sell more electric cars at home than the total number of cars — of any type — sold in the US.
Both China and the US maintain excess capacity in their respective energy sectors, generating significant export revenue. However, analysts suggest that China’s long-term influence may grow due to the enduring utility of clean energy technologies.
“Clean energy exports are hardware, which once a country has bought it, will generate electricity for a decade or two to come,” Greg Jackson, chief executive officer of Octopus Energy told Bloomberg. “Whereas with gas, the day you buy it, you use it, it's gone forever.”
The clean tech/battery-maker combination is giving China a decisive advantage in the green transition. Chinese companies are among the world’s largest battery makers. Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), headquartered in Fujian, is the world’s largest EV battery manufacturer, with a market share of over 35% as of 2025. Other key players include BYD, EVE Energy, and CALB.
China is also the largest EV market globally, accounting for over 60% of all electric cars sold worldwide in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Exports of Chinese batteries and electric vehicle components reached $65bn in the first half of 2025, driven by overseas demand for clean energy technologies, Bloomberg reported.
Critical raw materials are a vital new currency; Europe’s e-waste is the vault
CRMs available in EU27+4 "urban mine" of e-waste may roughly double by 2050; Recycling, repairs reduce CRM demand and waste, insulate EU from supply security risks, create jobs, advance climate agenda
Of the 10.7 Mt of WEEE generated in 2022, only 5.7 Mt (54%) were collected and appropriately treated in a compliant manner, i.e. in accordance with EU regulations, such as the WEEE Directive. These volumes were collected through retailers, municipal collection points, and commercial collection companies. Following treatment, approximately 0.4 Mt of critical raw materials were successfully recovered, including, among others, 162 kilotons (kt) of copper, 208 kt of aluminium, 12 kt of silicon, 1 kt of tungsten, and 2 t of palladium. Precious metals such as gold and silver, along with steel and other ferrous materials, were also recovered. However, despite compliant collection and treatment, 0.1 Mt of critical raw materials were not recovered, mostly rare earth elements e.g., neodymium, dysprosium, yttrium, and europium, which are vital materials found in magnets, fluorescent powders, and electronics. The remaining 46% of WEEE, about 5.0 Mt, is not compliantly collected or treated, increasing the chance of losing valuable materials and releasing hazardous substances into the environment. The largest quantity, 3.3 Mt, falls under other non compliant recovery, including WEEE mixed with metal and plastic waste, where only some materials, such as iron or steel, may be recovered, often at lower standards. Another 0.7 Mt is discarded with residual solid waste and sent to landfill or incineration. Approximately 0.4 Mt is exported for reuse. The remaining share is undocumented, likely either exported illegally or processed through informal or unregulated channels.
BRUSSELS -- With European demand for critical raw materials growing alongside geopolitical tensions and supply risks, a major analysis offers fundamental new data on the rapidly expanding size and value of Europe’s “urban mine” of electronic waste.
Discarded phones, laptops, servers, cables, appliances and other e-products in the EU27+4 (EU, UK, Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway) annually now contain roughly 1 million tonnes of critical raw materials (CRMs), the report says, essential metals and minerals for powering green technologies, digital infrastructure, and modern defence.
The Critical Raw Materials Outlook for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment report prepared by the European Union-funded FutuRaM consortium for International E-Waste Day, underlines that electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) is fundamental to Europe’s economy and daily life.
The analysis offers comprehensive datasets across the EU tracing EEE from first sale through end-of-life treatment and recovery, and outlines how Europe can recover more of these essential materials by improving collection, design, and recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).
Most recent data at a glance (EU27+4 in 2022)
10.7 million tonnes of WEEE generated — about 20 kg per person
29 critical raw materials are present in e-waste
1 million tonnes of critical raw materials embedded in that stream
54% (5.7 million tonnes) managed compliantly in line with EU rules; 46% (5.0 million tonnes) outside compliant channels
From compliant treatment, approximately 400,000 tonnes of critical raw materials were recovered, including:
162,000 tonnes copper
207,000 tonnes aluminium
12,000 tonnes silicon
1,000 tonnes tungsten
2 tonnes palladium
Even within compliant systems, around 100,000 tonnes of critical raw materials were lost, largely rare earth elements in magnets and fluorescent powders
Non-compliant routes led to major losses:
3.3 million tonnes mixed with metal scrap (partial recovery at best)
700,000 tonnes of e-waste landfilled or incinerated; 400,000 tonnes exported for reuse
The remainder undocumented
Outlook to 2050: More waste / more potential
By 2050, the total volume of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in the EU27+4 is projected to rise from 10.7 million tonnes in 2022 to between 12.5 and 19 million tonnes annually. The exact trajectory depends on which of three scenarios Europe follows: business-as-usual, recovery, or circularity.
The amount of critical raw materials (CRMs) embedded in this stream is expected to grow from about 1.0 million tonnes in 2022 to between 1.2 and 1.9 million tonnes per year by 2050. In other words, even if overall e-waste stabilises under a circular economy pathway, the concentration of valuable materials in products like photovoltaic panels, EV chargers, and servers will continue to increase.
Depending on policy choices, collection rates, and recycling efficiency, Europe could recover between 0.9 and 1.5 million tonnes of CRMs annually by 2050. Under business-as-usual, recovery levels remain modest, leaving much of this resource untapped. In the recovery scenario, investment in infrastructure and processing technologies pushes yields higher, while the circularity scenario achieves similar recovery volumes despite generating less e-waste overall – proof that smarter design, repair, and reuse strategies can balance reduced waste with strong material returns.
The circularity pathway offers a double dividend: it keeps annual WEEE volumes close to today’s 10.7 million tonnes while still enabling recovery of over 1 million tonnes of CRMs each year. That stability reduces environmental pressure, cuts the risk of hazardous leakage, and ensures Europe has a resilient source of metals like copper, aluminium, and palladium. It also highlights the importance of focusing not only on how much e-waste is generated, but on how effectively Europe designs products for disassembly, collects them at end-of-life, and processes them through advanced recycling.
Category trends to 2050
Large equipment, such as washing machines and dishwashers: from 4.0 million tonnes to as much as 7.5 million tonnes
Small equipment: from 3.2 million tonnes to as much as 4.5 million tonnes
Temperature exchange equipment: from 1.8 million tonnes to as much as 3.3 million tonnes
Small IT: from 800,000 tonnes to as much as 1 million tonnes
Screens and monitors: expected to decline overall, from 800,000 tonnes to a figure between 700,000 and 400,000 tonnes
Photovoltaic panels: from 150,000 tonnes (2022) to as much as 2.2 million tonnes (2050), reflecting Europe’s transition to solar energy
Lamps remain stable at around 100,000 tonnes
Where the materials are
Knowing which products and components contain which critical raw materials is the first step to getting them back.
CRMs appear throughout common devices: copper in cables and boards, aluminium in casings and frames, and platinum group metals in circuit boards and displays.
Small but high-value amounts of palladium, neodymium, dysprosium, tantalum, gallium, and other rare earths used in such everyday products as laptops, touch screens, hairdryers, power drills, game controllers and medical devices. Several videos detailing these uses are here: https://bit.ly/4p8O4vs
How Europe improves recovery
Collect more, lose less. The largest sink is at the collection stage. Expanding convenient take-back, retailer returns, and municipal points increases compliant flows.
Design for dismantling. Standardised fasteners, accessible modules, and clear material identification help extract magnets, boards, cables, compressors, and displays where critical materials concentrate.
Target the right components. Prioritise product parts rich in critical materials — for example, hard drives and motors for rare earth magnets, circuit boards for platinum group metals, and cabling for copper.
Scale recycling capacity in Europe. Investments in advanced mechanical, hydrometallurgical, and pyrometallurgical processes increase yields and reduce losses.
Align incentives. Policy tools such as eco-design requirements, repairability and durability provisions, and economic instruments can make recovery the rational choice across the value chain.
Says Jessika Roswall, the EU Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy: “Europe depends on third countries for more than 90% of its critical raw materials, yet we only recycle some of them as little as 1%. We need a real change in mindset in how Europe collects, dismantles, and processes this fast-growing e-waste mountain into a new source of wealth. Trade disruptions, from export bans to wars, expose Europe’s vulnerability. Recycling is both an environmental imperative and a geopolitical strategy.”.”
“It is hard to imagine modern civilisation without critical raw materials,” adds Pascal Leroy, Director General of the Brussels-based Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum, the organisation behind International E-Waste Day. “Without them, we cannot build the batteries, turbines, chips, and cables that underpin Europe’s green and digital future. By mining our e-waste instead of the planet, Europeans have a powerful opportunity to build our own circular supply chains, reduce exposure to global shocks, and secure the building blocks of our future.”
Success stories: copper and aluminium
The report highlights copper and aluminium as CRMs successfully being recycled at scale and show what is possible when recycling systems are robust.
Other materials, notably palladium and rare earths in magnets, are recovered at far smaller rates, underscoring the need for better design for dismantling, targeted collection, and advanced processing technologies.
Recovering silicon, silver, and rare metals from photovoltaic panels, the fastest-growing e-waste category, will be vital to Europe’s solar rollout, the report says.
Meanwhile, EV chargers, batteries, and motors depend heavily on copper, rare earth magnets, and aluminium.
And servers and data centres, packed with aluminium casings, copper wiring, and palladium-rich circuit boards, represent a growing urban mine.
“Europe’s e-waste is not trash, it’s a multi-billion-euro resource waiting to be unlocked,” said Kees Baldé, Senior Scientific Specialist at UNITAR SCYCLE, scientific coordinator of the FutuRaM Project, and a lead researcher behind the Global e-Waste Monitor. “Every kilogram we recover and any device we repair strengthens our economy, reduces our dependency, and creates new jobs, and getting the facts right is crucial for decision making, policy development to improve resource management.”
Turning e-waste into a resource creates economic value across Europe, he adds:
New recycling facilities: investment in advanced separation, hydrometallurgy, and urban mining plants.
Job creation: thousands of positions in collection, logistics, repair, disassembly, and high-tech recycling.
Value retention: instead of exporting waste or losing metals to landfill, Europe keeps billions of euros worth of materials in circulation.
With CRMs like palladium valued at $25,000 to 30,000 per kg, even small improvements in recovery could yield hundreds of millions in value.
Beyond recycling, the circular economy scenario shows how Europe can keep waste volumes stable while recovering more materials, Dr. Baldé says. By extending product lifespans, making devices easier to repair, and designing components for dismantling, Europe could hold e-waste steady at around today’s 10.7 million tonnes yet still recover over 1 million tonnes of critical raw materials annually by 2050.
“This approach not only reduces environmental pressure but also strengthens supply security and creates repair and reuse jobs. It underlines that the biggest gains come not only from better end-of-life treatment, but from smarter choices made at the design and use stages of a product’s life.”
Policy momentum
The findings feed directly into Europe’s evolving policy framework:
Critical Raw Materials Act (2024): sets benchmarks for extraction, processing, and recycling of strategic materials, aiming for 25% of annual demand to be met from recycling by 2030.
Circular Economy Act (consultation launched Aug 2025): will address the lack of sufficient demand and supply of secondary raw materials and the fragmentation of the EU single market.
WEEE Directive revision (expected 2026): likely to tighten collection and reporting rules, boosting demand of secondary raw materials and traceability.
FutuRaM Urban Mine Platform: an open database on CRM availability, to be used by policymakers, recyclers, and industry (to be launched in November 2025)
“This report shows that urban mining is no longer a concept, it’s a business opportunity,” says Giulia Iattoni from UNITAR, the lead author of the report and member of FutuRaM consortium. “New recycling facilities are opening across Europe, and demand from manufacturers is guaranteed. The challenge now is to scale collection and processing systems to make this potential a reality.”.”
Concludes Magdalena Charytanowicz of the WEEE Forum and IEWD coordinator: “International E-Waste Day is a reminder that circularity starts at home. Every phone tucked in a drawer, every broken appliance stored in a garage, and every cable tossed in the trash represents lost value and a missed chance to keep critical raw materials in circulation.”
“By choosing to repair, reuse, or return old electronics through proper collection systems, consumers play a direct role in securing Europe’s supply of essential materials, reducing environmental damage from mining, and helping to create new green jobs. The success of circular economy policies depends not only on the legislation, but also on the everyday decisions of citizens,” she says.
By the numbers
Europe’s E-Waste, Critical Raw Materials, and the Race for Supply Security
10.7 million tonnes of e-waste in 2022; ~20 kg per person.
29 critical raw materials present in e-waste; ~1.0 million tonnes embedded.
54% of WEEE compliantly managed in 2022; 46% outside compliant channels.
0.4 million tonnes recovered from compliant treatment in 2022, including Cu 162 kt, Al 207 kt, Si 12 kt, W 1 kt, Pd 2 t.
2050 projection ranges (reflecting the business as usual, recovery and circularity scenarios): 12.5–19 Mt WEEE, 1.2–1.9 Mt embedded CRMs, 0.9–1.5 Mt recovered CRMs.
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Videos
On-the-street interviews asking people about Critical Raw Materials: https://bit.ly/48iZvef
Small but high-value amounts of palladium, neodymium, dysprosium, tantalum, gallium, and other rare earths used in such everyday products as laptops, touch screens, hairdryers, power drills, game controllers and medical devices. Several videos detailing these uses are here: https://bit.ly/4p8O4vs
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The report is available to the public post-embargo at www.weee-forum.org
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FutuRaM consortium
The report 2050 Critical Raw Materials Outlook for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment was prepared by the FutuRaM consortium for International E-Waste Day 2025. FutuRaM (Future Availability of Secondary Raw Materials) is an EU-funded Horizon Europe project that develops the knowledge base for secondary raw materials across multiple waste streams.
International e-Waste Day (#ewasteday)
Last year, over 160 organisations from 47 countries supported the 7th International E-Waste Day observance. This year, the WEEE Forum invited all organisations involved in effective and responsible e-waste management to plan awareness-raising activities for 14 October. These range from social media, TV and radio campaigns to city or school e-waste collections or even artistic performances.
The WEEE Forum is a Brussels-based non-for-profit association representing 50 sector-mandated producer responsibility organisations (PROs) worldwide. Through its members’ collective knowledge of the technical, business and operational aspects of collection, logistics, de-pollution, processing, preparing for reuse, and reporting of e-waste, the WEEE Forum is at the forefront of making extended producer responsibility an effective waste management policy. Its mission is to be the world’s foremost e-waste competence centre, excelling in the implementation of the circularity principle.
Member PROs are based in Europe, Africa, and the Americas: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Czechia, Cyprus, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Georgia, France, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Netherlands, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Since their founding, the WEEE Forum’s producer responsibility organisations have collected, de-polluted and recycled or sent for preparation for re-use 45 million tonnes of WEEE. More than 3.6 million tonnes of this was collected in 2024.
EU27+4 in 2022, compliant treatment recovered approximately 400,000 tonnes of critical raw materials, including 162,000 tonnes of copper. If used as household electrical wiring, that much copper could wrap around the Earth 400 times.
Credit
Magdalena Charytanowicz, WEEE Forum
Small but high-value amounts of palladium, neodymium, dysprosium, tantalum, gallium, and other rare earths used in such everyday products as laptops, touch screens, hairdryers, power drills, game controllers and medical devices. Several videos detailing these uses are here: https://bit.ly/4p8O4vs
Credit
WEEE Forum
Netherlands invokes rare emergency law to take charge of Chinese chipmaker
The Dutch government has taken temporary control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia under emergency legislation, citing risks to national and European security and marking one of the most forceful state interventions in Europe’s tech sector to date.
The Dutch government has taken control of Chinese-owned semiconductor manufacturer Nexperia, based in the Netherlands, deploying a rarely used emergency statute to head off what it called risks to Dutch and European economic security stemming from “serious governance shortcomings.”
"The decision aims to prevent a situation in which the goods produced by Nexperia (finished and semi-finished products) would become unavailable in an emergency," Dutch officials said in a statement.
The company’s headquarters are located in Nijmegen, with additional subsidiaries in various countries around the world.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs said late Sunday it had invoked the Goods Availability Act (Wet beschikbaarheid goederen), enabling the state to block or reverse corporate decisions at the firm while allowing day-to-day production to continue.
Officials said the step — described as “highly exceptional” — was intended to ensure continuity of supplies from Nexperia in a crisis and to safeguard critical know-how on European soil.
The company, a major supplier of power and signal chips used in autos and consumer electronics, is owned by China’s Wingtech through its Yucheng Holding vehicle.
Financial markets reacted swiftly. Wingtech shares fell roughly 10% in Shanghai trading on Monday after the intervention was announced.
The company said its control rights at Nexperia had been “temporarily restricted,” but that it retained the economic benefits of ownership, and signalled it would pursue legal avenues.
The Dutch authorities did not publish detailed allegations, but cited acute governance concerns and the risk that essential technology and capabilities could be lost to Europe.
While the ministry emphasised manufacturing could proceed, the measures give the state sweeping powers over strategic decisions, including the right to override internal decisions, for a defined period.
The move underscores a broader European shift toward using national security tools to control ownership and decision making in sensitive tech supply chains.
The action is the latest flashpoint in Western efforts to shield semiconductor ecosystems amid intensifying US–EU export controls and investment screening targeting China. In 2022, the UK ordered Nexperia to divest the Newport Wafer Fab over security concerns, and in 2024, the US expanded export restrictions affecting Wingtech and affiliates.
Nexperia, spun out of Philips and acquired by Wingtech in 2018, is a key European supplier of legacy chips that are indispensable for vehicles and industrial equipment.
The Goods Availability Act, on which the Netherlands has now relied, is a seldom-invoked law allowing the state to secure access to critical goods and production in emergencies or when vital capabilities are at risk.
Sunday’s statement marks one of its most prominent applications in a high-tech sector.
The government said affected parties can challenge the measures in court. For now, the intervention places Nexperia under tight Dutch oversight while officials assess whether permanent remedies are needed.
