Dysprosium (Dy) is increasingly being adopted in various
clean
energy products around the world, intriguing many nations’
interests in its availability. However, since data are inaccessible,
crucial information about Dy supplies and demands across products
and countries remains incomplete. To fill these knowledge gaps, we
performed a dynamic bottom-up material flow analysis of Dy, taking
the United States (1987–2018) as a case. The results show that
the United States (US) domestic demands experienced a growing trend
(by 45-fold) with fluctuation and several shifts among applications,
primarily owing to technological advancement. A large imbalance (80
times) exists between domestic mineral supplies and market demands,
resulting in significant import dependency, with the net import reliance
of alloys, chemicals, finished products, and concentrates being 97,
44, 40, and 31%, respectively. Dy is mainly imported as finished products
(55.7%) and alloys (43.2%), with concentrates (0.4%) and chemicals
(0.7%) accounting for less than 2%. This import dependency may result
from fragmentation of the US supply chains because of the stricter
environmental regulations on upstream industries and reshoring of
the downstream industries. These findings suggest that rare-earth
mineral production in the US is about to restart, and it is important
for industries to seek international collaboration to boost product
competition.