Quote: Despite their name, rare-earth elements are – with the exception of the radioactive promethium – relatively plentiful in Earth's crust
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium: Although neodymium is classed as a rare earth, it is a fairly common element, no rarer than cobalt, nickel, or copper, and is widely distributed in the Earth's crust.
Good practices and recycling could be very important with regard to costs and environment protection.
There is always progress if progress is financed.
Example: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/11/european-ecoswing-buil...
Quote: A conventional wind generator making 1MW of power will have about one tonne of neodymium in its magnets. The superconductor uses about 1 kilogram of the rare earth gadolinium. It costs just $18.70/kg (£14.50/kg) of gadolinium oxide versus $45.50/kg of neodymium oxide.
I doubt that the rare earth is an important cost factor for such a turbine.
http://www.windustry.org/how_much_do_wind_turbines_cost
Quote: The costs for a utility scale wind turbine range from about $1.3 million to $2.2 million per MW of nameplate capacity installed. Most of the commercial-scale turbines installed today are 2 MW in size and cost roughly $3-$4 million installed.