"rare earth metals, essential components in wind turbines."
Wrong. Enercon has been using wound field rotors and no permanent magnets in their direct drive turbines for decades, and they are the most visible turbines in Europe.
http://www.enercon.de/en-en/1337.htm
They also have the largest turbine in production today, E-126, at some 7.5 MW capacity.
So let's not get carried away about the environmental ills of neodymium mining. Permanent magnets are a convenience, not an "essential component." Let's start by providing some education on the topic at Yale360 (and not environmental doublespeak from anti-wind energy talking points). There is also plenty of R&D on alternatives to rare earths in EVs, phones, missiles, and even nuclear power plants. Many ARPA-E projects speak to this. If we don't like rare earths, why don't we just use alternatives?