Your smart phone, your computer, your car and the industrial robots that made them depend on a group of elements known as Rare Earths. Now Rare Earths is a bit of a misnomer because they are not really rare at all. What is rare are concentrations that make them economical to mine and process them. One such location is at Mountain Pass, California which used to be the primary source for these elements. Then the Chinese got involved and they flooded the market with “cheap” Rare Earth metals and because of environmental issues Mountain Pass was no longer economical. The Chinese soon realized they had an economic weapon and started restricting the export of Rare Earth metals. Neal Ungerleider takes a look at this at Talking Points Memo (note: payed subscription required).
The 21st century runs on rare earths. This is not an exaggeration; this is a simple fact. Rare earth elements–Scandium, Yttrium, Lanthanum, Cerium, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Promethium, Samarium, Europium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Holmium, Erbium, Thulium, Ytterbium, and Lutetium–were initially used in cathode ray tube televisions to make colors brighter. Useful? Yes. Essential? Less so. But then the rise of the computer era in the 1980s ushered in the dawn of a new era when rare earths became invaluable. Suddenly they were being used to manufacture super-high-powered magnets and the tiny parts that keep smartphones, military weapons and hybrid vehicles running.
This is not just about smart phones but is a national security threat, Moly Corp now owns and operates the Mountain Pass facility and is expanding operations there but the Chinese still have 95% of production.
China is, in part, able to do this because it’s not a democracy. Taking ore deposits and converting them into materials usable in magnets, batteries, and the electronics supply chain in general is a messy, incredibly toxic process. In fact, America’s Mountain Pass facility originally opened in 1952, and closed in 2002 due, in large part, to heavy environmental damage to the area. Nine years later the facility reopened under new owners who spent tens of millions of dollars putting new safeguards in place. While Mountain Pass is small by the standards of industrial mining, it’s the first spearhead in America’s new rare earths race; several other rare earth deposits are awaiting government approval for mining operations. That’s because rare earth deposits aren’t simply found in geographically awkward locales; they are also are typically found in ore that’s full of uranium and thorium–the most radioactive element on the planet.
While Japanese and American engineers are looking for substitutes for the Rare Earth metals this is probably a tipping your hat at windmills Don Quixote effort.