Rare-earth metals

What are rare-earth elements.

[Rare-earth oxides - clockwise from top center: praseodymium, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, samarium, and gadolinium.] 
Rare-earth elements is a group of 17 metallic elements, some with exotic names like lanthanum and europium, which form unusually strong lightweight magnetic materials for use in emerging technology including renewable sources like wind and solar.  Despite their name, most earth metals are not particularly rare, but most of the industry has moved to China over the last two decades because of lower costs. China's dominance in mining and processing the elements has raised alarms in Washington. While rare-earth ore deposits are found around the globe, China holds 37% of known reserves, and the USA 13%. (They are also found in many other countries, especially, Canada and Australia.)  In the late 1980's the US was global leader in production but mines around the world were closed when China undercut world prices in the 1990s. The difficulty today is extracting in profitable quantities. (at right - Rare earth metal lanthanum is poured into molds at the Jinyuan smelting workshop near the town of Damao in China .)  According to an April 2010 Government Accountability Office report, China now produces approximately 97% of the world's rare-earth oxides, the raw materials that can be further refined into metals and blended into alloys that can be made into finished components. 
      

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Recent news:

Feb. 1 2012: Curtailing China’s monopoly. Malaysia on Wednesday granted a license for an Australian mining company to operate the first rare earths plant outside China in years, despite public protests over fears of radioactive contamination. Lynas Corp. says its refinery could meet nearly a third of world demand for rare earths, excluding China. It also may curtail China's stranglehold on the global supply of 17 rare earths essential for making high-tech goods, including flatscreen TVs, mobile phones, hybrid cars and weapons. link

Jan. 27 2012: Shortages occurring and prices soaring. Shortages of a handful of rare minerals could slow the future growth of the burgeoning renewable energy industries, and affect countries' chances of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, business leaders were told at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. Last year, prices of many scarce minerals exploded, rising as much as 10 times over 2010 levels before dropping back. In a survey of some of the largest clean energy manufacturers, 78% said they were already experiencing instability of supply of rare metals, and most said they did not expect shortages to ease for at least five years. Currently, 95% of the rare earth minerals needed by clean tech industries come from China which has set strict export quotas. Last year China reserved most for its own for its domestic wind, solar and battery industries, shifting costs to the US and Europe which do not mine any of the minerals. None of the minerals is likely to physically run out, but it can take 10 years for countries to open new mines.  link  

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             Below:

• Importance in new "green' technology
• Are these elements really "rare"?
• Supply and demand
• China's policy / Japan's response
  
• Situation in the USA
• Environmental questions            

Importance in new "green" technology.

 
Rare-earth metals are used in computer hard drives, digital cameras, cell phones among many other things. They are also key to "green" technology such as energy-efficient light bulbs which use europium and yttrium, while hybrid car batteries and wind-power turbines use neodymium. Lanthanum is also used in the batteries of hybrid cars, and Toyota, for example, uses an estimated 7,500 tons of lanthanum and 1,000 tons of neodymium per year to build its Prius cars. A Nissan Leaf contains 11kg of lanthanum. A major concern for the US military is that these metals also have important military applications because of their magnetic strength, which allows for extraordinary miniaturization of components. The fins that steer precision bombs, for instance, have samarium-cobalt permanent magnet motors. The motors that run the rudder and tail fins on a high-performance fighter aircraft like the Air Force F-22 Raptor are built with lightweight, rare-earth magnets. Neodymium is found in the solid-state lasers used to designate targets.  [Pictured - Laborers work at a rare earth mine at Nancheng county, Jiangxi province, China.]
       

Are these elements really rare?

Not really. The term "rare earth" is an archaic one dating back to the elements' discovery by a Swedish army lieutenant in 1787. Most, but not all, are fairly common, but scattered throughout ores that make them hard and expensive to secure. They have been used in the flints in cigarette lighters and incandescent gas lamps for more than a century, but today mining is almost nonexistent outside of China. Cerium is used in batteries and to cut auto emissions and is more common in the earth's crust than copper. The United States' only major rare-earth mine, a complex in Mountain Pass, California, was once the world's leading producer but was shut down in 2002. "Light" rare earth elements such as cerium, an ingredient used in enamels and glasses, are plentiful, but "heavy" ones such as europium, used for color TVs and other screens, are growing harder to come by.  The limited supply of the minerals in the marketplace is the result of economic and environmental concerns, not scarcity. The world consumes only a tiny amount of rare earth, about 130,000 metric tons a year. The U.S. Magnet Materials Association predicts that China's own demands for some of the minerals will outstrip supply in two to five years.

Are there alternatives to rare earths? Researchers in the US are already working on making rare earths redundant. The University of California at Irvine has already done research indicating pyrite, sometimes called "fool's gold", may be able to replace rare earths in many green applications, though it's future isn't yet proven. link

Supply and demand

According to a new Congressional analysis posted by the Federation of American Scientists, the world is using rare-earth metals up faster than it can produce them. The report doesn't really have much information that couldn't be obtained elsewhere, but it puts it all together in a very readable package. Right now, we're using about 134,000 tons of rare earth metals a year, but mining only 124,000 tons; the difference is made up using ore stocks that have been mined but not yet processed. link

March  2011: China to cap its total output of rare earth oxides at 93,800 tonnes this year, up 5%  from last year. Demand is expected to continue to boom, but new mines and processing facilities take on the order of a decade to come online, so supplies are likely to get very tight in the interim. China's domestic demand is expected to outstrip its production sometime in 2012. link   (Molycorp, an American company which now calls rare-earths "Green Elements", stopped mining in Mountain Pass, California, in 2002, but expects to reopen the mine, pictured above, in 2012.) 
2012 quotas unvchanged from 2011 - link

May 2011: Low recycling rate threatens future supply. The UN has warned that low rates of recycling of rare metals could damage the growth of global clean tech industries, urging nations to improve recycling technologies and collection systems. A report released yesterday by the United Nations Environment Programme found that less than a third of 60 metals studied have an end-of-life recycling rate above 50 per cent, while less than one per cent of 34 rare elements are recycled.  link

March 2011: Costs climbing alarmingly. China's squeeze on rare earths has forced prices up dramatically since July last year, when each tonne fetched a mere $14,405 on average. Last month each tonne of exports was valued at $109,036, including the cost of insurance and freight, almost half as much again as the average value in January. The explosion in export values has coincided with a collapse in volumes coming out of China, the source of almost all the world's rare earth supplies, which has cut export quotas of the 17 rare earth metals and raised tariffs on exports.  link 
June 2011: Prices spike as China builds stockpile. Prices for rare-earth metals, which are used in everything from iPods to flat-screen TVs to missiles, are rising sharply as China builds up a stockpile and cuts quotas, so much so that some industries fear global supplies may be in serious jeopardy. Rare-earth metals are among some of the most sought-after materials in modern manufacturing, and demand is soon set to outstrip supply. link 

Predicted needs for rare-earth metals. January 2011: The world excluding China will require 55,000 to 60,000 tons of rare-earth metals this year, of which as much as 24,000 tons will come from China, according to Mark Smith Molycorp’s Chief Executive Officer. The company, he said, may double its planned production to 40,000 tons in 2012 to help meet global demand. Sydney-based Lynas Corporation is building a A$550 million ($550 million) rare earths project at Mount Weld, Western Australia. link

China's policy / Japan's response

(October 2010) Over the past year, China has imposed global export quotas on the elements. Its Commerce Ministry has said total exports for the year would be capped at just under 30,300 metric tons, down 40% from 2009. Only 7,976 tons of that were allocated for the second half 2010.. Experts say much of that has already been shipped. That has spurred anxiety among government officials and industry executives. Delegations from the U.S., Germany, and Japan have implored Beijing to recognize how critical they consider sustained supply. The US wants more countries to boost production to break China's monopoly on the supplies. The US Congress is considering legislation to provide loan guarantees to re-establish mining and manufacture, but new mines take three to five years to reach full production. (Uranium mines may be able to move faster as they often contain rare earths.) Worldwide demand for rare earth elements is expected to exceed supply by 40,000 tonnes annually. [In the past year China has cut back export levels of rare metals by around 40% compared to 2009, sparking fears that some sectors could face crippling shortages. link]

July 2011: Japan finds rare-earths in Pacific seabed. Japanese researchers say they have discovered vast deposits of rare earth minerals in the seabed in international waters east and west of Hawaii, and east of Tahiti in French Polynesia. Geologists estimate that there are about 100bn tons in 78 locations in the mud of the Pacific Ocean floor. Analysts say the Pacific discovery could challenge China's dominance, if recovering the minerals from the seabed proves commercially viable. The prospect of deep sea mining for precious metals, and the damage that could do to marine ecosystems, is worrying environmentalists. link  However 
developing the offshore bounty could take decades and cost billions, making it little more than a pipe dream, analysts say. link

March  2011: China to cap its total output of rare earth oxides at 93,800 tonnes this year, up 5%  from last year. link
Oct. 21 2010: China says West has unreasonable demands. China's media says the West has only itself to blame for closing its own rare earth mines because of high extraction costs, and relying on China's low-cost supply. link  
Jan. 19 2011: Costs begin to soar. China's exports in December 2010 were valued at $65,257 per ton, much higher than the previous July's figure of $14,405. Those increases resulted from export quota reductions of 40% in 2010; China has cut quotas for the first half of 2011 by 35% from the first half of 2010. link  
Dec. 29 2010: China cut its export quota for first half of 2011 by 35% compared to a year ago saying it wanted to preserve ample reserves. World demand for rare earths is currently about 10,000 tonnes a year, but expected to rise to 250,000 tonnes by 2015. link 

In July 2011, the WTO ruled that China broke international law by curbing exports of rare-earths following a complaint filed by the United States, the European Union, and Mexico in 2009.  An appeal could delay any amendments to duties and quotas by several years and create pressure for a negotiated peace. link  

Japan's response to limited supply. (October 4 2010:) Japan's trade minister, Akihiro Ohata, has asked the government to include a "rare earth strategy" in its supplementary budget.  In Kosaka, Dowa Holdings, a company that mined there for over a century has built a recycling plant which extracts valuable metals and other minerals. Salvaged parts come not only from Japan, but from around the world, including the USA. Dowa Holdings is trying to develop ways to reclaim earth metals. A government affiliated research group says that used electronics in Japan hold an estimated 300,000 tons of rare earths. link  October 2010: Vietnam agrees to help supply Japan as Tokyo tries to reduce its dependence on China.link   February 2011: Japan aims to reduce reliance on China. The Japanese government and private sector plan to invest $1.3 billion in efforts to reduce domestic industry’s dependence on rare-earth metal supplies from China by a third. Japan currently imports 90% of the rare-earth metals it uses from China. Japan, the world’s largest rare-earth importer, is seeking to cut rare-earth use by 10,000 metric tons a year. link

USA

November 2010: According to the first-ever nationwide estimate of rare earth metals by the U.S. Geological Survey, there are approximately 13 million metric tons that exist within known deposits in the U.S.  Although many of these deposits have yet to be proven, at recent domestic consumption rates of about 10,000 metric tons annually, the US deposits have the potential to meet our needs for years to come. link   A report says it could take 15 years to break American dependence on Chinese supplies of these critical manufacturing minerals.  link   March 2011: USA needs to secure new sources.  U.S. firm, Green Technology Solutions, is seeking rare-earths in Mongolia, as well as in the U.S.  link

April  2011: $30m in DOE grants for green technologies free of rare earth elements. The United States will push to produce clean technologies without the crucial metallic elements. The United States consumes about 10,000 metric tons of rare earths annually, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and with rare earths rapidly becoming more expensive due to limited global supply, prices of many have increased 300 to 700% in the past year. link

Environmental questions

Environmental hazards. Rare-earth mining produces radioactive waste where permitting puts the US at a disadvantage to China where less scrupulous monitoring exists. Also all rare earth ores contain uranium and thorium which could pose dangers if not disposed of properly, and require more chemicals to separate than base metals such as copper, zinc and lead.

November 2010: Environmental cost of producing rare earth metals.  "If we take into account the resource and environmental costs, the progress of rare earths industry has come at a massive cost to society," Su Wenqing, a Batou rare earths industry official, wrote in a study published last year. link   In a January update, China's Ministry of  Environmental Protection issued new regulations to protect the environment and rein in mining abuses. link

May 2011: Malaysian activists protest Australian refining plant. Australia’s Lynas Corp, plans to ship rare earth ore mined in Western Australia to the Gebeng plant by September. The plant is expected to meet up to 30% of the world’s demand for rare earths outside China. The main concern is the possibility of contamination from low-level radioactive waste from the rare earth refining process. While the Malaysian government and Lynas have stressed that the facility will have state-of-the-art technology for contamination control, opponents claim crucial questions remain unanswered especially regarding the safe disposal of radioactive waste. Those opposing the Gebeng plant have pointed to the Asian Rare Earth plant built in the 1980s as an example of the refinery being a “disaster in the making.” That facility was blamed for the unusually high number of birth defects and leukaemia cases among the 11,000-strong population living nearby. It ceased operation in 1992 after protests from locals and environmentalists. link

Discovery in Afghanistan: The discovery in early 2010 that Afghanistan had $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits will not significantly alter the immediate US and Canada shortfall, as production could be more than a decade away. Rare earth metals are difficult to extract even in a country with a sophisticated mining infrastructure which does not exist in Afghanistan. link

Sources include: Ecoseed    Reuters   Life'sLittleMysteries   ForeignPolicy   Bloomberg