Those of us with a technical background and a sense of humor know key elements well.
Specifically, Expensium, Vaporium and Unobtainium. Two of which are impossible to get, and one that simply requires wheelbarrows full of cash. But joking aside, I asked a number of my smartest friends to name one “rare-earth” element and its use.
Not even my wife could come up with a single one.
So, let’s define the playing field. Rare earths are the 15 lanthanides on the Periodic Table plus scandium and yttrium. Rare-earth elements are critical to the manufacture of components in hundreds of high technology products that you simply can’t live without. You have likely heard of Neodymium, the rare-earth in neodymium-iron-boron magnets that are used in about everything magnetic, from children’s toys to the window motor on your car.
Little tiny magnets. Colossal amounts of magnetic force, and their uses are numerous, and are across a wide range of applications, especially high-tech consumer products.
They are small, powerful, and cost effective when compared to the previous technologies.
Rare-earths are essential to the manufacture of products including cellular telephones, computer hard drives, electric and hybrid vehicles, and flatscreen monitors and televisions.
There are significant defense applications, and rare-earths are required for lasers and radar and sonar systems. The amount of rare earths in a given product often represents a small fraction of the total weight, cost, or volume of the product, but without them so many different technologies would not be possible.
Rare-earth elements are technically relatively plentiful in the Earth’s crust (with some being more abundant than copper or lead). Obtaining rare earths at usable purity requires processing enormous amounts of raw ore at great expense with huge amounts of energy. Hence the name “rare” earth mineral.
Thus far, we have not shown the political will to generate that level of energy, or move that level of ore in the United States. We have the ore. Significant deposits.
The Chinese decided years ago to move strategically and decisively into rare earth materials and science.
One of the leaders in the commercial and military use of rare earth materials was a company named Magnequench, which was started in the 1980’s by General Motors. In 2004, the company was purchased by the Chinese, they fired thousands of employees, and finally shuttered Magnequench’s last United States facility in Indiana.
The Chinese bought the expertise, nearly all of the intellectual property, and the know-how to manufacture commercial quantities of not only rare earth magnets, but also a host of other materials that have proven commercially pivotal. Rare-earth based magnetostrictive materials may replace the hydraulic braking systems on future automobiles, reducing weight and complexity.
So, a myriad of uses, from a group of elements that are literally more common than lead, but we don’t “have” here.
Well, we do have rare-earth minerals in the United States. We don’t want to mine it. We don’t want to generate the power required to refine it. It’s counter to our virtue signaling regarding the climate hoax. Last time I checked, we have exactly the same atmosphere here as the rest of the world.
NIMBY. Not in my back yard. Do it over there, but not here. Until “over there” is not friendly to us, and then what?
Failing to plan is planning to fail, so we are destroying our industrial might, and placing our nation at risk by refusing to mine and refine something that we have and is clearly strategic for our defense and industry.
Our leadership knows all of this, so negotiations with Ukraine for rare-earth minerals was in many ways a “gimme.” They are doing it now, so let’s trade. Make an arms deal where we are clenching the brown end of the stick a little less icky.
Our economy depends on a steady supply of rare-earth elements. The issue of Chinese control over the mining and refining of these materials has been building up for years. The United States largely ignored domestic resources despite having its own deposits, so China now controls nearly 85 percent of the global rare-earth element refining capacity, and this near-monopoly has become a serious concern for the U.S. national security and technological leadership.
If you thought TikTok was a threat, just imagine what the Chinese could do with this while leading our great nation around by the nose.
Rare-earths materials are not rare. What is rare is the political will to mine for them, and to generate the energy needed to refine them.
