U.S. Congress Worries about Materials Shortages
Rare earth minerals are key to advanced technology, but almost all come from China.
Kevin Bullis 03/17/2010
- 5 Comments
From wind turbines to cell phones, rare earth minerals play a big role in advanced technology, and they could be key for future clean energy. But congress is worried about the fact that almost all of these materials come from China, and could be subject to tight export controls by that country's government.
The subject was discussed yesterday at a hearing, where experts called on the U.S. government to take steps not only to promote domestic production of these materials, but to fund research to find ways to recycle them, to use less of them, and to do without them altogether.
The work has already started. In one recent example, the new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, recently awarded $4.5 million to develop motors and generators that use magnetics containing low amounts of rare-earth materials. The project is ambitious:
High energy permanent magnets are critical components in the new energy economy due to their widespread use in advanced motors for hybrids and electric vehicles and in advanced wind turbine generators, and the currently dominant Nd-Fe-B magnets use materials that are not domestically available and are subject to critical supply disruptions. If successful, this project will return the U.S. to global leadership in advanced magnetic materials and will facilitate the widespread deployment of low cost hybrid and electric vehicles and wind power using domestically available materials and dramatically decrease U.S. oil imports and greenhouse gas emissions.
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dconner3905
5 Comments
Rare earth is a misnomer
I fully support recycling, and yes having a plan-b is a good idea if all your supplies come from a place that you may engage in a trade war with any day now…
From chemistry of the elements by greenwood and earnshaw 2nd ed p1229 "Apart from the unstable Pm … the lanthanides are actually not rare. Cerium (66 ppm in the earth’s crust) is the 26th most abundant element, being half as abundant as Chlorine and five times more abundant than Pb (lead). Even Tm the rarest after Pm is more abundant than iodine.” P 1330 “Mostly these are found together and in monazite and bastaesite where there are deposits in India, south Africa, Brazil, Australia, Malaysia… and the Sierra Nevada in the USA and China”
Thus, if we’re willing to mine it at home in the US it is ours.
Also, no one should fault China for buying up the mines in Africa and elsewhere. For that country, that policy is preferable economically and strategically speaking relative to say buying the dollar.
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artem
1 Comment
Re: Rare earth is a misnomer
Actually I think they are rare, in the sense that they are not concentrated, and so you'd have to use an enormous supply of energy to separate them from whatever piece of earth's crust you use. That is why mining of traditional metals is done in ore deposits and veins, because the metal is concentrated. There seems to be no quick, easy, or low cost fix to our rare earths conundrum.
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