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.

Mazda CEO Yamanouchi bows to an EV imperative.

Mazda Motor is shifting direction to make its own hybrid and battery-electric vehicles, according to a report today in Automotive News (requires subscription). The move, if confirmed, would mark a rapid retreat from the "trend-bucking" EV skepticism that has long been a staple of Mazda's message.

Mazda R & D chief Seita affirmed late last month that Mazda would achieve mandated fuel economy savings by improving engines and transmissions, and by redesigning vehicles to reduce their weight. The Detroit News quoted president and CEO Takashi Yamanouchi echoing that sentiment at last week's New York International Auto Show, promising release of a brand-new engine next year.

However, Seita had also admitted that Mazda lacked the cash to finance development of its own EV power trains. And this weekend's Automotive News report directly contrasts the old strategy, quoting Yamanouchi as saying that hybrids and battery-powered electric vehicles developed in house will contribute to its plan in order to "boost the average fuel economy of its cars globally 30 percent by 2015."

Mazda's conclusion that it must find the financial capacity to develop EVs is in keeping with recent statements by the new Obama-approved CEO at General Motors, Fritz Henderson. Henderson is pushing forward with heavy spending on advanced technology even as GM desperately seeks to stave off bankruptcy. Radical increases in fuel efficiency are needed to deliver what consumers will soon demand, explains Henderson in a recent interview with Automotive News: "We actually think oil prices are going to go up. That's what our entire plan is based on. So we're going to make the bets."

Gaining a stake in advanced technology means accepting the losses that GM will suffer on early generations of its Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid, says Henderson:

You don't get to skip Gen-1, you've got to do Gen-1 and 2 to get to Gen-3. And what we want to do is make sure we launch the car well, that we get the maximum learning from it, that it's successful in the market, so that when we get to Gen-2, we've got the most cost out that we can. And when we get to Gen-3, get the most cost-out we can, and that's how I look at it.

In other words, the sooner such companies bite the bullet, the sooner they'll be in a position to compete with Toyota, which is just months away from sales of its third-generation Prius.

Mazda's Tribute SUV uses Ford technology

Mazda R&D chief Seita Kanai confirmed last week that his company has no plans to commercialize its own hybrid technology, according to a report last week in Automobile Magazine. The Japanese automaker markets a hybrid version of its Tribute, a small SUV, which Automobile Magazine describes as a Ford-engineered system closely resembling the Ford Escape Hybrid. Kanai says that Mazda will instead achieve mandated fuel economy savings by improving engines and transmissions, and by redesigning vehicles to reduce their weight.

But Kanai also admitted that Mazda simply couldn't afford to field a hybrid. And he acknowledged that the resulting technology gap represented a worrisome problem for the company with many buyers enamored of hybrids. Here's how Kanai put it, according to Automotive News:

"We're in real trouble," Kanai said of the rapidly falling hybrid prices. "It's a threat. We don't have the resources to get involved in that kind of competition."

The company could be even further behind if one is to believe plans by automakers such as Nissan and Ford to aggressively push into fully battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs). Nissan is considering selling its first battery EV in the U.S starting next year--two years faster than it had previously planned, according to another report today from Automotive News.

Quoting Mark Perry, Nissan's U.S.-based product planning and strategy director, the report says that the rollout of Nissan's EV will track the rollout of charging infrastructure, city-by-city. Presumably a thumbs up from the Department of Energy on Nissan's request for loans to build an EV battery plant in Tennessee could also affect the automaker's appetite for taking a bet on EVs in the U.S.