Watching: rare earth minerals

22Nov10

Rare earth elements are considered critical metals for high-tech industries.  They are:

La	lanthanum		Tb	terbium
Ce	cerium		Dy	dysprosium
Pr	praseodymium		Ho	holmium
Nd	neodymium		Er	erbium
Pm	promethium		Tm	thulium
Sm	samarium		Yb	ytterbium
Eu	europium		Lu	lutetium
Gd	gadolinium		Y	yttrium

(source)

Rare earth elements (RRE for short), although being quite common, are difficult to find in profitable concentrations and are known to be used in electronics: everything from mobiles phones to hybrid cars, thanks to their critical role in permanent magnets and catalytic conversion. However, they have a lot more industrial uses, from eyeglasses to superconductors.

Indeed,

Permanent magnet technology has been revolutionized by alloys containing Nd, Sm, Gd, Dy, or Pr. Small, lightweight, high-strength REE magnets have allowed miniaturization of numerous electrical and electronic components used in appliances, audio and video equipment, computers, automobiles, communications systems, and military gear. Many recent technological innovations already taken for granted (for example, miniaturized multi-gigabyte portable disk drives and DVD drives) would not be possible without REE magnets.

Environmental applications of REE have increased markedly over the past three decades. This trend will undoubtedly continue, given growing concerns about global warming and energy efficiency. Several REE are essential constituents of both petroleum fluid cracking catalysts and automotive pollution-control catalytic converters. Use of REE magnets reduces the weight of automobiles. Widespread adoption of new energy-efficient fluorescent lamps (using Y, La, Ce, Eu, Gd, and Tb) for institutional lighting could potentially achieve reductions in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to removing one-third of the automobiles currently on the road. Large-scale application of magnetic-refrigeration technology (described below) also could significantly reduce energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. (Source)

RREs are notoriously difficult and dirty (as in: toxic chemicals used in refinement) to mine, which is why demanding regulation has more or less determined the fate of commercial exploration of the minerals in the USA and a corresponding dependence on China’s exports for the entire world (now at 95% of the global supply).

The geopolitics of these coveted minerals have recently been complicated by China’s cap on RRE exports for 2011. In September the supply was cut off and raised alarms on the Western hemisphere, with somewhat panicked appeals to trade agreements regarding the strategic resource.

The limitation is already having effects on Japan after a ban on oxide exports (one of the forms of RREs) in a recent trade agreement.

The global cap, even in its more recent and tame version, roughly translates into a 30% export cut, freeing those materials to fuel further growth of the domestic production of high-tech, high-demand finished products. China is currently the top producer of RREs and poised to become world leader in the corresponding technologies, thanks to two full decades of technology and knowledge transfer from the West.

In a nutshell, these prized commodities are one of the big issues to watch in technology. Their use in critical technologies – present and future – determines not only their price, but also the development of new products. Therefore, their availability is of the utmost importance, even as the drive for cleaner technologies places steadily increasing pressure on the industry (regulation- and policy-wise) and on prospecting for potential new sources of raw materials.

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Tags: China, exports, geopolitics, Japan, rare earth, technology, USA