AGI/AIPG SUMMER INTERNS
Rare Earth Elements: A Manufactured Crisis? By Sam Jacobson
Rare earth elements (REEs), a group of 17 elements with special chemical and physical properties, have recent- ly received lots of attention from the national media and Congress. By name, rare earth elements would seem to be an uncommon and precious commodity—a notion that is supported by the role they play in emerging technologies critical to the economy and national security.
However, REEs are not rare.
REEs include a chemical group called the lanthanides plus scandium and ytterbium. Their unique electron configuration endows them with specific, hard-to-replicate physical, electri- cal, and magnetic properties. These properties are leveraged in various modern technologies ranging from jet engine turbine coatings (rhenium) to high capacity batteries (vanadium) to powerful magnets (neodymium).
In 2010, China, the world leader in REE production, set new export quotas reducing the amount of REEs exported by 72 percent, causing the worldwide price of REEs to skyrocket and sending shockwaves throughout the U.S. and around the world. Calls came throughout Congress for domestic REE assessments and stockpiling to prevent serious disruption to sectors of the U.S. economy and national security system. Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced and supported legislation to increase domestic supplies of REE to fix what was portrayed as an imminent threat to the economy.
Despite their name, REEs are relatively common in the Earth’s crust. According to Tao Liang, a geologist at the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources in Beijing, “The total contents of REEs exceed 200 ppm in the average crust. Some REEs are even more common than copper or lead in the crust.”1 Rather, the “rare” in rare earth element refers to its scarcity in pure or concentrated deposits. By their nature, REEs are hard to separate from each other; they do not fractionate evenly into distinct minerals. This physical property provides a challenge in economical REE extraction.
So, was the REE shortage in 2010 a false crisis? If it was a crisis, how is the United States protecting itself? If it was not a crisis, what was the motivation for portraying it as one?
As we have uncovered, rare earth elements are not, in fact, rare. But, in 2010 production was primarily concentrated in one country—a phenomenon created by Chinese willingness to shoulder low labor costs and poor environmental standards while undercutting competitors’ production costs, not due to a concentration of the elements only in China.
At the time of the shortage, no mines in the United States produced REEs; however, that was not always the case. From the 1950s to the 1990s, Molycorp Inc. operated the Mountain
Pass mine in Nevada, extracting minerals with high concentra- tions of cerium and lanthanum. During that time, Mountain Pass led the world in REE production. But, in the 1990s the market was flooded with an abundance of cheap Chinese rare earths, making economic production difficult. Over the past decade, market volatility such as this has allowed Molycorp to only sporadically produce domestic supplies of REEs; when REE prices rebounded in 2010 Molycorp reopened their Mountain Pass Mine, but they had to close again in 2013 and remain closed to this day. The shuttering of Molycorp and its mine, however, does not mean that the United States is as vulnerable to embargos and REE shortages as lawmakers expect. Under the right market conditions, the mine can start production again, and countries around the world are begin- ning to produce their own stockpiles of REEs, breaking the monopoly China once enjoyed.
Over the past few years, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has introduced legislation to help secure America’s supply of critical minerals, including rare earth elements. Most recently, her Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015 would task the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) with devising a system to define criticality and track supply and availability of different critical minerals. The bill would also task the Department of Energy (DOE) with researching alternatives to and recycling methods for REEs.
The USGS has a history of exploring the potential for REE mining in the United States and around the world. In their 2002 report, “Rare Earth Element Mines, Deposits, and Occurrences”2 USGS identified 800 localities around the world with significant REE deposits; some were active mines, others represented undeveloped deposits. Of the 800 localities, 100 were located in the United States in states including Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, and North Carolina. In contrast, only 85 localities were located in China. Similarly, the Department of Energy has conducted research aimed at reducing American dependence on foreign REEs. Their Advanced Research Projects –Energy (ARPA–E)’s Rare Earth Alternatives in Critical Technologies (REACT) program engineers the use of different materials in applications from batteries to motors to magnets. Furthermore, the Ames National Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, also researches alternatives to rare earth ele- ments.
As the supply of REEs continues to diversify and research into alternatives and recycling continues to grow, the risk for high stakes supply disruptions will continue to diminish. With their unique physical properties, REEs will be essential to continued technological advancement. This crisis should show decision makers that although concern over the REE supply chain is warranted, events like this do not spell disaster for the American economy.
You Can Now Pay Your 2016 Dues Online.
1. Liang, Tao, Kexin Li, and Lingqing Wang. “State of Rare Earth Elements in Different Environmental Components in Mining Areas of China.” Environmental Monitoring and Assessment: an International Journal Devoted to Progress in the Use of Monitoring Data in Assessing Environmental Risks to Man and the Environment. 186.3 (2014): 1499-1513. Print.
2. Orris, Greta J., and Grauch, Richard I., 2002, Rare earth element mines, deposits, and occurrences: U.S. Geological Survey, Open-File Report 02-189 [
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2002/of02-189/].
www.aipg.org
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56