Rare earth elements are among the most critical of mined resources for modern economies.
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Rare earth elements are among the most critical of mined resources for modern economies.
Rare earth elements are among the most critical of mined resources for modern economies.
They’re essential in manufacturing specialized magnets used in a host of technologies from wind turbines and electric vehicles to hard drives, smartphones, television screens, and fibre optics. Most notably, however, rare earth minerals are increasingly vital to the defence industry.
These 17 elements — closely related chemically and usually found all together in mineral deposits — have indeed been growing in geopolitical importance as the United States, Canada and other Western nations recognize their dependence on production from China.
Blast holes are drilled into a mine for rare earth elements in Mountain Pass, Calif. Rare earth elements are used in the production of everthing from wind turbines and electric vehicles, to weapons of modern warfare.
It is the world’s largest producer and processor of rare earths, including the most in-demand elements neodymium and praseodymium used to manufacture very light and powerful magnets for an array of technologies, including the most advanced weapons of modern warfare.
“Defence needs are why there’s so much focus on rare earths today,” says Ben McGregor, analyst at Canadian Mining Report.
He notes the term ‘rare earths’ is somewhat misleading. These elements may not be abundant, but rare earths are not in short supply. Albeit demand is growing quickly. A recent report from exchange-traded fund (ETF) company Global X shows how global supply of these elements shrank from 500 years of current demand use in 2020 to 218 by 2025.
Still, supply is almost double that of lithium, the next most abundant hard commodity by years of supply relative to demand.
Simply, China can easily produce the rare earths the world needs. Yet geopolitics are reshaping the market as Western nations become more concerned about dependence on China, especially for defence.
NATO’s F-35 stealth fighter jets, for example, require seven rare earth elements in their manufacturing.
The reason China has largely cornered this market is not a result of it being naturally endowed with rare earth deposits. Canada, the United States, Australia and other nations have discovered deposits too. Australia already has a producer, Lynas Rare Earths, but that is the only large operation outside of China.
Source: Read the original article on www.winnipegfreepress.com