Rare Earth Elements

Spending time with my grandparents in southern Missouri as a child in the 1950's, my grandfather often took me in the early morning hours to check his trot line across the Gasconade River.  A trot line is a rope that stretches from one bank to the other, off which fish hooks descend into the water.  The trot line, when baited, sinks into the water so as to be unseen, except for the ends on each bank which are tied to trees.  I was in charge of the linseed cake, which Grandpa used for bait.  "Hand me another linseed cake," he'd say as he worked the boat across the river, lifting the line to take fish caught overnight, then replacing the bait.  It was a simple question posed to my grandfather one morning that made me aware of rare earth elements.

"Grandpa, why are so many of the farms around here vacant," I asked.  "The government is buying up all the land," he said.  Naturally, my next question was, "Why?"  "There's precious metal in these hills and the government wants to control it."  Immediately, I asked him, "Gold?"  "No, something more valuable than gold - uranium.  Now, hand me another linseed cake," he said as he threw a catfish into the bottom of the boat.  I have always remembered that conversation because Grandpa believed uranium had something to do with my future. 

Now, if you can name all of Santa's reindeer really fast, try saying this list: Scandium, Yttrium, Lanthanum, Cerium, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Promethium, Samarium, Europium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Holmium, Erbium, Thulium, Ytterbium and Lutetium.  These are the names of rare earth elements in the periodic table.  (If the names have a Scandinavian flavor, it is because rare earth elements were first discovered in Sweden.) They exist all over the world, but only in a few places are they in deposits large enough to be extracted from the earth; places such as the Bayan Obo deposit in China, Mountain Pass in California, Thor Lake in Canada and as it turns out, the Pea Ridge area in southeast Missouri.

Why should you care about this?  Well, you're carrying around rare earth elements in your pocket.  Your cellphone uses them.  In fact, rare earth elements today are used in medical imaging technology, solar panels, wind energy systems, battery systems, magnetic industrial applications, lasers, computer chips, cellphones, optical fiber communication systems, flat screen televisions, automobiles, scientific research applications, radar systems, aircraft, in guided missile systems, particle accelerators, on the space shuttle, and in a myriad of other modern electronic applications.  Current technology relies on these elements; you can't build the stuff without them.

China produces nearly 100% of all processed rare earth elements in the world.  Yes, that is correct; China has a monopoly on rare earth element production.  Recently, the Chinese have begun using that monopoly as a political weapon.  That's why you should care.

This fall (September, 2010), China banned exports of rare earth oxides to Japan in retaliation for the detainment of a fishing boat captain by the Japanese Coast Guard.  Earlier, The Economist reported that "China...announced the latest in a series of annual export reductions, this time by 40%."  China hinted strongly that future exports of rare earth elements will be allowed - only - to countries that produce their finished products in China.  According to The Economist, "Slashing their exports of rare-earth metals is all about moving Chinese manufacturers up the supply chain, so they can sell valuable finished goods to the world rather than raw materials."  In other words, China wants to control industries that use rare earth elements by forcing the finished products to be made in China.  It is a blatant power grab.       

Well, the entire Western world is in a panic.  Everywhere, the question is being asked:  What if China completely shuts off supplies?  Meetings, conferences, governmental hearings, appeals to the World Trade Organization to intervene; the world is taking action.

The United States is responding, too, but will it be soon enough to avoid a disruption in supplies of rare earth elements?  We have significant reserves of rare earth elements, roughly 10% of the world's supply.  Molycorp Minerals plans to re-open California's Mountain Pass Mine in 2012.  Wing's Enterprises, in St. Louis, is re-developing the Pea Ridge site here in Missouri to mine not only magnetic iron ore, but rare earth elements as well.  However, it takes years to open mines and build a supply chain.  From the complicated extraction techniques used in the mining of rare earth elements and extensive processing of these minerals to their shipment and use in finished products, China is simply the center of the universe when it comes to rare earth elements.

It should have never come to this.  In the 1980's, under President Reagan, trucks simply backed up to American rare earth processing facilities and entire factories were moved intact to China.  As a result, American mines, such as Molycorp's Mountain Pass Mine (which used to be the world's largest producer of rare earth elements), were forced to shut down and an entire generation of mining and processing expertise was lost to China.. 

When our national security is threatened by China, I expect something more than Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's strategy, "The number one legislative agenda for Republicans will be to make sure President Obama is a one term president."  I expect our political leaders to fight China on trade policy and currency valuation.  I expect our leaders to resurrect the rare earth mining industry and close a national security weakness.  We need Republicans willing to engage the Democrats in a serious discussion of issues instead of pandering to the Tea Party Express and powerful business interests.  Is that too much to ask?  Evidently, it is.

And, that is a view from Missouri.