around with you right now it's in your cellphone your headphones and you might

be driving several pounds of it around in your car neodymium is one of 17

chemically similar elements called rare earth elements and demand for this metal

is on the rise neodymium is responsible for most if not all of the growth in

rare earth demand at the moment neodymium comes from the ground it's a

rare earth metal and none of them are actually rare they're just hard to get

out of the ground Merritt's are quite distinct among

themselves within that family but one of the characteristics that they do all

share are these fantastic magnetic and conductive properties for an iphone to

vibrate for air pods to play music for wind turbines to generate power and for

a Toyota Prius or Tesla Model 3 motor to spin they need magnets powerful magnets

if you combine neodymium with iron and boron you can make a

neodymium-iron-boron magnet which is the most powerful type of permanent magnet

ever created in the case of your cell phone and earbuds using neodymium

magnets means they can be physically tiny but still strong for motors using

permanent magnets means having powerful efficient motors that use fewer

electromagnetic components magnets might seem trivial and most useful for

sticking things on your fridge but the neodymium-iron-boron magnets was

actually worth eleven point three billion dollars in 2017 in a couple

decades who were forecast to have over a million electric vehicles on the road in

the US and that's gonna cause demand of neodymium as a surge demand is currently

outstripping supply on the order of two or three thousand tons per year today

that supply comes from China which produces more than 80% of the world's

neodymium in 2017 alone China mines 105 thousand metric tons of rare earths

while the US has only produced about 43 thousand metric tons combined in the

last twenty years but it wasn't always this way

the United States used to be the most important single produce

same country for errors from a single mine called the Mountain Pass mine in

Southern California near the border with Nevada in the 1960s and 70s this mine

was the dominant rare earth mine in the world around the time that was happening

China was investing a deeply in its own rare earth metal mining and production

and succeeded so from the late 90s to 2010 China became the dominant player

and they control a majority of market the risks involved in relying so

significantly on a single source for such a valuable commodity were

illustrated during a trade dispute in 2010 in 2010 the price per metric ton

was right around $50,000 and then in 2011 the price per metric ton jumped up

to 250,000 dollars while the price has since come back down concerns remain

earlier this year rare earths narrowly avoided being included on a new list of

u.s. tariffs on Chinese goods originally in the two hundred billion dollar

proposed tranche of Chinese Tarot's neodymium and other rare earth metals

were on that list interestingly the final list of 6,000 Chinese products

that were targeted a neodymium and the rare earth metals were exempted and I

think that's interesting it shows how important rare earth metals are to the

US economy shows were concerned about it and I think it shows to the Chinese that

were vulnerable they're more evidence of these elements importance is that the US

is going to start producing rare earths again the mountain pass mine in

California was recently bought out of bankruptcy by two US investment firms

called MP materials the company says it wants to rebuild a rare earth industry

in America and well right now MP material still has to ship material to

China for further refinement sources close to the company say that it plans

to be fully self-sufficient in the US within 18 months historically though

extracting and processing these materials has not been without

consequence if you want to open a neodymium mine you're going to bring up

a whole bunch of other elements sometimes thorium sometimes uranium and

what this does is it creates alongside your mining operation

a radioactive waste management problem it's very difficult to open a mine in a

particular place without destroying the landscape and livelihoods that were

previously there but clinger is optimistic that as demand rises better

processes will be implemented one of the things that is good about the projected

increase in demand for neodymium is that we will likely see a diversification of

neodymium supply and my hope is with that we will also see increased

international cooperation around recycling and reclaiming neodymium from

spent electronic motors when we succumb to these doomsday scenarios that China's

could quote unquote hold the rest of the world hostage with its for supply what

we're actually doing is we're failing to take responsibility for our own

production needs and we're also further distracting from the very real potential

to clean up the entire supply chain here at home and in collaboration of

international partners

you

you