you may not have heard of neodymium but
you're probably carrying some of it
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
