China, the world's only significant seller, is cutting exports of rare earth elements (REE) required for production of critical components used in everything from cell phones to hard drives and Prius batteries to high powered magnets used in modern wind power generators and MRI devices.
The Ministry of Commerce announced Tuesday the first round of 2011 export quotas for rare earths, standing at 14,446 tons, an 11 percent first-round drop on last year.
Because demand for REE is skyrocketing, China intends to keep REE supplies for internal production of high tech goods and high powered magnets needed for their rapidly expanding production of wind power turbines.
American, Japanese and European manufacturers of high powered magnets and a wide array of high tech products will soon run short of REE, causing a production bottleneck.
Demand for neodymium, a REE required for the most powerful magnets used in everything from computer hard drives to wind turbines, is already exceeding supply according to the U.S. Department of Energy.PDF
The laptop I am using could not be built without REE's.
Most people are now familiar with hybrid vehicles, rechargeable batteries, mobile (cell) phones, plasma and LCD screens, laptop computers, disk drives and catalytic converters, but it is not widely known that these products, amongst many others, are dependent on the unique properties of Rare Earth Elements.
Rare Earth Elements make the world’s strongest permanent magnets. These magnets are utilized in electric motors to produce greater power and torque, and owing to the power of the magnets, less material is required such that engines can be considerably smaller and lighter in weight. Electric motors that utilize REEs are a key component of hybrid vehicles, which will become increasingly abundant on roads throughout the world in years to come. The powerful REE magnets also permit the miniaturisation of hard disk drives used in many electrical devices. Neodymium and dysprosium are the REEs with unique magnetic properties.
Many electronic products are powered by rechargeable batteries. One of the most effective rechargeable batteries is the nickel-metal hydride, or NiMH battery that is used in hybrid cars and many other electronic products. A mixed rare earth metal alloy is used as the anode in the NiMH battery, and makes up about 26% of the battery’s weight. Lanthanum is the main REE used in the NiMH battery.
Rare earth elements aren't particularly rare in the earth's crust, but ore grade deposits of REEs are. REEs are widely disseminated through the crust at non-economic levels. Moreover, a number of REE ores are composed of monazite, a mildly radioactive REE thorium phosphate mineral. Radioactive processing wastes generally make these REE deposits problematic to develop.
Rare Earth carbonate mineral bastnäsite from Khyber Pass region, Pakistan
The world's largest productive rare earth deposits are associated with bizarre, unusual magmas called carbonatites. They are the lowest temperature lavas on earth. They are formed by melting a very small fraction of a large volume of low silica rock in a rift zone environment. Alkalai elements, uranium, thorium and rare earth elements are concentrated in a carbon dioxide rich melt. These elements are concentrated in melt because the size of their ions are too large to fit into the crystal structures of common minerals in the earth's mantle and crust.
Bastnäsite is the primary REE ore mineral in carbonatites.
Bastnäsite has cerium, lanthanum and yttrium in its generalized formula but officially the mineral is divided into three minerals based on the predominant rare earth element.[5] There is bastnäsite-(Ce) with a more accurate formula of (Ce, La)CO3F. There is also bastnäsite-(La) with a formula of (La, Ce)CO3F. And finally there is bastnäsite-(Y) with a formula of (Y, Ce)CO3F. There is little difference in the three in terms of physical properties and most bastnäsite is bastnäsite-(Ce). Cerium in most natural bastnäsites usually dominates the others.
U.S. mining of REEs is planned to resume by 2012.
The U.S. produced bastnäsite-(Ce) ore at the Mountain Pass, California mine up to 2002 , before cheap imported Chinese REE's made U.S. production uneconomic.
Until the late 1990s, California's Mountain Pass mine was the world's major supplier of these materials, but a combination of environmental problems and the emergence of less expensive supplies from China pushed mining company Molycorp to halt production; the company let its mining permits expire in 2002. Still, the mine has remained the number two supplier of rare-earths outside of China, processing accumulated ore and selling about 3,000 tons this year. Reserves at Mountain Pass, California are the highest in the world outside of China.
Molycorp claims to have developed environmentally friendly processes and will restart active mining at a rate of 20,000 tons per year in 18 months, with the possibility to scale up to 40,000 tons under current permits. According to the company, 2010 U.S .demand is projected to be 20,000 tons. However, Molycorp will not sell all its product in the United States but will also focus on Japanese and European markets. The company last week announced a $130 million funding deal with Japanese company Sumitomo that promises the financier "substantial quantities of rare-earth products."
However, the planned production at Mountain Pass isn't even close to meeting projected demand for REEs.
But even production on that scale may not be enough to guarantee the supply of metals needed to move to a clean energy economy: lanthanum for batteries for hybrid cars, neodymium for the permanent magnets for wind turbines, especially offshore, europium for energy efficient lighting.
"You would need seven mines the size of Molycorp's just to meet the demand for wind turbines and that would mean no neodymium for motors or any other applications," said Jim Hedrick, who until last year was the rare earth expert at the US Geological Survey.
"Obviously there is a demand for 10 or 20 mines through the world to meet all the different demands for these products."
New potential uses for rare earth elements continue to be discovered.
Solar power may directly produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide for fuel, using Cerium oxide.
Schematic of the solar reactor for the two-step, solar-driven thermochemical production of fuels. It consists of a thermally insulated cavity receiver containing a porous monolithic ceria cylinder. Concentrated solar radiation enters through a windowed aperture and impinges on the ceria inner walls. Reacting gases flow radially across the porous ceria toward the cavity inside, whereas product gases exit the cavity through an axial outlet port at the bottom. (Inset) The scanning electron micrograph of the porous ceria tube after 23 cycles. Blue arrows indicate ceria reduction ; red arrows indicate oxidation.
The researchers are optimistic that they have discovered an efficient way to produce fuel directly from concentrated solar power. However, cerium, a rare earth element is essential to the process. The unique ability of Cerium to repeatedly lose oxygen at high temperatures then regain it at low temperatures is the key to the process.
In the experiments the reactor cycled up to 1,600C then down to 800C over 500 times, without damaging the catalyst. "The trick here is the cerium oxide – it's very refractory, it's a rock," said Haile. "But it still has this incredible ability to release oxygen. It can lose one in eight of its oxygen molecules." Caltech has filed patents on this use of cerium oxide.
Australia is also the home of a large REE ore deposit that will be produced soon.
Mining has started at the Mt. Weld ore body in Australia, which is close to the size of the Mountain pass ore body, but construction of ore processing facilities has not yet been completed.
Ore at Mt. Weld has been stockpiled.
Afghanistan may be another source of REE ore to meet the growing demand.
Afghanistan’s Helmand province, where the U.S. military is fighting the Taliban, has deposits of rare-earth elements including lanthanum and cerium, said Atiq Sediqi, an adviser to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines.
The deposits in Helmand "are similar to Mountain Pass," Sediqi said today in an interview in Washington, referring to the California rare-earth mine that Molycorp Inc. plans to restart by 2012 with U.S. government financial assistance. "The rare-earth content reaches up to 6 percent" in the Afghan deposits, Sediqi said.
Southern Afghanistan, where Helmand is located, may also hold uranium and so-called heavy rare-earth elements such as dysprosium, he said...