Have you ever heard of terbium? Or europium? Most likely not! They are called rare earths.
In James Cameron’s blockbuster “Avatar,” people journey to the beautiful moon Pandora to mine a silvery-gray mineral called unobtanium. This mineral is incredibly difficult to obtain, but it is highly valued for its unique properties: it is a superconductor and a very strong magnet. We have our own version of unobtanium here on Earth. In fact, there are many of them. They have incredibly sounding names like cerium and promethium, and quite unusual properties.
These minerals are rare earth metals, a group of elements that have become the superheroes of the technological age. Laptops, tablets, flat-screen TVs would be much less compact without these minerals extracted from rare earth ores. Each smartphone, for example, relies on six separate components made from rare earth metals. Without them, your mobile phone would be the size of a brick.
And it’s not just about gadgets. Rare earth metals are a crucial ingredient in strong magnets, which are at the heart of the clean energy revolution: wind turbine generators and electric vehicle motors. Their unusual properties are used in energy-saving lamps, MPT tomographs, fiber optic cables, and laser-guided rockets. In other words, they are the flesh of the flesh of 21st-century technologies.
But there’s a significant problem with these metals. 97% of their production is concentrated in China, and the Chinese have begun to reduce export volumes. This news is unlikely to please us. Governments and technologically advanced industries in Western countries are forced to realize that one country controls the supply of vital metals, and something needs to be done about it.
Metals with a naming error
Rare earth metals consist of 17 chemical elements at the bottom of the periodic table. Contrary to their name, they are not so rare at all. The word “rare” appeared because in the 18th century, when they were first discovered by Lieutenant Carl Axel Arrhenius, a chemist in the Swedish army, they were indeed rarely found. But the Earth’s crust is as abundant in some of them as it is in copper, lead, or zinc. Even the two rarest elements, thulium and lutetium, are found about 200 times more often than gold.
The problem is that these elements are present in extremely low concentrations. In the rocks that usually contain them, they make up only 1-2%. Moreover, they tend to mix with each other, and often with radioactive thorium and uranium as well. As a result, the processes of extraction, separation, and refining are very expensive and environmentally destructive.
The unique properties of rare earth metals are a consequence of how electrons are arranged in each of their atoms. Their outer electron shells (those containing electrons orbiting far from the nucleus) are similar to those of metals like iron and lead. But their inner shells (located closer to the nucleus) include so-called 4f electrons, which interact with the electric field of the nucleus in such a way that rare earth metals acquire their special properties.
According to Rex Harris, a professor of materials science at the University of Birmingham (UK), “It is the presence of these 4f electrons, tightly bound to the nucleus deep within the electron cloud, that gives rare earth metals their unique properties used in so many high-tech products. Therefore, compounds and alloys with rare earth metals have many different useful applications.”
Perhaps the most widely used rare earth metal is neodymium. It is a key component of powerful magnets made from a neodymium-iron-boron alloy (Nd-Fe-B). This metal has enabled the miniaturization of many consumer electronics and electric motors. The magnetic properties of materials are primarily due to the fact that each electron possesses orbital (caused by its motion around the nucleus) and intrinsic (so-called spin) magnetic moments. It is precisely because the 4f electrons orbit close to the nucleus that neodymium exhibits such strong magnetic properties.
“When neodymium is alloyed with iron and boron, the result is an extremely powerful permanent magnet that, despite being less than a micron thick, is strong enough to operate everywhere, from computer hard drives and medical tomographs to electric motors,” notes Professor Harris. It is these properties that have made rare earth metals so indispensable. Global demand for rare earth metals reached 134,000 tons in 2009, while only 129,000 tons were produced, and almost all of this volume was in China. The shortfall is currently being covered by dwindling stockpiles. It is expected that by 2012, global demand for these metals will reach 180,000 tons, as our love for laptops and liquid crystal displays (LCDs) grows stronger, and the shortage of necessary materials becomes even more acute. Considering the rapidly growing domestic demand in China and export restrictions, high-tech industries in the West find themselves in a vulnerable position.
How did this happen? It all comes down to finding the cheapest supplier. “In my opinion, the Chinese acted very cleverly,” says Vitaly Pecharsky, a professor of materials science at Iowa State University (USA). “They squeezed other countries out of the rare earth metal mining business by artificially low prices, which could be maintained due to lax environmental regulations and low wages. Western mining companies couldn’t compete with them, and manufacturers were happy to buy products at low prices, so our mines were closed.”
China’s aggressive policy in the 1990s allowed the country to take control of this market. As then-President of China, Deng Xiaoping, declared in 1992, “The Middle East has oil, China has rare earth metals.” 120,000 tons of rare earths were used in production in 2009. Ten years ago, the mining volume was 40,000 tons.
Rare earth metals are essential for “green” technologies, but their extraction comes at a significant environmental cost.
A range of promising green technologies—from energy-efficient light bulbs to electric vehicles and wind turbine generators—are based on the use of rare earth metals. Unfortunately, their extraction, in turn, inflicts serious damage to the environment, so advocates for clean energy are forced to reconcile with the bitter irony: for our green future, we pay a high environmental price here and now.
The problem lies in the fact that rare earth metals cannot be found individually. Since they are mixed in with mountain rocks, they must be mined and then separated, which involves boiling in tanks full of strong acids. Moreover, such ores almost always contain the radioactive metal thorium. The environmental cost of extraction, which partly explains why the West was so eager to part with this production, is evident when looking at the scarred landscapes around approximately 200 rare earth metal mines dotting China.
Acids flow into streams and rivers, destroying rice fields and fisheries, and contaminating water resources. Often, radioactive materials are left without proper disposal, polluting the land, killing crops, and causing health problems for local populations. What’s worse, many rare earth metal mines in China operate illegally, disregarding regulations that could mitigate the damage. The recent decrease in exports from China is partly explained, at least officially, by attempts to address this problem. New standards have been introduced, and investments in environmental protection have been increased, but much more needs to be done.
As Western countries seek opportunities to utilize reserves in other regions of the world, new rare earth metal mining enterprises are adopting new separation technologies to comply with stricter environmental regulations. For example, the American mining company Molycorp has developed a method that uses only hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide instead of the usual set of various acids. This simplification of the process allowed the company to install a waste recycling plant directly at the mining site, making their California mine a “near zero-discharge operation.”
Rare earth muscle
Only now are we beginning to understand the consequences such a policy can have for other countries. China gradually reduced export quotas for rare earth metals from 2006 to 2009, and then halved exports in the second half of 2010. Further restrictions for the following year were announced in December. Japan, where such electrical giants as Sony and Hitachi are located, faced particularly severe limitations. It became known in October of last year that China had halted the export of rare earth metals to its neighbor after diplomatic tensions between the two countries over territory in the South China Sea.
“China has cut rare earth metal exports for years,” notes Jack Lifton, founder of the independent consulting agency Technology Metals Research and a global expert on the rare earth metal market. “From exporting 75% of all ore produced there, it shifted to supplying only 25%, and it is not obligated to guarantee supplies to anyone but itself. This is economic selfishness, plain and simple. Naturally, the Chinese not only want to export rare earth metals, they want to manufacture components and end products using rare earth elements.
They produce almost everything in this regard, and, along with Japan, they are global leaders in refining and primary processing of rare earth metals, so the Chinese fully control the situation.”
This means that high-tech companies in the West are facing the prospect of a collapse in the rare earth metal market. “Certain rare earth elements, especially terbium and dysprosium, will be in short supply,” predicts David Kennedy, managing director of Less Common Metals, based in Birkenhead, UK, specializing in manufacturing magnets using rare earth elements. “Prices will rise even further,” he says. “And this could slow down the production of some types of products, particularly wind turbines, electric vehicles, and rechargeable batteries. At the same time, they are so important for emerging industries that the clean energy industry will accept the price increase.”
It’s time to act
China’s actions have pushed other countries to seek new sources of metals. For example, Japan is actively searching for new deposits in Canada and Australia. In the U.S. Congress, a bill is being prepared that could revive production in the United States itself, mainly through guaranteed loans to companies engaged in mining and ore processing. The mining company Molycorp is already working on resuming mining in the Mountain Pass area of California, at a quarry closed in 2002. The Lynas Corporation, based in Sydney, has reopened work on lanthanide deposits in Mount Weld, Australia. Similar developments are taking place in Canada, South Africa, and Greenland. Private companies are also taking matters into their own hands. Japanese machine manufacturer Toyota, which requires large amounts of neodymium and lanthanum for its Prius hybrid car, has acquired exclusive access to one of the mines in Vietnam. In Russia, the initiative is in the hands of state-owned companies: the industry monopolist, the Solikamsk Magnesium Plant, which processes loparite ores, is about to be acquired by Rosatom.
Jack Lifton emphasizes that it is vital for us to find new sources of these metals, and as soon as possible. “What will happen when China uses all its rare earth metals for its own economy, to produce things that will help raise the standard of living there? We will be left without the materials needed for each of us to buy a laptop and an MP3 player. This will lead to a decline in the standard of living, so it is extremely important to find alternative sources and a reliable supply system independent of China.”
So the race for these materials has begun. However, diversification of rare earth metal supplies cannot happen in a second. It is known that the reserves of the metals we need in already discovered deposits and the estimated assessment of these reserves in places where geological exploration is still ongoing are large enough to meet global demand in the long term. However, launching new mineral extraction projects may take years. Moreover, there remains the problem of refining and processing rare earth metals. “Deciding to set a quota takes moments, but it may take 10 years to start mining at a new mine and establish a new supply chain,” says Kennedy, whose company was bought by the Canadian mining giant Great Western Metals to ensure metal supplies to the market. “Materials from Lynas and Molycorp will only appear by 2012, but other new mines will not open by that time, and global demand is growing rapidly. That’s where the pressure comes from.”
At the moment, high-tech product manufacturers from around the world are anxiously watching China. “As long as we don’t produce these materials, China calls the tune,” says Lifton. “Until we start producing them ourselves, our technological future is in the hands of the Chinese.”
You may not know about rare earth metals, but they surround you everywhere.
ENERGY-EFFICIENT LAMPS
Fluorescent lamps use europium and terbium, emitting red, green, and blue light in the ultraviolet spectrum, which together produce white light.
HYBRID CARS
Each nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) battery in a Toyota Prius requires 10-15 kg of rare earth lanthanum. Lanthanum’s ability to store hydrogen allows for greater energy storage over time. An extremely strong neodymium-iron-boron magnet is used in the electric motor.
LAPTOPS
Neodymium is used in tiny but powerful magnets in laptop hard drives, which control the heads that write and read information. More precise control allows for thinner tracks and greater data storage. Terbium, along with other rare earth metals, is also used in LCD displays.
SMARTPHONES
In addition to europium and terbium in the LCD display, smartphones use a neodymium magnet for vibration alerts. The ability of the battery to store energy depends on lanthanum, yttrium is needed for the lens of the built-in camera, and samarium for the speaker.
LCD TELEVISIONS
Terbium and europium are literally behind the screen of your LCD TV. When an electric charge activates their electrons, they emit light in the part of the spectrum necessary for the red and green colors you see. They were even needed for the first electronic color TVs. Cerium and yttrium are also used in both types of televisions.
OPTICAL FIBER CABLE
Fibers with erbium additives transmit light pulses encoding data without signal power loss. The optical properties of erbium allow it to serve as a light amplifier, reducing the need for repeaters and lowering the cost of high-speed communication and cable television.
Europium, the most expensive rare earth element, costs $770 per kilogram. Gold costs $42,000 per kilogram.
The estimated value of high-tech production dependent on rare earth metals is $3 trillion, which is 5% of global GDP.