US Sits On Supply of Rare, Tech-Crucial Minerals

We've recently discussed China's position as the linchpin of the world's supply of rare earths, and their rumblings about restricting exports of of these materials crucial to the manufacture of everything from batteries to wind turbines. Now an anonymous reader sends this MSNBC piece on the status of the US's supply of rare earths. "China supplies most of the rare earth minerals found in technologies such as hybrid cars, wind turbines, computer hard drives, and cell phones, but the US has its own largely untapped reserves that could safeguard future tech innovation. Those reserves include deposits of both 'light' and 'heavy' rare earths... 'There is already a shortage, because there are companies that already can't get enough material,' said Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist who recently retired. 'No one [in the US] wants to be first to jump into the market because of the cost of building a separation plant,' Hedrick explained. ... [S]uch a plant requires thousands of stainless steel tanks holding different chemical solutions to separate out all the individual rare earths. The upfront costs seem daunting. Hedrick estimated that opening just one mine and building a new separation plant might cost anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion and would require a minimum of eight years. [But the CEO of a rare earth supply company said] 'From what I see, security of supply is going to be more important than the prices.'"

Comments

Supply and demand?

[spun]

If these rare earths are so rare and valuable, and only going to become more so, why should the upfront cost matter? The plant should still make a huge profit, unless I am misunderstanding basic economics.

Seems people in America only want to invest in fraudulent get rich quick gambling schemes these days. Actual resource extraction and manufacturing is for the peons.

Re:Supply and demand?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

From TFA: "But Cowle, the CEO of U.S. Rare Earths, seems hopeful that momentum has already begun building for the U.S. government to encourage development of its own rare earth deposits."

Translation: "Dear Congress, give my company lots and lots of taxpayer money for free, or the yellow peril will eat your children, and you wouldn't want that, would you?"

It sounds like he has every intention of making a huge profit, he'd just prefer to have taxpayers build his plant, offer him some nice tax "incentives", maybe waive an inconvenient environmental protection rule or two first...

Re:Supply and demand?

[Walter White]

The minerals will sit there waiting until we are ready. In the mean time, separation technology will improve and (unless other sources are discovered) proce/value will increase. Once shortages occur, prices will skyrocket and producers will argue that we need to fast-track and sidestep environmental concerns in the name of security.

- Profit!

Re:Supply and demand?

[KermodeBear]

Yes, because we can sue, and win, and force payment from, the country of China in our own courts.

That's about as effective as getting a Very Very Sternly Worded Letter from the UN warning you that you should stop murdering lots of people, otherwise you might get a Very Very VERY Sternly Worded Letter in the near future.

Onoes, please, anything but that.

Re:Supply and demand?

[mcgrew]

Most likely the high cost and long wait times resulting from EPA, OSHA and various state agency regulations (not to mention fighting Greenpeace and other hippies) make it more economical to just import the stuff from China rather than try to mine it and build a processing plant here.

If you had been alive before Nixon signed the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water act you wouldn't be so anti-environment. When I grew up in Cahokia, you could not drive through Sauget past the Monsanto plant with your windows down, even in hundred degree heat. It didn't just stink, it burned your lungs. Nowdays it's rare that you even smell anything.

I think my right to breathe should trump Monsanto's privilege of making billions of dollars of profits more than they already do. THIS is why Free Trade is a BAD idea -- how can someone who likes to breathe compete with a country who doesn't give a damn how filthy and poisoned their country is?

As to OSHA, that protects YOU. Did you know that more people die in Chinese mines than all the other mines in the world? Protecting workers from sociopaths who don't value human life in the least is a GOOD thing, unless you're one of the sociopaths who don't care about human life and don't work in a dangerous industry.

EPA regs are a GOOD thing, and only the woefully ignorant think otherwise. It would do you good to read a little history.

Now get off my lawn, yuppie!

Re:Supply and demand?

[Red Flayer]

I mean come on, how can you trust a group that bitches about how unclean coal is and then holds up the building of Solar power with litigation waiting for environmental impact studies of plopping solar arrays in the middle of a desert.

Oh yes. Let's admit we have a problem, and then go ahead and implement a solution without bothering to evaluate that solution.

I hope to God you don't have any sort of responsibility for any systems I use.

And, for what it's worth, do you really think that "greens" are part of a single organized group with a single platform of goals and ideals? Have you ever bothered to consider that "greens" constitute a large number of people with diverse concerns? It's quite possible for some people who are "greens" to think it's OK to damage wild deserts in the name of reducing carbon output -- and there are some "greens" who are more concerned with maintaining a natural environment.

But whatever dude... your tired complaint of a large group of people having members with sometimes conflicting interests is useless for any kind of rational discussion.

Re:Supply and demand?

[Moridineas]

Yes, because I really want to get cancer from drinking water that is polluted by the mine that gathers these elements, or die in a mine collapse because the mine owner is too cheep to provide for safety bunkers.

What year do you think this is, 1900? Mining is not perfectly safe. It never ever will be. In 2008 in the US, 15 people died in coal mine accidents. In 2007 the number was 21. In 2007, China -- the worst in the world -- had 4746 deaths.

In 2007 the US produced 1,147 million short tons of coal. China produced 2,795.

By comparison the only European countries with significant coal production are Germany and Poland. Germany produces about 1/5 of the US, and Poland produces even less (this is true presently and in 2007). Numbers for the European countries are hard to find, but accidents are not. Barely 6 months ago (2009) at least 17 miners died in Poland. Google Ruda Soska if you're unfamiliar with it.

Am I missing anything here? Are the very few remaining European coal mines really that different from the US or Canada?

It is why gas is taxed to high in Europe

Is THAT why gas is taxed so highly in Europe?

It is why coal miners in the US die in a collapse, and the European coal miners spend 3-4 days in an emergency shelter waiting to be dug out.

See/rebut above?

What Problem?

[Sponge Bath]

Buy cheap stuff from abroad while available and cheap. Mine locally if overseas supplies are restricted or prices get too high.

shortage??

[stephanruby]

'There is already a shortage, because there are companies that already can't get enough material,' said Jim Hedrick

May be, it's not just a shortage, but a cost of doing business. The real question is: if those companies were willing to pay ten times the amount for those rare earth minerals, would they be able to get them? Probably, I think. Personally, I think this is just another industry that's trying to get the government to subsidize 90% of its infrastructure costs.

easy as pie...

[ak_hepcat]

See, first we eat all of their pie, cheaply.

Then, when they're all out of ingredients to make cheap pie, we open up our fridge and start making
our own pies.

Then we can eat our pies, and if they want pies then they'll have to pay a lot more for it. Because we've got the only pie in town.

Re:More than a short term supply problem

[maxume]

Landfill: A future mine.

Re:No one's thinking long term anymore

[Eravnrekaree]

The real reason we are not drilling offshore, is that it will not reduce gas prices more than 2 cents and will not make the US energy independant. There have been extensive studies on this and the oil is not just there. The EIA estimated that offshore drilling would reduce US gas prices by 2 cents. The areas offshore entire states contain enough oil to supply the US for only a few months. We could save more energy if people installed some more insulation in their homes and inflated their tires than we would ever get from offshore oil drilling. The idea that we can solve our problems with domestic drilling is a lie told by the public relations of the Oil Industry and Republican puppets.

The second point is it cannot be done safely. That is a fact. Last year there was a massive oil spill off of Australia using the same "Clean safe" technology that the oil companies wanted to use offshore in the US. The fact is, it would take just one spill to destroy miles of beaches and pollute and contaminate the very seafood we eat. A study of the environment around oil rigs found fish around there with vastly higher levels of heavy metals and the seafloor covered with heavy metals and toxic carcinogens including arsenic. Unfortunately there are some who seem to think it is acceptable to pollute our environment with toxic waste that will kill us in order for oil companies to make some more profit.

Here again we see the oil company propoganda at work. In the real world unexpected things happen, pipes break. An oil rig can have a drill shaft miles deep, a leak anywhere in that can pollute and contaminate ground water, cause long running leaks into the ocean which can last for months and destroy hundreds of miles of ocean environment and beaches.

All of this means offshore drilling simply isnt worth the risk. Just one spill and we have ruined the environment, and for nothing at all, it simply will not solve energy problems.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:US mining is politically uneconomical

[j. andrew rogers]

I own a mineral deposit in a central Nevada mining district, though not with any intent to exploit it. I am quite familiar with the regulatory details of mining in the US. It is very different than the caricatures spoon-fed to the public by activist organizations.

Environmental impact studies are fine and necessary. Archaeological impact studies are mostly bullshit; the region is littered from end-to-end with artifacts leftover from the Lake Lahontan civilization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Lahontan), you can find stuff everywhere if you know what to look for. So everyone just pretends that there are no artifacts.

There are two big problems that really make it impossible to profitably mine US deposits. First, there is an environmental lawsuit industry that thrives on delaying the opening of mines until the companies run out of money to deal with them. The lawsuits are mostly bullshit about hypothetical habitats for endangered species and the like; they aren't credible, but that isn't the point and some courts are willing to entertain them indefinitely.

Second, a big problem is that if you pick up a rock, you own it. In the western US mining districts, those rocks are laden with natural concentrations of all sorts of low-value heavy minerals that are magically transformed into "toxic waste" the minute you touch it. This has arguably been the biggest killer of new mining. The obligation to scrub natural mineral formations of elements with no economical value very substantially increases the cost because you end up "mining" metals that have no value. This is particularly problematic for things like rare earth metals -- the mineral complexes are intrinsically "toxic waste" under standard regulatory regimes. It doesn't matter that they are natural, the mining company is obligated to treat nature as a superfund site.

Regulations regarding arsenic in the water have been similarly exploited by environmental activist groups to shut down mining. In many places in the western US, the background levels of arsenic in the groundwater is naturally several times higher than the EPA limits because of the local mineral formations. The way it works now is that if you do mining near those formations, you become responsible for bringing the natural background levels within EPA guidelines -- a fool's errand. So mining companies avoid areas where the local arsenic levels exceed EPA guidelines, lest they become responsible for cleaning up arsenic they didn't produce.

Environmental activists have very cleverly created a regulatory framework that holds mining companies responsible for natural mineral distributions even if the mining companies are in no way responsible. This has effectively outlawed heavy metal mining in the western US because the environment is naturally full of heavy minerals.

Re:US mining is politically uneconomical

[ukemike]

That sounds like a round about way of saying that it would be profitable to mine if you were allowed to leave your tailings, and the waste from the refining processes in big piles on the ground.

Re:Not safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry you seem to still believe this, but it is propaganda that has been debunked repeatedly:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/19/opinion/main4275167.shtml

Yes we've seen how the US handles trade disputes

[future assassin]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/softwood_lumber/