Where Next-Generation Rare Earth Metals May Come From

retroworks writes "Great piece in The Atlantic by Kyle Wiens of IFIXIT.org, who visited and photographed the Molycorp Mountain Pass rare earth facility in California's Mojave Desert. The mine is the only source of rare earths in North America, one of the only alternatives to the mineral cartels in China, and one of the only sources for the key metals such as tantalum needed in cell phones. There is of course actually one other source of rare earth metals in the USA — recycled cell phones. Is the best 'state of the art' mining as good as the worst state of the art recycling? If the U.S. Department of Energy subsidizes the mine, will China open the floodgates and put it out of business? Or will electronics be manufactured with alternative materials before the mine ever becomes fully scaleable?"

Comments

In a not so distant future...

[hcs_$reboot]

...rare Earth metals may come from the Moon. We didn't do that yet, because no one knows how to call them.

Re:In a not so distant future...

[forkfail]

Long before that, they'll come from Afghanistan, in all likelihood:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=afghanistan-holds-enormous-bounty-of-rare-earths

(which may explain a few things...)

Lame article

[Animats]

Superficial article about Mountain Pass. The big problem they have is finding a place to dump the tailings. A rare earth mine needs big settling ponds. The Mountain Pass solution is that they've built a pipeline to Ivanpah Dry Lake on the Nevada border.

The mine tailings are slightly radioactive, because the dirt in the area being mined has some uranium and thorium in it. This isn't a big deal once the water has evaporated and it's solid material again, but the water in the tailings ponds has to be kept from leaching into a water supply.

Re:Lame article

[Anonymous Coward]

All the same, as someone who has recently invented a new form of energy storage that relies upon several ceramics comprised in part of rare Earth elements - and having to deal with foreign vendors for the ceramics - I can definitely say its a challenge. Virtually all rare-earth suppliers are in the Asia/Pacific area - all of them get their rare Earths from China, and China is increasingly locking down the supply (they will of course build whatever you want made out of Rare Earths at an incredibly competitive price, but if you want to buy the raw materials instead of the finished component there is a very tightly controlled channel to go through with strict limits on how much can be exported - IMO this is to get the designs of what is being built so they can control the manufacturing side). In short: all of our latest technology requires rare Earths, all foreseeable technology will require it - rare Earths are practically the new Oil, we should have our mine running ALONG WITH a strong rare Earth recycling program, possibly go further and provoke the Icelandic mines to open up as well as encourage (even buy stock from) companies in Japan readying to mine the massive supply of rare Earths on the Pacific Ocean seabed.

Re:Not the only place

[ColdWetDog]

Hmm. Does anyone know just how well the various resources of the United States have been mapped?

Google comes up with fantastically interesting stuff sometimes. And it's even safe for work!

National Geographic had a good article a year ago

[wbr1]

NGC here has a good article. One of the issues though again is cheaper labor and lax restrictions in China. Processing rare earths is labor intensive and can generate toxic and radioactive by-products which are fare more expensive to deal with in our regulatory system from an environmental and worker safety perspective.