US mineral companies to tech industry: drill, baby, drill
By Sean Hollister 
posted March 10th 2010 9:44AM
posted March 10th 2010 9:44AM
Even if your favorite gadget isn't flaunting them, rare earth metals are vital to all sorts of high-tech gizmos, from your flat-panel TV and computer hard drive to the hefty batteries that power the Toyota Prius. But over 95% of the world's rare earth comes from China; and late last year, China told the world that they'd like to keep the lion's share all to themselves. What will we Westerners do? Well, we could let China continue producing mountains of e-waste on our behalf. But we could also find plenty of rare earth just by digging in our own backyard. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the United States has over 13 million metric tons of rare earth with concentrated deposits in Mountain Pass, California and Diamond Creek, Idaho. But since the private firms that control those deposits aren't willing to spend the requisite eight years and minimum $500 million to construct a chemical separation plant, Idaho-based U.S. Rare Earths is just sitting on their ore for now, while California's Molycorp Minerals is forced to send their material all the way to China (once again) for processing. "No one wants to be first to jump into the market because of the cost of building a separation plant," former USGS rare earth specialist Jim Hedrick told LiveScience. Should China's export dwindle and the U.S. feel the pinch, that may change, but for now it's good to know that when the global game of StarCraft tells us "not enough minerals," we'll know exactly where to look.
I don't know what the hell that is in the picture, but it freaks me out.
@macmann : steak, yum.
@macmann
Its Europium
@macmann Unobtainium
@macmann
http://chemistry.about.com/od/periodictableelements/ig/Element-Photo-Gallery.--98/Europium.htm
Its Steak-opium!
@One Love
now i'm full AND high! Yay, Steak-Opium!
@macmann
It is quite obviously the spice melange.
@macmann Godzilla steak, with skin on!
That picture looks like something out of District 9.
Clearly we must construct additional pylons
@SeanG If this doesn't become the highest ranked comment I will be dissapoint
@SeanG You require more vespene gas
@Elderscribe, should have said "You require more minerals".
@SeanG Yell "Food for thought" and you won't ever need food again!!!!
Looks like a fossilized, well-done Delmonico.
Yes, we'll stop drilling for oil (which has little to no environmental impact) and we'll start increased drilling for rare earth metals for big car batteries (which essentially are toxic dumps when mined).
@kjb434 Go hug a tree dude
@Xtole Maybe you should huge a tree also as its allowing you to breathe on a daily basis.
@southern78
Don't go off topic.
But...trees do produce up to 30% of the worlds methane and he was only making a sarcastic comment. No need to attack him with a more serious comment.
This is a tech website. Not a place to argue about something as meaningless to us geeks as "being green".
@southern78
Dr. Reducto REFUSES to huge a tree. Only tiny.
@Hondizer I didn't attack him but stated a fact though I could have worded it differently. As for going off topic the very topic of the article lends itself to that debate. I do realize it is a tech sight but the article is discussing drilling for minerals not so much tech per say.
I don't know who this Sean Hollister guy is, but he sure writes nice, well-flowing articles!
(Maybe he is a robot?!?)
@N8
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/10/robosoft-kompai-takes-care-of-your-elderly-so-you-dont-have-to/
maybe?
Titanium isn't a rare earth element. And rare earth doesn't mean they're scarce or hard to find.
Great, mine more materials that are rare and not abundant, why not develop technologies that use non-rare materials, like silicon, carbon, etc.
@slimdan22
try making a super strength magnet out of silicon, carbon instead of neodymium.
The term "rare earth" is a bit of a misnomer. They get the from the rare earth minerals (which contain very high concentrations of one or more of these elements) that they were first isolated from. In truth most rare earth elements are fairly abundant in the Earth's crust. Particularly Cerium and Lanthanum, which are actually more common than Cobalt, Lead, Silver, Tin, or Gold.
is that a dead fish in there?
They just need to research the advanced scanner and probes. Makes stripping planets of rare minerials a lot quicker and easier.
I hear its all about the experimental MULE these days
And as we all know, China's environment - especially surrounding their manufacturing factories - is a model of pristine air and water.
Since you make it sound so easy please show them how. I'm sure they will be all ears.
Justed used The Google with: "rare earth metal" & looked at the images tab. Came up with this...
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/08/defense-geeks-fret-over-rare-earth-metal-supplies/
Hmm, now who do we invest in... ? ...
If you Americans have kids, buy each of them a wheelbarrow. The Chinese will use their rare earth stash to make stuff for advanced batteries and maglev trains. Here in America, we'll have environmentally-conscious, green transportation too. Those wheelbarrows pulled backwards are great trainers for future rickshaw drivers.
@Ed T
Or...
We could be sitting on our raw material assets letting China (who is manufacturing the crap made from rare earth elements anyways) use up their natural resources, pollute their land, overdevelop their cities, while the US sits back from a learned lesson of hyper industrialization in the 20th century and takes a more sustainable, and more profitable approach. The US lets the other countries gouge their eyes out producing natural resources and when they are sapped dry, the US will be sitting on very profitable ground.
Actually, for all you tech lovers like me, this is a very real issue.
Put simply, if you read engadget, you love gadgets, and all your gadgets use rare earth minerals! Simple as that.
So unless you are all cool with living in caves, and rubbing sticks together to keep warm, rare earth minerals and their need are here to stay.
They can be mined in and processed in environmentally friendly ways, most likely not in China, but elsewhere. The hard part is our domestic mines are doing their part to be as environmentally friendly as possible, that holds them back from being as agressive as the Chinese. But they are making some serious gains on that front too!
The fact that China currently mines more than 90% of the worlds rare earth minerals (like 97% to be more exact), makes them the middle east of this resource. We need to think now about investing in our domestic resources, again so we are not so vulnerable as we are with oil.
This has been getting the press oil does, but it should!
Keep the starcraft references coming guys, I am loving it, "fire it up!".
Now if they would just release Starcraft 2, there would be peace in the Koreas!
@savytech
not trying to be American and all *I am* , but according to your analogy we should just do the same as we did with the Middle East.
@savytech Better yet if it cannot be grown it must be mined...
Semiconductors need rare earth minerals.
Plastics come from the Petroleum industry.
What tech devices in use today do not use either semiconductors or plastic in some form or another? None.
@savytech Better yet if it cannot be grown it must be mined...
Semiconductors need rare earth minerals.
Plastics come from the Petroleum industry.
What tech devices in use today do not use either semiconductors or plastic in some form or another? None.
@AlaskanHandyman Oh how I hate engadgets commenting system when combined with a slow internet connection...
@AlaskanHandyman
Exactly my point, almost all consumer electronics along with military, science, medical, you name it, uses some form of rare earth minerals.
I also saw a post on recycling consumer electronics for this stuff in the thread here, and that indeed needs to be done!
by the end of this year, Chinese exports will be practically nill to the rest of the world, so we also need to invest locally...yesterday!
The more global ecnomically we get, the more we need to invest locally to be viable and competitive in a global economy, or watch everyone zoom past us because they have done just that!
Hm, reminds me of: “Urban mining,” Europe’s fancy name for this process of making money out of garbage using sophisticated machinery, is a booming business in this wealthy nation with very little natural resources.
Yeah this is very much a real issue. I just came back from an SME 2010 conference in Arizona last week and Molycorp Minerals are doing a fascinating job in extracting rare earth minerals at Mountain Pass. The deposits there are extremely large; I'd say enough to mine for several decades if their recovery process is excellent. Rare Earths are the soul for gadgets these days. Neodymium is a rare earth that are used in replacement to standard ferric magnets in speakers. The reason why we now have "ear bud" headphones and a company like Bose to produce small cube speakers that blast in large living rooms.
If anyone has the $500 million to build a separation plant located between the two, there's money to be made.
The core samples that have come back from the proposed Pebble mine here in Alaska are certainly rich in rare earth mineral content. Unfortunately there is the requisite anti progress ecological conservation movement against the mine being constructed. The funniest part of the anti pebble mine movement is that it was started by rich hunting lodge owners who built their fancy hunting lodges in a know mining district, and then are doing everything they can to prevent a mine from going in...
I can imagine the day when you see kids digging stuff in their backyard then going to the local processing plant to get an extra buck.
I just found this company "Strategic Rare Earth Metal Inc." Located in Florida. Their stock symbol is OTC:SREH -- Right now it's a "Penny Stock." But do you think any/every small company that is outfitted for rare earth mining will start to BOOM. A new "gold rush" for the information age?
Colour me confused, but shouldn't the title be turned around? :
US tech industry to mineral companies: drill, baby, drill