by Kidela Capital Group
A rare earth element is like air. It only seems to become
important when you are running out.
![]()
title="us-rare-earths-crown"
src="http://www.kidela.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/us-rare-earths-crown.jpg"
alt="Can America Regain the Rare Earth Emelents Crown?" width="252"
height="275">With
href="http://www.kidela.com/kidela/china-ree-policy">China
suddenly cutting back on exports while controlling 95 percent of the
world’s production of
href="http://www.kidela.com/kidela/separating-rare-earth-elements">rare
earth elements,
the United States and other countries suddenly finds themselves
vulnerable. This vulnerability has to do with the stability of the
supply of these strategic commodities. Countries from around the world
have suddenly woken up to the realization that the future of their high
technology industries could be in the hands of one supplier –
href="http://www.kidela.com/kidela/china-ree-export-restrictions">China.
In the USA, this realization comes at a time when the Obama
administration has committed the United States to replacing more than a
million gasoline powered cars with hybrid and electric cars by 2015.
These cars – referred to as “green” vehicles – use A LOT of rare earth
elements in their power trains. Reducing the US’s reliance on foreign
oil is one motivation for moving to green cars. However, given the
current situation, and unless alternative supply sources are found –
soon – it appears that the US might be replacing a dependence on one
commodity (oil) for reliance on a much more difficult to find and more
expensive one (
href="http://www.kidela.com/stans-energy-corp/introduction-to-rare-earth-elements-and-stans-energy-corporation">Rare
Earth Elements – REEs). And these REEs are almost exclusively
href="http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2010/10/29/the_looming_rare_earths_train_wreck_106226.html"
>available from its main trade rival.
Somewhat belatedly the USA has discovered the looming crisis in rare
earth availability and has only recently begun to look at securing
domestic supplies and rebuilding its supply chain.
“If we don’t think this through, we
could be trading a troubling dependence on Middle
Eastern oil for a troubling dependence on Chinese neodymium.”
href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/clean-energy-apos-s-dirty-little-secret/7377/"
>Irving Mintzer, Senior Adviser, Potomac Energy Fund
American rare earth dominance ends only recently
And yet, it didn’t have to be this way. Given
href="http://www.kidela.com/kidela/middle-east-oil-china-rare-earths">China’s
near monopoly in rare earths production
it might come as a surprise to learn that the United States was the
world’s leading producer of rare earths as recently as 1995.
Until 1948, most of the world’s rare earths were mined in India and
Brazil. In the 1950s, South Africa assumed the status of world’s
leading rare earth source, but a single mine in the United States
eventually overtook South Africa’s production output. From the late
1950s, into the mid-1980s the Mountain Pass rare earth mine in
California was the world’s leading producer of REEs.
The deposits at Mountain Pass were discovered in 1950 by two
prospectors who found a radioactive outcrop and assumed they had
located a source of uranium. The prospectors were disappointed to learn
that their claim did not contain uranium but rather flouro-carbonate
bastnaesite. This mineral was completely worthless to them but was very
interesting to the US Geological Survey. The Geological Survey
undertook further surveys and discovered non-radioactive deposit of
bastnaesite. One of the two original prospectors who found the deposit
worked for MolyCorp (MCP) and
he persuaded the company to claim the land
although it didn’t exactly know what to do with its rare earth ore.
MolyCorp spent the next two decades developing a market for the rare
earth elements
href="http://geology.csupomona.edu/drjessey/fieldtrips/mtp/mtnpass.htm"
>found in its mine: Cerium, lanthanum, samarium,
gadolinium, neodymium, praseodymium and europium.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Mountain Pass mine produced more
than 70 percent of the world’s supply of these valuable minerals. At
the peak of its operations, the mine produced 20,000 tonnes of rare
earth oxides a year.
However, during the mid-90’s commodity prices bottomed out and the
mine found it increasingly difficult to compete with cheaper Chinese
imported rare earths. In 1998, after hundreds of thousands of gallons
of water carrying radioactive waste spilled into and around Ivanpah Dry
Lake, the chemical processing at the mine was stopped and the mine shut
its doors. After the California mined closed, China assumed the mantle
of world leader in rare earth extraction.
Whether focusing on
href="http://www.kidela.com/kidela/the-world-needs-rare-earth-elements">REEs
was a deliberate and clever trade strategy or a happy accident, China
now had firm control of the world supply of REEs. And while demand
remained stable and China exported its REEs at low price points, the US
became complacent. Remaining REE stockpiles around the country were
sold off and the US as a whole let the
href="http://www.kidela.com/stans-energy-corp/rare-earth-element-ree-market">REE
market completely get away from them.
Scrambling to catch up
Fast forward to 2010, and we find that the demand for rare earths
has risen considerably given all of the recent discoveries of
additional technological uses for the minerals. Just as REE demand has
started to ramp up, China began to restrict exports. The US, like other
nations, is scrambling to react and get back in the game. However,
ramping up a dormant industry is costly and requires a great deal of
time. Obtaining a mining license and the associated environmental
permits can be described as a regulatory equivalent of a very long
cross country steeple chase.
“When you stop mining in this
country, as investment goes down, expertise
on cutting-edge technologies is exported as well.”
>Carol Raulston, National Mining Association.
Restarting a mine is no easy task. Environmental regulations in 2010
are considerably more stringent than they were back in the 1970s, costs
are multiples of what they were and there is also the challenge to find
the expertise needed to mine and process these elements.
While there may be a number of prospective rare earth element sites
around the world, the challenge mining companies have is that they have
to pay for and put the infrastructure and processes into place
necessary to mine and process them.
Until that time, relying solely on Chinese exports does not seem to
be an option for the US any longer. The supply chain for a number of
commercial and defense related industries has already begun to break
down. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report from April 2010
identified four rare earth element shortages that have already caused
some kind of
>weapon system production delay.
The US government is examining its options. Some of these include:
stockpiling REEs supplies, securing other suppliers from around the
world and allocating and redirecting REE purchases for defense and
national security purposes.
US mining industry lobbies for domestic support
Given its past dominance, it is argued the US has the reserves and
capacity to more than meet its domestic needs. Similar efforts have
been undertaken in Canada and Australia and both countries are in the
early stages of rebuilding the necessary infrastructure.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there are 13 million tons
of extractable rare earths in the United States, 5.4 million in
Australia, and 19 million in Russia and neighboring countries. In 2009,
China had 36 million tons.
The US mining industry is acutely aware of the challenges in
restarting the US rare earth industry including securing large amounts
of investment capital in this rough economic climate. Other challenges
include the need to develop and implement advanced mining techniques,
and the need to meet stringent environmental impact stipulations. There
is also a pressing need for greater domestic research and development
efforts related to
href="http://csis.org/files/publication/101005_DIIG_Current_Issues_no22_Rare_earth_elements.pdf"
>refining techniques.
The process will be a long one and it is has been expected that the
return of the US REE industry to former levels will take a decade or
more.
“I would say conservatively the
earliest that we could open a mine has to be six to seven years.”
href="http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/US-Mining-Companies-Show-New-Interest-in-Rare-Earths--105001229.html"
>Edward Cowle, President and CEO U.S. Rare Earths
Not your grandfather’s rare earth mine
MolyCorp’s rare-earth separation plant at Mountain Pass, resumed
operations in 2007. This year, MolyCorp began using stockpiled rock
that was mined under a previous permit and employed new separation
technologies. The company
href="http://minerals.er.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/rare_earths/mcs-2010-raree.pdf"
>expects to sell 3,000 tons of rare earths in 2011 and
by 2012.
MolyCorp expects to eventually produce 20,000 tons a year, and produce
rare-earth products at half the cost of the Chinese. However, the
company cannot use the processes used in the mine’s heyday: processes
that are both economically and environmentally unsustainable. According
to the company, their new techniques are both more environmentally
sound and save money, techniques such as eliminating the production of
waste saltwater. MolyCorp will use a closed-loop system, converting the
waste back into the acids and bases required for separation and
eliminating the need to buy and transport dangerous chemicals. The
company will also install a natural-gas power co-generation facility on
site to cut energy costs.
“We want to be environmentally
superior, not just compliant.
We want to be sustainable and be here for a long time.”
href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/clean-energy-apos-s-dirty-little-secret/7377/"
>Mark Smith, CEO MolyCorp
MolyCorp is upbeat, but there are still challenges in getting the
mine up and running. Memories of the poor environmental record are long
and environmentalists state that they and the regulators will be
looking long and hard at their start up plans. There is also the key
problem that processing the raw product is a costly time consuming
exercise. MolyCorp claims it spends only about 10 percent of its budget
on actual mining. The big cost is in the process to chemically separate
the rare earths from the minerals that carry them. Rock is milled first
into gravel, then sand, and then must be separated by repetitive mixing
with solvents sometimes tens of thousands of times. Rare earth oxides
are useful in some industries, but items like magnets require pure
metals which requires even more processing and which can produce even
more environmentally hazardous by-products.
To help fund its quest to
href="http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/26655/?p1=MstCom"
>reestablish a rare earth mining industry in the US,
MolyCorp
went public this year and has also appealed to the US
government for loan guarantees, and financial assistance for research
and development.
MolyCorp expects to reach its peak production capacity by producing
20,000 metric tons of cerium, lanthanum, praseodymium, and neodymium.
The mine will also produce small amounts of other critical rare earths
– samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, and erbium. This
production output may be enough to sustain many of the domestic needs
of the U.S. MolyCorp is also planning to
href="http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/rareearth.pdf"
>re-establish domestic supply chains by partnering with
domestic magnet producers.
The US mining industry is poised to ramp up its domestic rare earth
production but the question remains; can the US wait for the 10 to 15
years it will take to bring the rest of the REE industry fully online
in the US? Even with support from US lawmakers, will the broader
industry be able to be internationally competitive? The costs might be
too high for some in this industry. For example, Molycorp has to pay
some $2.4 million a year on environmental monitoring and compliance,
costs. Until monitoring and regulations to curb their negative
environmental impacts take effect in China, Chinese companies do not
have these same cost burdens.
Much is riding on how the US weathers the next couple of years. Get
it wrong and it could prove to be very rough going. Get it right, and
the vast majority of people will never know they almost ran out of
vital commodities that are at the very heart of the technology that
keeps the world humming and their homeland safe. As we type this, there
are many dedicated and talented people who are taking great strides to
rebuild their country’s
href="http://www.kidela.com/stans-energy-corp/video-stans-energy-infrastructure">REE
infrastructure and knowledge base in hopes of once again becoming a
world leader in
href="http://www.kidela.com/stans-energy-corp/rare-earth-element-ree-market">REE
production.
Disclosure: No Positions.
href="http://www.kidela.com/">Kidela Capital Group Inc. is a
diversified research, consulting, communications and investor relations
firm. We are dedicated to assisting early to mid-stage companies
achieve their goals by delivering a range of innovative and effective
value added services.
style="font-weight: bold;">Related articles:
href="http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/2010/09/rareearths1.html">Will
Rare Earths Cripple the Green Economy? Part 1 and
href="http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/2010/09/rareearths1.html">Part
2 (Eamon Keane, September 2010)
href="http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/2009/08/rarer_rare_earths_are_not_going_to_sink_the_wind_power_sector.html">Rarer
Rare Earths Are Not Going To Sink The Wind Power Sector (Charles
Morand, Aug 2009)
Photo: MFN Berlin
