For the U.S., Starting a Rare Earth Mine Is the Easy Part

Cindy Hurst

Cindy Hurst is an analyst for the United States Army's Foreign Military Studies Office, based in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. She is the author of the report, "China's Rare Earth Elements Industry: What Can the West Learn?" It was written for the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.

Updated November 9, 2010, 7:44 PM

The only rare earth mine in the United States that is anywhere near becoming fully operational is The Mountain Pass mine in California. While we have the capability to mine and process the reserve there, starting a mine in and of itself will not completely solve our problems.

China has tens of thousands of experts working on the development of rare earths; the United States has only a handful.

One of the biggest challenges we face is our lack of technological expertise going forward. From about the 1950s to 1980s, the U.S. broke new ground in innovations with rare earths.

For example, we began to use europium as a phosphor for the red in color televisions. General Motors, simultaneously with Japan’s Hitachi, invented the neodymium-iron-boron magnet for use in their vehicles. The two companies fought over the patent, which ended up being split. The technology was eventually transferred to China and today there are no companies in the U.S. that manufacture these powerful magnets, which are critical to many high-tech applications. We also made significant contribution in utilizing rare earth elements as fluid cracking catalysts in the petroleum refining industry. And numerous energy and military applications were developed.

Molycorp in Mountain Pass Isaac Brekken for The New York Times Molycorp's Mountain Pass mine in California.

China realized the value in its rare earth resources early on. If you look at China’s rare earth industry, you will see that it has undergone a major transformation. China, which once focused on exporting rare earths in their raw forms, has shifted its end goal from production to innovation. In the 1970s, China was just exporting rare earth mineral concentrates. By the 1990s, it began producing magnets, phosphors and polishing powders. Now, it is making finished products like electric motors, batteries, LCDs, mobile phones and so on.

Through all the effort that the Chinese government has put into the industry, China has accrued tens of thousands of experts working on the research and development of rare earth elements. Meanwhile, the numbers of rare earths scientific experts in the United States has diminished and pales in comparison.

If we don't have the experts required to take the rare earth elements to their next levels, that is, going from oxides to metal compounds or creating magnets or other critical compounds, then there is nothing we can do other than to ship them back to China for further processing, which puts us back to square one.

There’s the old adage that two heads are better than one. If that’s the case, then tens of thousands of heads have to be better than the handful that we have in this country.

Topics: China, Technology, rare earths, trade

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