Rare Earth Elements
Much talk, press and political pressure has occurred
recently over the rare earth elements (metals). What
are they? Are they really rare? Why all the fuss?
Rare earth elements are seventeen chemical elements (metals) in the periodic table. They are pure elements like copper (Cu), gold (Au), iron (Fe), etc. The names of these rare earth elements/metals are Lanthanum (La), Cerium (Ce), Praseodymium (Pr), Neodymium (Nd), Promethium (Pr), Samarium (Sm), Europium (Eu), Gadolinium (Gd), Terbium (Tb), Dysprosium (Dy), Holmium (Ho), Erbium (Er), Thulium (Tm), Ytterbium (Yb), Lutetium (Lu) as well as Scandium (Sc) and Yttrium (Y).
These elements are not rare, but because of geology they are dispersed and finding aggregated deposits in mineable quantities is difficult. For many reasons, China now produces 97% of the world's mineable supply of rare earth metals. Yes, it could be said they have a monopoly.
I, Dr. Jerner, started doing research into the properties of the Lanthanide series (all but Scanduim (Se) and Yttruim (Y). The project was a secret (although not TOP SECRET) for the United States Navy. The goal was to see if any of the rare earth and/or rare earth beryllide compounds could be used as thermionic
emitters in a nuclear submarine. Quite esoteric at
the time.
Today, if not for rare earths, your cell phone would
be about the size of a shoe box and your lap top
would weight about 20 pounds. There are numerous
other applications from loudspeakers, hard drives
and neodymium magnets that rely on rare earth
metals. The price of some of the rare earth metals
has soared 500-800% just this year.
The monopoly that China now holds will be broken or
at least much alleviated by 2012-2015. New and old
mines will soon be opened and reopened and rare
earths will become more readily available.
Wanting
more information about what is going on in rare
earths read information of the following links.
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