@Risk

In April, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report on rare earth materials in the supply chain of the Department of Defense. The report, commissioned by Congress, documented that China now dominates the supply of rare earth materials crucial to the nation’s defense, computer and renewable energy sectors.

In fact, the GAO estimates that China now supplies virtually all –or more precisely, a whopping 97 percent –of the world’s rare earth supply, and in the report the agency clearly voices its concerns that China could someday reduce the supply.

“The GAO report is a timely warning that the US needs to ramp up its domestic production of both light and heavy rare earths immediately,” US Rare Earths, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Edward Cowle said at the time.

But, perhaps even “immediately” isn’t soon enough? (more…)

The financial reform bill that President Obama signed into law last month also included new regulations targeting “conflict minerals” sourced from unstable regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and surrounding countries.

The new provisions, tucked inside more than 2,000 pages of legislation, require publicly-traded and electronic companies to submit an annual report outlining what they are doing to ensure the minerals they’re using –tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold, in particular –are “conflict-free.”

Recently, human rights advocates and various NGOs have put the spotlight on the sourcing of these minerals, claiming that militias in the DRC use the income generated by some mines to fund the country’s brutal and long-running civil war. In a statement last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton described the devastating effects of trade in conflict minerals: (more…)

Global supplies of tantalum are running low, and that could cause a steep spike in prices and significant disruptions in supply chains over the remainder of this year, according to an article from earlier this week in the International Business Times.

Tantalum –a rare earth metal that is used in a wide variety of products, ranging from bone implants and camera lenses to iPhones and laptop computers –is in short supply mostly because there aren’t many suppliers. A major tantalum mine located in Australia stopped production in 2008 when the price of most commodities collapsed, and production from other suppliers has not filled the void. (more…)

Rare earth elements are absolutely essential for the manufacture of a variety of today’s innovative technologies, including wind turbines, hybrid-electric batteries, computer hard drives and precision-guided munitions.

But, the United States is totally dependent on foreign sources for these minerals.

As I have posted about before, China currently provides virtually all (up to 97 percent, by some estimates) of the world’s rare earth raw materials and dominates all aspects of rare earth refining, alloying and manufacturing.

(more…)

Granted, most of us don’t realize it, but we’ve all come to depend on a handful of rare earth elements (REEs ) –all of which are vital to a variety of today’s innovative technologies.  For example, lanthanum is a major component of hybrid car batteries. Neodymium is used to manufacture wind turbines. Today’s low-energy light bulbs need terbium. ..

All in all, there are about 20 REEs that are critically important for a wide range of new technologies, and guess where most of these ores are mined? China.

In fact, Chinese mines account for the vast majority (up to 97 percent, by some estimates) of the global supply of REEs.

Sound like a recipe for supply chain trouble to you? It does to me –and even more so now that China may be trying to significantly limit exports of these valuable compounds, as reported over the weekend in The Independent. (more…)