REEs are used as components in high technology devices, including smart phones, digital cameras, computer hard disks, fluorescent and light-emitting-diode (LED) lights, flat screen televisions, computer monitors, and electronic displays. Large quantities of some REEs are used in clean energy and defense technologies.
The rare earths are 17 metallic elements, located in the middle of the periodic table (atomic numbers 21, 39, and 57–71). These metals have unusual fluorescent, conductive, and magnetic properties—which make them very useful when alloyed, or mixed, in small quantities with more common metals such as iron.
1. China. Unsurprisingly, China has the highest reserves of rare earth minerals at 44 million MT. The country was also the world's leading rare earths producer in 2022 by a long shot, putting out 210,000 MT.
Uses of Rare Earth Elements
Rare earth metals and alloys that contain them are used in many devices that people use every day such as computer memory, DVDs, rechargeable batteries, cell phones, catalytic converters, magnets, fluorescent lighting and much more.
Australia has abundant reserves of critical minerals such as lithium, silicon and rare earths, which are key components of low-emissions technologies such as batteries, solar panels and electric vehicles which will help Australia and the world to lower emissions.
The Lynas Mt Weld mine in Western Australia is acknowledged as one of the world's premier rare earths deposits.
Lynas Rare Earths (ASX: LYC)
Lynas is by far the largest Rare Earths company in Australia and is also the only globally significant producer outside of China. With a focus on integrated delivery, the ASX company's Mount Weld project is one of the highest-grade REE resources in the world.
The majority of rare earth minerals are mined in China because that country has the majority of mining facilities in operation.
Mining wastewater from rare earth production can acidify the surrounding soil and groundwater. Mining solid waste can produce radioactive materials and heavy metal contamination10,11,12. Currently, mining is the most important activity destroying the ecological environment and causing pollution and disasters.
The term rare earth elements (or critical minerals) refers to a list of about 15 elements that are necessary inputs for many newer technologies like cell phones, rechargeable batteries, electric vehicles, and solar panels.
China's dominance of the rare-earths market is a relatively new phenomenon. For the latter half of the 20th century, Mountain Pass was the world's main supplier of rare earth metals. But during the globalization of the 1980s and 90s, China drastically ramped up its mining efforts.
Hence, Lithium is not a rare earth mineral.
China has even started to import crucial heavy rare earths from Myanmar, a supply source that has been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and civil conflict. When China announced the creation of a new state-owned enterprise China Rare Earth Group in January 2022, it caused tremors.
Rare earths are mined by digging vast open pits in the ground, which can contaminate the environment and disrupt ecosystems. When poorly regulated, mining can produce wastewater ponds filled with acids, heavy metals and radioactive material that might leak into groundwater.
Gold, silver, platinum and the platinum group metals (ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, and iridium). As you see, not one of the rare earths also appears on the list of precious metals… nor is one of the precious metals listed among the rare earths.
As the ninth-most abundant element in the Earth's crust, titanium is relatively rare. Research shows the strong and lightweight metal only accounts for roughly 0.63% of the Earth's crust.
The reserves of some rare earth minerals used in electronics, medical equipment and renewable energy could run out in less than 100 years. Rare earth minerals are naturally occurring resources, which cannot be recreated or replaced. Some are present in only very small quantities in the Earth's crust.
In a report published in April, Adamas said that the lack of new primary and secondary supply sources for rare earth oxides in the market from 2022 onwards, coupled with the inability of existing producers to increase their output, will create a major neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) oxide shortage by 2035.
Most worrying is that rare earth ores are often laced with radioactive thorium and uranium, which result in especially detrimental health effects. Overall, for every ton of rare earth, 2,000 tons of toxic waste are produced.
Astatine is a chemical element with the symbol At and atomic number 85. It is the rarest naturally occurring element in the Earth's crust, occurring only as the decay product of various heavier elements.
“About 85% to 90% of the rare-earth minerals go to China [for final processing]. There is a small facility in Estonia — that's the only other really small player that is counter to Chinese dominance. “There is more coming online in Malaysia and Australia, and more here in the US.
China has over time acquired global domination of rare earths, even at one point, it produced 90% of the rare earths the world needs. Today, however, it has come down to 60% and the remaining is produced by other countries, including the Quad (Australia, India, Japan and United States).
Australian rare earths production is based on Western Australian production of concentrates from Mount Weld and from trial mining and processing at Browns Range.
It's often helpful to take a look at earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) margins, as well as revenue growth, to get another take on the quality of the company's growth. The good news is that Lynas Rare Earths is growing revenues, and EBIT margins improved by 25.1 percentage points to 57%, over the last year.