The Post & Email by Duggan Flanakin 5/29/2021
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD TO BUILDING A FREE-WORLD RARE-EARTHS SUPPLY CHAIN Prompted by a worldwide chip shortage already impacting automobile production, President Biden in February signed an executive order directing a 100-day broad review of supply chains for critical materials for semiconductors and large-capacity batteries, including rare-earth elements. It builds on analyses, reports and executive orders initiated several years ago by the Trump Administration.
The stark truth that this review should highlight is that the U.S. and its Western allies have been left behind at the starting gate in a race only China seems to have realized was taking place.
The Chinese began building their now-dominant supply chain decades ago. The U.S. has been 100% net import reliant on rare-earth elements, with 80 percent of those imports sourced from China.
Technology metals consultant Jack Lipton has described five steps in a total rare-earth supply chain. Mining comes first, followed by extraction of the rare-earths from mining concentrates and preparation of clean, pre-PLS (pregnant leach solution) mixed rare-earths products. (Actually, there is another step that precedes mining, at least in Western countries – gaining permission to mine – and it is often the most difficult and most time-consuming step of all.)
Mining companies typically perform these two steps, and sometimes the third – separation of mixed rare earths into individual oxides and blends. Specialized smaller companies typically handle step 4, manufacturing chemical products (such as phosphors and catalysts) and individual metals and alloys, as well as step 5, manufacturing rare-earth permanent magnets from rare-earth alloys.
China today controls roughly 80% of the world’s rare-earth production capacity, 43 percent of exports, and nearly 90 percent of refining. No other nation today has a functional complete rare-earth supply chain. This means the U.S. and its Western allies have a lot of catching up to do; Western nations have also failed to develop and carry out strategic minerals strategies.
More:
https://www.thepostemail.com/2021/05/29/a-viable-alternative-to-chinese-minerals-hegemony/
