The importance of the rare earths is no secret in the industrialized world, however. One year ago, when China announced it would limit exports, the commodity price of all the rare earths almost instantly shot up. In just six months the price of samarium oxide quadrupled, to more than $50 a pound in May of this year, owing to its property as a permanent supermagnet when alloyed with cobalt. Samarium’s ability to stay strongly magnetic in extreme temperatures makes it a favorite of the military for use in precision-guided weapons. In April, China took steps to keep prices high by extending a national ban on rare-earth exploration and the opening of new mines.
For all the dire headlines, the latest rare-earth frenzy may be little more than a bubble. Not so long ago, China aggressively pursued cheaper means of isolating rare earths, benefiting from the absence of costly environmental regulations, which is how the country acquired its current near-monopoly. But its dominance could well be temporary. “Because of its cheap prices, the competitors closed down,” says Pekka Pyykkö. “In the present situation, new capacity will undoubtedly be restarted.”
Mountain Pass, California, is one of the places where American rare earths may rise again. Here, Molycorp used to meet much of the world’s demand for these elements. The company shuttered its operations in 2002, but earlier this year it reopened its mine. Another American company, U.S. Rare Earths, owns mineral rights to lanthanide resources in Montana and Idaho; according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, these are in “early exploratory stages of development.” Mines in these areas may take up to 15 years to bring online, the report states, “largely due to the time it takes to comply with multiple state and federal regulations.”
A visit to other parts of the periodic table could also turn up substitutes for some of the lanthanides. In January, Toyota—spooked by rising prices and supply concerns—announced that it is developing a new type of propulsion, called an induction motor, for future electric and hybrid vehicles. The technology notably does not rely on rare-earth elements.
For now, though, the world is hooked on the lanthanides, and China is the only place that has the processing capacity up and running. As for Ytterby, that mine at least is unlikely to reopen. It is now a historic landmark, located just off the intersection of Terbium and Mine roads. A small sign commemorates it on the quayside, noting the site’s prodigious contribution to chemistry.
Life on Lanthanides: Toyota Prius
Toyota has sold 2 million Priuses globally since the car’s introduction in 1997, including a million in the United States. Unfortunately, while the world’s most popular hybrid sips gasoline, it devours rare earths. The Prius gets its juice from a battery pack that contains about 20 pounds of lanthanum, which shuttles electrons between the battery’s positive and negative terminals. Powerful magnets in the Prius’s electric motors incorporate neodymium, whose cost shot up 150 percent in the first third of 2011. The price of lanthanum has increased sevenfold, to $60 a pound, over the past year, and in 2010 China briefly suspended rare-earth shipments to Japan in a diplomatic dispute. Toyota is working with the electric car company Tesla Motors to install rare-earth-free motors in future vehicles.
Life on Lanthanides: Baseball Bats
Are you the weakest player on your company softball team? One perfectly legal way to boost your performance is to use a metal bat infused with the rare-earth element scandium. When mixed with aluminum, the silvery-white element shrinks and refines the grains of the metal, making an alloy that is highly resistant to cracking. “Just a little bit lets you build a stronger bat without sacrificing resilience and durability,” says Dewey Chauvin, director of bat engineering at Easton Sports. “You can add more features to the bat, like a longer barrel and hence a larger sweet spot, without incurring weight.” But scandium production is so low that the element—which is also used in bicycle frames and lacrosse sticks—can cost hundreds of dollars a pound, limiting its use to top-of-the-line bats priced at $150 or more.
Life on Lanthanides: Smart Phones
The era of ever-shrinking consumer electronics would be virtually impossible without rare earths. Neodymium is one of the most important elements here because of its powerful magnetic properties. In modern cell phones, neodymium is a key ingredient in the wafer-thin permanent magnet that converts electric signals to sound waves in speakers and headsets. It is also used in the small motors that vibrate when you turn your ringer off. Other rare earths are crucial for the vivid displays in smart phones, televisions, and laptops. Europium and terbium emit red and green light, respectively, and their market value rose more than 75 percent in the first four months of 2011. Expect demand to sharpen as color touch screens
become more common with the spread of tablets and e-readers.
Life on Lanthanides: Wind Turbines
Carbon-free electricity gets a big boost from rare earths. Behind the rotors of a wind turbine, wire coils move through a magnetic field to generate current. To maximize efficiency, manufacturers like General Electric often use high-intensity magnets that incorporate rare-earth elements. Some turbines contain 700 pounds of neodymium. “Without rare earths, you’d have to use larger, heavier magnets, and you’d have to build a stronger, more expensive tower to support them,” says materials scientist Alex King of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory. Last year GE received a $2 million federal grant to develop magnets with only one-fifth the rare-earth content of today’s offerings.