From the Geological Society of America: Critical Minerals Ignite Geopolitical Storm
For Immediate Release 10 October 2011 GSA Release No. 11-66
The clean energy economy of the future hinges on a lot of things, chief among them the availability of the scores of rare earth minerals and other elements used to make everything from photovoltaic panels and cellphone displays to the permanent magnets in cutting edge new wind generators. And right out of the gate trouble is brewing over projected growth in demand for these minerals and the security of their supplies.
Last year, for instance, China restricted the export of neodymium, which is used in wind generators. The move was ostensibly to direct the supplies to toward a massive wind generation project within China. The effect, however, is to create a two-tiered price for neodymium: one inside China and another, higher price, for the rest of the world, explained economics professor Roderick Eggert of the Colorado School of Mines. The result could be that China not only will control the neodymium supply, but the manufacture of neodymium technology as well.
The geopolitical implications of critical minerals have started bringing together scientists, economists and policy makers who are trying to cut a path through the growing thicket of challenges. In that spirit, on Monday, October 10, 2011, Eggert and other professors will be presenting their research alongside high-level representatives from the U.S. Congress and Senate, the Office of the President of the U.S., the U.S. Geological Survey, in a session at the meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis.
Among the basics that need to be grasped to understand the current state of affairs is how rare these minerals and elements really are. Some are plentiful, but only found in rare places or are difficult to extract. Indium, for instance, is a byproduct of zinc mining and extraction. It is not economically viable to extract unless zinc is being sought in the same ore, Eggert explained, Others are just plain scarce, like rhenium and tellurium, which only exist in very small amounts in the Earth’s crust.
There are basically two responses to this sort of situation: use less of these minerals or improve the extraction of them from other ores in other parts of the world. The latter would seem to be where most people are heading.
“China’s efforts to restrict exports of mineral commodities garnered the attention of Congress and highlighted the need for the United States to assess the state of the Nation’s mineral policies and examine opportunities to produce rare earths and other strategic and critical minerals domestically,” reads the session abstract of Kathleen Benedetto of the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, Committee on Natural Resources, U.S. House of Representatives. “Nine bills have been introduced in the House and Senate to address supply disruptions of rare earths and other important mineral commodities.”
Benedetto will be explaining the meaning and status of those bills, and what it will take to get them signed into law.
“Deposits of rare earth elements and other critical minerals occur throughout the Nation,” reads the abstract for another prominent session presenter: Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey. She will be putting the current events in the larger historical perspective of mineral resource management, which has been the USGS’s job for more than 130 years. “The definition of ‘a critical mineral or material’ is extremely time dependent, as advances in materials science yield new products and the adoption of new technologies result in shifts in both supply and demand.”
The President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy has answered the call as well. Cyrus Wadia will be presenting a five-point strategy to begin addressing the matter. The first point is to mitigating long term risks associated with the use of critical materials. The second, diversify supplies of raw materials. Third, to promote a domestic supply chain for areas of strategic importance like clean energy. Fourth, inform decision makers; and fifth, prepare the workforce of the next generation.
In the not-too-distant future ocean floor mining will supply all the minerals necesary. Don’t forget 80% of the planets surface is underwater where the crust is thin and the minerals abundant. There is no problem.
Here is a story by NPR. (audio).
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=133372641&m=133379644
@ur momisugly Richard S Courtney October 10, 2011 at 1:15 am
Your right there is no problem, but you might find this interesting.
I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with a fellow who has been involved in the exploration for REEs for over 40 years. He told me, with the usual caveats, that if China continues to develop at its current pace it may become a net importer of REEs by 2015.
It takes time to develop alternatives. Do you think that might cause a problem?
The planned 15MW GE super turbine design doesn’t use permanent magnets, so no neodynium.
Nanosolar’s thin film panels use very little rare earths.
When Japan was completely cut off from rare earth supplies because of political issues with China, they found cheap ways to recycle the stuff.
At the end of the day, rare earth’s are a non-issue. We buy them from China them because they are cheap. If they get expensive, we’ll learn to recycle and/or use less of them.
The only interesting thing about them is that the mining processes used to get at them in China are very very dirty and dangerous.
First off, demand for rare minerals would be much less if we had free market and not government driving demand. If these energy sources we so great, the free market would be moving into them; and it isn’t. That’s very telling—the free market is very smart and knows a good (or bad) deal when it sees one.
Second, wind and solar suck when used for central energy production. The Sun goes down, the wind dies. You cannot build a reliable energy supply from unreliable energy sources.
Around the world, they are finding wind and solar the least clean or green of all energy sources. The materials, installation, infrastructure, distribution, land footprint, maintenance, and longevity all point to a losing situation. Furthermore, the minute to minute fluctuations in energy production wreak havoc with the grid, threatening to burn it out constantly; it is an inherently unstable system which needs monitoring every second.
However, on a smaller scale, wind and solar are useful. At the end user level, solar or wind can decrease the electricity a house uses and does not cause fluctuations in the grid. The homeowner uses less energy from the grid and pays less per month, although the initial investment is high. It is here that such energy sources can take the load off the grid, leaving more for industry and cities.
End user systems are also much smaller, demand less rare materials, footprint, and maintenance, and have lower wear stresses, and thus longer longevity, than the huge wind turbines.
We actually have plenty of US rare minerals, but they are mostly on reserved lands and mining of these have been specifically discouraged by the government, once again, just like the campaign against drilling for oil, making us dependent on foreign countries, which are usually ones that do not necessarily like the US.
Article mentions windmill generators using neodymium magnets but so do the wheel motors in electric cars. All the alternatives have substantially reduced power to weight ratio. Neodymium isn’t particularly rare. It occurs with the same abundance as copper and nickel ore. The reason the Chinese are able to have a corner on the market is that they’ve been selling it cheaper than anyone else for so long no one else is in the business. There are substantial deposits in the United States but it would take time and money to develop them so in the short term China has an advantage in this product but it’s doubtful they’ll push it too far because they are vulnerable in other areas to trade retaliation.
Well it might be a Chinese mans world but it doesn’t mean nothing without a woman or a girl.
100,000,000 single men in China with no prospect of a relationship with a woman.
I can see how the EU can sort the balance of trade figures.
Turn Europe into a giant knocking shop.Damn we’re half way there already.
Gail Combs says:
October 10, 2011 at 4:55 am
“The problem is the USA turned control of whether or not the USA can mine minerals over to the United Nations. ”
No it did not.
“In 1972, our government signed the United Nations’ World Heritage Treaty, a treaty that creates “World Heritage Sites” and Biosphere Reserves.” Since 1972, 68 percent of all U.S. national parks, monuments and preserves have been designated as World Heritage Sites.”
These are self-nominated sites and to be accepted and retained on the list they must meet stringent requirements regarding their operation and protection against being despoiled. This World Heritage Treaty was created by the United States not foisted upon it and the goal was to increase the number and preservation standards of other places in the world up to what was already in place for U.S. national parks and monuments.
The important point to note is that no nation gives up any sovereign rights to areas designated as World Heritage sites. Participation is voluntary from soup to nuts and may be discontinued at any time.
Richard S Courtney, October 10, 2011 at 1:15 am, says,
Can anybody please tell me what is the problem?
This is a no brainer. The Sun sets and storing energy for the rest of the day (18 hours during the winter) is not possible; it’s much too expensive and batteries have short lives. Suppose you have several days of cloudy weather, a storm, a hurricane? PVs also do not work well above a certain latitude and are temperature sensitive. They also largely need to be kept meticulously clean.
Until we have a cheap and efficient method for storing energy for the rest of the day, solar is still only an ancillary energy source, good mostly for reducing a house’s energy demand when it happens to be working.
Sure, if you live in the boonies of Africa, you would love to have electricity for even part of the day, but it’s back to primitive life when the Sun goes down. There is no way that a country can develop its way out of poverty with such an unreliable and pathetic, fair-weather energy source.
[LET’S HOPE THAT ANDREA ROSSI IS ABOUT TO END ALL THIS NONSENSE.(LOOKS MORE LIKELY EVERY DAY)]
Within 5 years, almost every coal, oil, solar – you name it – power plant will be out of business and replaced with some version of Rossi’s Ecat.
@Dave Brittania
“Well it might be a Chinese mans world but it doesn’t mean nothing without a woman or a girl.
100,000,000 single men in China with no prospect of a relationship with a woman.”
They import females as necessary from other parts of the world. When I was in Taiwan 12 years ago I saw barracks filled with female laborers (laptop computer assembly workers in this case) imported from poverty stricken Pacific islands.
This will again be a great opportunity to see the genius of capitalism. The need for the hard-to-get rare earth mineral will eventually be engineered away. From what I understand, the process has already started.
Afaik, the problem with REEs is not availability. These are fairly abundant minerals, with multiple good mining opportunities.
The problem is that the refining process is very messy, an issue complicated by the presence in much of the minerals of radioactive thorium. Waste disposal was the reason for the shutdown of the major US REE mine that is now to be reopened by Molycorp in 2013 with improved environmental safeguards. China has paid a big price for its current REE preeminence, in terms of permanently ruined land because of lax or non existent waste treatment. That is now more widely understood. For instance, there is an ongoing case in Australia/Malaysia involving construction of a plant in Malaysia to process ore imported from Australia. That plant has attracted vehement local opposition because of the waste issue. ( http://news.malaysia.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5379270 )
So the mine issue is a red herring. A better refining process however would be worth billions.
If there is in fact a limited supply of REE’s right now and demand is driving up prices, then the first thing we need to do is ask ourselves what — if anything — we can do to alleviate that demand. In other words, what technology or technologies are using REE’s that we can do without — at least for now.
The immediate answer that comes to mind with me is green energy technologies — wind and solar. The issues with wind and solar have already been documented, and they include low-density (a weak energy source), limited availability and intermittency, diffuse nature, etc. The limited availability and rising prices of REEs adds to the issues that wind and solar already have, and this should make them a target for dramatically reduced or suspended development.
It all boils down to a matter of priorities.
There are other “rare earths” used in high power magnets, apart from neodymium. They have varying magnetic properties with relation to “curie point” and remnance & etc. Neodymium alloys are a favourite for wind turbines, because of their very high remnance and high curie point.
Other “rare earths” that can be used in high power magnet alloys are Praseodymium, Samarium, Gadolinium, Dysprosium. Some of these are not so rare just widely dispersed, or found in conjuction with more common elemets, such as in certain zinc mines, for instance. If the zinc isn’t now exploited from those mines then the impurities, such as samarium become uneconomic to extract, and thus “rare” on the market, but not in the Earth’s crust.
Still there is a cost, in terms of industrial pollution, caused by extraction processes, in countries where the envonmrntal; regulations are not so strict as in the USA, Canada or Australia, for instance, and sadly large scale, brakeneck speed, mining operations in China have caused large scale industrial toxic lakes of effluent, and noxious gas emissions.
I will comment here within the scope of my own expertise on several fronts: First, I am a mining geologist and I can say that the attention being focussed on this issue is certainly welcome. What remains to be seen is whether the emphasis from the top down can improve the exploration and development perimitting process. It currently takes nearly as long to open a new mine as it does to bring a new drug to market (I exaggerate, but not by much)
Second, I am the President of Pennsylvania’s licensing board for engineers, land surveyors and geologists. We have been pushing for years for Pennsylvania universities to return to fundamentals of the sciences of geology and geological engineering. So far, the universities have not been very interested. They are stuck in the enrollment game. For the past three decades, geology, mining and geotechnical engineering programs have suffered enrollment malaise – some universities have completely dropped geology curricula and no longer offer a major. Some hjave scaled back, and most have scaled down and broadened the dicipline (read as watered down) in order to attract and keep students.
Third, I am a part-time geology professor these past 25 years at several universities and in numerous courses. I also teach continuing education courses to professional geologists. What I find in these venues is that about 97% of prospective and practising geologist have focussed on environmental cleanup to such a degree that the current generation of would-be mentors to the next generation of exploration geologists no longer possess the knowledge and skills needed to train the next generation – AND the students graduating from our universities for the past decade (at least) have not received the education in the core curriculum needed to join the ranks of exploration and operations geologists to answer this presidential call to arms. I know this because I read the resumes of applicants from about ten states who want to be licensed to practice in Pennsylvania.
Finally, and lest you think my view might be parachial, I serve as a subject matter expert on teh Council of Examinaers for the National ASsociation of State Boards of Geology – we make develop, administer, grade and revise the uniform national exams (2X per year) for professional geologis licensure. Therefore I see all the statistics for every test taker this past decade and I have to say that there are few people with the expertise to tackle the critical minerals challenges – my use of the 97% was not an off-the cuff wise crack.
The current population of geologists is wonderfully adept at cleaning up hazardous waste sites but has virtually no experience or expertise in mineral exploration or extraction. At all of my levels of involvement we have recognized this for a long time and have been working to correct it, but you can’t make people study something they perceive as a dead industry, which is how mining was viewed since about 1981.
So, wouldn’t it be nice if some of the economic stimulus money went into scholarship funds for young people to study what they now view as a dead-end. We need new engineers, geologists, water resource experts – if you have children or grandchildren with a technical bent, I would encourage you to shove them toward a career in earth sciences/engineering. I would not have made that recommendation five years ago – the economy of the country would not support them. That, and the environmental protection and cleanup lobby was so powerful that exploration of any kind was successfully branded as wanton and agressive rape and exploration (in the U.S) was essentially at a stand-still. Fopr a little humor on this matter, here is alink to my blog which I keep mostly for my studernts.
http://suspectterrane.blogspot.com/2009/08/my-precious.html
and you might also enjoy
http://suspectterrane.blogspot.com/2009/11/caution-mountebank-at-work.html
and
http://suspectterrane.blogspot.com/2009/08/resourceful.html
Tom
vboring says: October 10, 2011 at 7:47 am
All good points. To which I want to add another.
When you have a government subsidy to build X, does it work to your long term advantage to find ways to build X cheaper? What if “quality” is measured by some DOE bureaucrat checking off out-dated regulations to verify the money is spent as promised? What if only high-tech, highly efficient devices using REE get the subsidy, but less efficient, but more cost effective, devices do not?
“Follow the money.”
Rob says:
In the US, we heavily subsidize technology which has a very short-term impact (like agriculture and fossil fuel extraction), but subsidy of new technology and innovation leading to long-term advantages is scrutinized and harshly treated as a ‘waste’ of tax payer money.
Are you referring to oil subsidies, actually deductions, and farm subsidies and referring to Solyndra as the alternative?
If so I agree on the first two but not the latter. I would support funding of R&D for wind and solar, but not company subsidies which attempt to pick winners and losers in a field not ready for prime time.
Tom–Thanks for the great post. I ended up in oil and gas, but I had economic minerals courses all through undergrad and grad school. Now I look at thesis proposals for a grant I run, and they are heavy in water resources, enviro stuff. To bad, those classes were fun. We got to look at real rocks.
Madman2001 says:
October 10, 2011 at 6:41 am
Rob says:
“In the US, we heavily subsidize technology which has a very short-term impact (like agriculture and fossil fuel extraction), but subsidy of new technology and innovation leading to long-term advantages is scrutinized and harshly treated as a ‘waste’ of tax payer money.”
Any subsidization is a waste of tax payer money. Let private investors spend THEIR money, not mine.
Lets see, if the government allows a company to use its own money for exploration or development, instead of taking that money in taxes, liberals scream we are giving them subsidies as if it was taken from lazy non-working undeserving welfare receiving citizens own pockets. How is it a bad thing to let these companies put their own money into developing resources that leads to jobs and more people working? Does anybody think the same money taken from the mining/oil companies are going to create more jobs and more affordable energy and raw materials to produce goods? Mineral extraction and processing jobs are good paying jobs that form a real foundation for this countries economy. Everything we have was mined or grown and we use minerals we have mined to grow things better and faster. I guess it come down to this: If a thief only steals half of what I have earned, by definition is he subsidizing my life?
TomG(ologist) ,
A few years ago , I encouraged one of my stepsons to look into mining engineering when he was applying to college . My reasoning was that someone needed to do it and that he would find a decent job upon graduation . Sooner or later the people of this country will awaken from their green pipe dream and realize that we REALLY need this stuff , whether it be REEs , coal or whatever , and that we can’t afford to import it . Unfortunately , he didn’t listen .
The USA was the worlds leading extractor of these minerals until about the year 2000, when environmentalist forced the closing of the California mines, not for any particular reason other than it was mining and California has a natural aversion to industry.
PWalker: I know the feeling – none of my three daughters went into my field. However, I have the very positive feeling that I will be able to work until I am 70 if I want to without worry of layoffs because there are so few younger people who are waiting in the wings for old guys like me (only 55 actually) to retire – or be forcibly retired. I don;t know if I want to work til I am 70, but after 30 years of doing this I still find going to work every day a joy and all of my projects are exciting, interesting and unique.
Well! At Last! Now is it clear why we need a Space Shuttle and a Space Mining Program run be the Department of the Exterior? Finally! Finally, someone has thrown a bucket of cold ice water in our faces and we’re beginning to wake up. I never! Inever thought this day would come. Oh, Yes, nearly forgot, we need to get rid of the Nathional Anthroprogenicwarming Space Administration (NASA) too, waste of Chinese money. (SarcAlmostOff)
Wrong, wrong, and wrong! Tellurium is a byproduct of copper mining that has even larger economies of scale than zinc mining as attributed to Dr. Eggert. Somebody dropped the ball when they stated that tellurium was just plain scarce in the succeeding statement… “Others are just plain scarce, like rhenium and tellurium, which only exist in very small amounts in the Earth’s crust.”