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There’s a modern-day gold rush happening in the attempt to dig green-energy rare earth minerals out of the ground. Some believe Wyoming could be America’s answer to China’s lock on the market. And one of a handful of Wyoming companies in the rush may have hit the mother lode. American Rare Earths Inc. has its sights on thousands of acres of land near Wheatland, Wyoming. The company disclosed in a technical report on Wednesday that it found 64% more rare earth minerals than it had originally envisioned in a March 2023 assessment of the land. The newly disclosed figure of...

After more than a decade of war and nation building, members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan are heading for the exits. Although what ISAF will leave behind is better than what was there in 2001, Afghanistan remains a battered land. However, the resources Afghanistan’s land holds — copper, cobalt, iron, barite, sulfur, lead, silver, zinc, niobium, and 1.4 million metric tons of rare-earth elements (REEs) — may be a silver lining. U.S. agencies estimate Afghanistan’s mineral deposits to be worth upwards of $1 trillion. In fact, a classified Pentagon memo called Afghanistan the “Saudi Arabia of...

A conservative estimate of the cost of a transition to “clean energy” is $1.7 trillion needed for mining of copper, cobalt, lithium and other rare earth and exotic metals and minerals. This transition will supposedly fuel electric vehicles (EVs) being cheaper than gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2027, and electric SUVs cheaper by 2026, according to BloombergNEF. Additionally, the International Energy Agency (IEA) in a new report found renewable installations for energy to electricity “soared to 280 GW globally in 2020, up 45% from 2019,” with “renewables (solar and wind) accounting for 90% of global electric capacity installations in 2021...

Colin Freeman Sat, April 3, 2021, 5:47 AM Picture taken on March 30, 2021 shows a view of Nuuk, Greenland - EMIL HELMS /AFP Picture taken on March 30, 2021 shows a view of Nuuk, Greenland - EMIL HELMS /AFP AS elections go, it sounds rather minor-league: a contest with just 40,000 voters, triggered by a planning row in one of the most remote, inhospitable corners of the planet. On Tuesday, though, diplomats from Washington to Beijing will be watching carefully as Greenland holds snap parliamentary polls. With a total of population of just 56,000, its electorate is smaller than...

The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded $30 million in funding to Australia’s Lynas Corp to build a rare earth processing plant in Texas, as the nation continues to seek to break its reliance on Chinese imports of the critical minerals. The facility will be able to process light rare earth elements (LREE), which are not only widely used in consumer goods such as cellphones and electric car motors, but also critical to the production of next-generation fighter jets and precision-guided missiles. It’s not the first time Lynas, one of the few major non-Chinese rare earth miners, received federal funding...

A simple visit to an obscure factory by Chinese President Xi on Monday is all it took to raise the specter that China could be contemplating cutting off supply of critical materials to the U.S. and potentially crippling large swathes of its industries. Also, fueled by political innuendo in Xi’s recent call for a new “Long March” in reference to a key founding tenet of the Chinese Communist Party, speculators are growing increasingly wary of Chinese export restrictions to the U.S., including rare earth minerals. As the world’s largest producer, the Middle Kingdom has a vice-like grip on rare earths...

There seems to be a similarity between international trade disputes and Texas Hold’em. There is always a certain amount of bluff that is part of the negotiations. The question is, how much is a bluff and how much is not. The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) has just revealed that they are going to use their stake in rare earth minerals production as their show card. Make no mistake -- the communist government is not bluffing. However, one good card does not make a winning hand. To understand the problem, we first must understand where rare earth mineral deposits are...

Rare earth elements are used every day. They are metals that are used in everything from cell phones to cars, televisions, military jet engines and medical devices. However, the tit-for-tat trade Opens a New Window. war between the U.S. and China, Opens a New Window. may present a challenge to the industry which heavily relies on China. The retaliatory tariffs from China on $60 billion worth U.S. goods goes into effect this weekend. Blue Line Corp., a chemical company based in Texas, is the first and only company outside of China that can process small batches of rare earth. They...

On the outskirts of one of China’s most polluted cities, an old farmer stares despairingly out across an immense lake of bubbling toxic waste covered in black dust. He remembers it as fields of wheat and corn. (snip) Vast fortunes are being amassed here in Inner Mongolia; the region has more than 90 per cent of the world’s legal reserves of rare earth metals, and specifically neodymium, the element needed to make the magnets in the most striking of green energy producers, wind turbines.

Flashing some interplanetary gold bling and sipping "space water" might sound far-fetched, but both could soon be reality, thanks to a new US law that legalizes cosmic mining.In a first, President Barack Obama signed legislation at the end of November that allows commercial extraction of minerals and other materials, including water, from asteroids and the moon. That could kick off an extraterrestrial gold rush, backed by a private aeronautics industry that is growing quickly and cutting the price of commercial space flight. The US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 says that any materials American individuals or companies find...

Shares of rare earth mining company Molycorp are down more than 70% in 2014. But the decline of Molycorp began quickly and brutally in 2011. Molycorp went public in July 2010 at $14 per share, right as the price of rare earth minerals started to take off. The price of Molycorp shares quintupled within a year, and peaked at $74 in 2011. But over the last three years, the stock has been on a steady march towards $0. The 2010 surge in rare earth prices prompted ZeroHedge to write: "Ever heard of the oxides of Lanthanum, Cerium, Neodymium, Praseodymium and/or...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) and U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (W. Va.) introduced the “National Rare Earth Cooperative Act of 2014” this week, bipartisan legislation that relieves America’s dependence on China’s rare earth minerals, encourages private sector jobs and innovation, and preserves our the United States’ military technological edge. To read the bill, click this link: http://www.blunt.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/8385bd2e-0063-48eb-85ed-ab19dc713c55/2-7-14%20National%20Rare%20Earth%20Cooperative%20Act%20of%202014.pdf

Oil and natural gas aren’t just fuels. They supply building blocks for pharmaceuticals; plastics in vehicle bodies, athletic helmets and thousands of other products; and complex composites in solar panels and wind turbine blades and nacelles. The USA was importing 65% of its petroleum in 2005, creating serious national security concerns. But thanks to fracking, imports are now 40% and the US exports oil and gas. Today’s vital raw materials foundation also includes exotic minerals like gallium, germanium, rare earth elements and platinum group metals. For the USA, they are “critical” because they are required in thousands of applications; most...

Interesting find - headline... "Japan just found a 'semi-infinite' deposit of rare-earth minerals — and it could be a 'game-changer' in competition with China Jeremy Berke Apr. 13, 2018, 12:26 PM" Story highlights... "Japan started seeking its own rare-earth mineral deposits after China withheld shipments of the substances amid a dispute over islands that both countries claim as their own, Reuters reported in 2014. ... A new finding that could change the global economy... The newly discovered deposit is enough to "supply these metals on a semi-infinite basis to the world," the study's authors wrote in the study. ... The...

Chinese price manipulation has taken its toll on the U.S. economy Rare earth metals are an increasingly integral part of everything from automobiles to television sets.  But the precious metals are tightly controlled by China, with an excess of 95 percent of current suplly coming from Chinese-owned mines and refineries.  The degree of control has allowed China to manipulate prices, cutting back on demand to sell less material for the same amount of profit, any businessperson's dream. I. New Private-Public Partnership Sets Aim on Chinese Mineral Hegemony The problem is that it takes several years or more to bring rare...

Minerals, facing shortage, are key for military hardware, cell phones. Boeing has signed a deal to deploy remote sensing technology to map out U.S. deposits of rare earth elements. The rare earth family of minerals is the real-life version of the precious element "unobtanium" in James Cameron's movie "Avatar." They are used to make everything from military hardware to humble cell phones, but could soon be in short supply as worldwide demand outstrips mining production in China. The aerospace and defense giant announced today that it will confirm rare earth mining claims held by U.S. Rare Earths, Inc. at locations...

When you really need something, it's natural to worry about running out of it. Peak oil has been a global preoccupation since the 1970s, and the warnings get louder with each passing year. Environmentalists emphasize the importance of placing limits on consumption of fossil fuels, but haven't been successful in encouraging people to consume less energy—even with the force of law at their backs. But maybe they're going about it all wrong, looking for solutions in the wrong places. Economists Lucas Bretschger and Sjak Smulders argue that the decisive question isn't to focus directly on preserving the resources we already...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods. That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells. Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tonnes annually in several years unless...

Supplies of speciality metals like lithium, neodymium and indium could become restricted unless recycling rates improve. That's the message from the first two of six reports prepared to assess metal supply sustainability for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). 'Scientists should anticipate the possibility that they may not have the whole periodic table to work with in future,' says Thomas Graedel, who led the Global Metal Flows Working Group that compiled the studies.  The report series won't deliver overall supply and demand projections until nearer to the 2012 Rio Earth Summit. Nevertheless Graedel, who is also director of Yale University's Center for Industrial Ecology...

China is threatening to take the trade war to the next stage: cut off rare earth metal supplies to US technology and defense industries. That’s according to a couple of Globaltimes editorials.” US faces squeeze on rare earths,” says one editorial. “US need for rare earths an ace on Beijing’s hand,” goes another. “Without a reliable domestic supply, the US must rely on rare earths from China to supply industries of strategic importance,” acknowledges Hu Weijia, author of the second editorial. “Rare earths are vital to many modern technologies and a wide array of weapon systems used by the US...