(PHOTO: PEGGY GREB / WIKIMEDIA.ORG)

When in 1787, in a quarry in the village of Ytterby on Resarö, one of the many islands of the Stockholm archipelago, the Swedish chemist and artillery lieutenant Carl Axel Arrhenius discovered a black mineral never seen before, he thought that he was facing a rare substance, to which he gave the name of ytterbite in homage to the place of discovery.

It was not until 1907 that lutetium, the seventeenth and last element of that strange mixture was discovered, precisely more than a hundred years later, a long time dictated by the difficulty of separating individually the elements from the oxides because of their very similar chemical properties rather than their alleged rarity.

Rare earths are not rare in terms of average crust abundance, but rather for the low concentration of their deposits, normally less than 5% by weight, which makes extraction costs so high that they are not economically justified, unless the labor costs are extremely low or are supported by state subsidies.

The use of rare earths extends almost indefinitely in major industries such as aerospace and defense, nuclear power, high temperature superconductors, very broadband fiber optic cables, computers and mobile phones, steel and ceramics.

However, the pervasiveness of the use of rare earth is exemplified by the modern car, one of its major consumers: the dozens of electric motors in a typical car as well as the speakers of its audio system, use neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnets; the electrical sensors employ yttrium stabilized zirconia to measure and control the oxygen content of the fuel; the three-way catalytic converter uses cerium oxides to reduce nitrogen oxides in gaseous nitrogen and to oxidize carbon monoxide and other unburnt hydrocarbons into carbon dioxide and water in the waste products; the phosphors of the optical screens contain yttrium, europium and terbium oxides; the windshield, mirrors, lenses and other glass components are polished using cerium oxides; the rechargeable batteries of hybrid cars are made of nickel-lanthanum metal hydride; and even the gasoline or fuel that feeds the vehicle are refined using cracking catalysts containing lanthanum and cerium.

In 1979, the Chinese government under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping made a commitment to adopt policies that promoted foreign trade and economic investments, and a few years later, precisely in 1985, China began the production of large-scale rare. In the late 1990s, China was supplying over 90% of the world’s rare earth supply.

The undisputed superiority of China in extracting and processing rare earths has led to the closure of many rare-earth quarries in Western countries.

In 2010, China announced to reduce to 40% the shares of rare earths destined for exports, which raised great concerns among nations heavily dependent on specialized technologies, such as Japan, the United States and the member countries of the European Union.

In the three years prior to the announcement of the ban, the Chinese production of rare earth had reached the peak of 97% of world production.

The prices of rare earths went through the roof. The dispute soon became a case to be solved in the headquarters of the World Trade Organization which managed, after five years of vicissitudes, to impose on China the removal of the reduction of rare earth exports.

The world reserves of rare earths are estimated at 120 million tons and, although in different concentrations, deposits are found all over the world, particularly in China (37%), Brazil (18%) and Russia (15%).

With its large natural reserves, it is presumed that China will continue to dominate both the supply and the global demand for rare earths.

In recent years, groups of experts convened by research institutes and government agencies have highlighted how the chemical elements of the lanthanides group are essential for new technologies used to produce clean energy and consumer electronics and for specific military and aerospace applications.

Beyond the applications, they maintained that there is a high risk of disruption of supplies of these materials due to the de facto monopoly of China, although part of World Trade Organization, the international organization set up to oversee trade agreements between member states, as single decisions on prices can bring importing countries such as the United States, the European Union and Japan to their knees.

For the entire twenty-first century many challenges on the availability of rare earths in adequate quantities remain open.

For many of the applications using rare earths, substitute materials are possible, but none of them guarantees the high efficacy of lanthanides.

Monopoly allows Beijing to use rare earths instrumentally in leveraging behavioral changes in countries with which it has political and economic disputes, and in any case in strengthening its negotiating position at any diplomatic table as well as in increasing its military capabilities.

The rare earth crisis is not just a trade dispute, but a central element of the Chinese economic policy for the rise to the status of a planetary power.

References: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2018; Ministry of Science and Technology of the People´s Republic of China, 2018; The Economist, 2010; The Guardian, 2010; U.S. Geological Survey, 2018

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