Global Rare Earth Elements Transformation

 Global Rare Earth Elements and their Importance  

As global tensions rise, so does the competition for access to these minerals. Recent headlines show the stakes: China has halted rare earth exports to the US, and a deal was just signed to secure US access to Ukraine’s mineral resources. A rare earth metals report by none other than a state-backed research institute is not only likely to unsettle the Chinese authorities, it has also come as a bolt out of the blue for the rest of the world. A report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences released a few days ago said China’s dominance in the rare earths sector could be nearing the end. Rare earth elements are everywhere, in your smartphone screen, in the MRI machine at the hospital, in the battery of an electric vehicle and even in oil and gas refining. They are a key ingredient of modern life. Following are the some of the important points:-

 US is actively seeking alternatives to China's rare earth supply, including exploring domestic deposits and building alliances with other refining networks.

 A Chinese research institute predicts China's share of rare earth materials could significantly decrease by 2035 due to new mines and emerging sources globally.

New discoveries in Africa, Brazil and US, along with challenges to China's dominance, are reshaping the rare earth ecosystem and potentially redistributing market power. 

But the disclosure does not stop there. It also outlines how the opening of new mines in Australia, South Africa and other countries, as well as Greenland’s Kvanefjeld project, may reshape the rare earths ecosystem in the coming years. This also serves to underline why the US is so keen on Greenland. Some experts believe that the changing scenario might favour the US. Despite their name, rare earth elements aren’t actually scarce; what’s rare is finding them in high enough concentrations to mine economically. These deposits are scattered unevenly across the globe and often buried deep underground, shaping who controls their production and the global supply chain. Scientists at Tufts University are trying to better understand how and why rare earth minerals ended up where they did. Their research reveals how the movement of continents over billions of years helped form these valuable deposits. To explain how this mineral drama began, we need to go back in time. Way back. Earth’s surface is always on the move. Over millions of years, massive landmasses shift, collide and break apart, reshaping the planet in the process.

The latest study is a rare admission of a forthcoming fundamental shift. The CAS team used advanced “agent-based” modelling to simulate demand and mining prospects globally between 2025 and 2040. Though this accurately simulated about 1,000 global deposits and over 140 viable mines, it did not factor in political influences. Based on the results, the research team concluded that China’s roughly 62% share of raw material could drop to about 28% as early as 2035. The primary reasoning is the new emerging sources of rare earth metals. Incidentally, the research team is from the CAS Ganjiang Innovation Academy in Ganzhou in eastern China, one of the world’s largest critical metal production centres. “Most of us are familiar with Pangea, the supercontinent that formed about 300 million years ago and that the current seven continents broke off from to form their present-day arrangement,” said Jill VanTongeren, professor and chair of the Department of Earth and Climate Sciences. “But Pangea is only the most recent supercontinent. Throughout Earth history, there have been at least five major supercontinent cycles, periods when continents all come together and then spread back out again into different pieces. We think this process happens roughly every 500 million years.”

China’s dominance of the supply chain for rare earths and other critical metals is near-total. The country sits on about 60% of global reserves and processes about 90% of all rare earth metals. Because of this, Beijing enjoys a near-monopoly in the supply of rare earth materials, which are essential for electric vehicles, electronics and even military equipment. As continents drifted apart, they created rifts, places where the Earth’s tectonic plates pulled away from each other. These rifting zones became birthplaces for rare earth element-rich magmas. “As the rocks are pushed apart, they decompress, causing melting. It’s kind of like taking the lid off a soda bottle, and the bubbles rise to the surface,” said VanTongeren. “Those early magmas contain the highest abundance of rare earth and other incompatible elements that then enter the crust, either erupting in volcanic centres or solidifying at depth.” Some of these mineral-rich magmas cooled and stayed near the surface. Others got dragged back down into the mantle or remain buried too deep to mine with today’s technology.

Today, the number of economically viable rare earth deposits is limited. China dominates the market, with nearly 70% of global production coming from its Bayan Obo mine. The US has a smaller operation at Mountain Pass in California, and a few other countries have scattered deposits. Since China produces about 2/3rd of the world’s total rare earth metals supply, the US has been on the lookout for alternatives. A 2024 report by the US Geological Survey said there were about 110 MT of deposits spread around the world. Of this, about 44 MT are in China, another 22 MT are in Brazil, followed by 21 MT in Vietnam, and 10 MT in Russia. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, China flooded the market with rare earth minerals, driving down prices and shutting down other global producers. That move reshaped global dependence. In response, the US took steps to re-establish a domestic supply. Recent investments from the 2021 Infrastructure and Jobs Act and the Department of Defence aim to restart full operations at the Mountain Pass mine, though it could take up to a decade. There’s also hope that Ukraine’s mineral deposits could help diversify supply. But for now, their potential remains unclear.

Now, it seems that Africa may also become a big player in the rare earth supply chain. Led by South Africa’s Steenkampskraal mine and other projects in Tanzania, experts predict Africa’s share may go up to from about 1% to 7% by 2040. But there is a red flag to consider, as Chinese investments fund many of the African projects, something the US looks at with consternation. “Political boundaries and the desire to obtain access to mineral resources have been the source of economic and military conflicts throughout human history,” said VanTongeren. “This is likely to continue as the world shifts toward green energy and a greater dependence on rare earth elements in the future.” VanTongeren’s work tracks these mineral stories from source to surface. Her fieldwork has taken her from a ship near Antarctica to platinum mines in South Africa, Morocco’s mountains, and even a lithium discovery in Maine. “It’s a fascinating area of study partly because it lies at the intersection of science, economics and politics,” she said. Back on the Tufts campus, this intersection takes a more visual form.

Brazil’s Serra Verde and other projects related to heavy rare earths like dysprosium could meet about 13% of the global supply by 2040. However, there are caveats, such as environmental regulations. The neodymium-rich Mount Weld mine in Australia and the Olympic Dam mines, which produce copper and uranium as by-products, are building US-allied refining networks to bypass China. Tucked into the basement of Lane Hall, the P.T. Barnum Mineral Collection offers a glimpse into the Earth’s treasures. It includes thousands of mineral specimens, some collected by Barnum himself. He was an early supporter of Tufts and a major collector of natural history in the 1800s. “In the late 1800s, it was considered fashionable for many prominent individuals to accumulate their own natural history collections,” noted VanTongeren. “P.T. Barnum was one of the biggest collectors of the time. His collection of animals, plants and minerals was among the first gifts to Tufts University and part of an endowment to establish Tufts as one of the major natural history museums in the country.” After a fire destroyed the Barnum Museum in 1975, the mineral collection moved to Lane Hall. Now, it’s about to move again, this time to Bacon Hall, the new home for the Department of Earth and Climate Sciences. VanTongeren hopes this new home will be more than just a storage site. She wants it to become a space that encourages curiosity and exploration, not just for scientists, but for everyone.

Beijing disclosed earlier that it had found a huge rare earth deposit in the south western province of Yunnan. According to reports quoting China’s Geological Survey, the 1.5 million ton deposit contains medium and heavy rare earths, including over 470,000 tons of elements like praseodymium and neodymium. At the time of the announcement, experts said that the discovery would only further consolidate China’s prominence as the global rare earth leader. But US researchers announced in late 2024 that they had identified a domestic treasure trove of critical minerals in the country’s coal ash deposits. The report also claimed that coal ash, a by-product from burning coal for energy typically written off as industrial waste, could hold about 11 MT of rare earth elements, or about eight times more than known domestic rare earth reserves. This discovery, made by a team from The University of Texas at Austin, reveals a whopping US $8.4 billion worth of rare earths. The report led some experts to opine that harnessing these reserves could dramatically alter the supply chain dynamics for rare earth metals and reduce US dependence on others.