Molycorp. Minerals, Hitachi Rare Earth Recycling, and Baotou Steel China

Mark A. Smith, CEO of Molycorp Minerals, LLC. and Hiroaki Nakanishi, CEO of Hitachi in Japan, are two important names in the field of rare earths industry. Molycorp Minerals is a rare earth mining company located in Mountain Pass, California. The rare earth metals include lanthanum, neodymium, praseodymium (9,900), and yttrium. Molycorp is one rare earth mining company in the United States, along with a few others. Around the world, there are several countries hoping to further national involvement in rare earth metals.

This is partly due to the fact that China owns 97% of the world’s rare earth mines. China’s main source of rare earth elements comes from Baotou Steel in Inner Mongolia and China Minmetals Corporation in Southern China. As fears rise over China’s ‘monopoly’ on the rare earth industry, even more countries are forming partnership deals and staking out new locations to mine for rare earth elements. China did not rise to the top overnight. In 1986, China began Program 863. Endorsed by Deng Xiaoping, the program attempted to improve China’s global technological and economic status. In 1997, Program 973 was created as a basic research program specifically to develop China’s rare earth industry. This, combined with a lack of unified regulation, has brought China to its current position of becoming the world’s largest exporter of rare earth metals. Unregulated operations in Southern China are estimated to produce roughly half of the world’s heavy rare earths, some of the most valuable rare earth elements in the industry.

Today, companies use many rare earth elements in their products. Hiroaki Nakanishi of Hitachi is one progressive when it comes to rare earth recycling. Hitachi leads in the rare earth recycling efforts as China slashes its exports to the rest of the world. By 2013, Hitachi hopes to ’implement a new technique which will provide some 60 metric tons of the valuable elements per year, or about 10% of Hitachi’s rare earth needs’ (Mainichi). The next phase brings a new machine which will dissemble items like computer hard disks. The following phase will separate rare earths from other materials without producing environmentally hazardous waste (Mainichi). Typically, extraction of these metals requires acids and other toxic chemicals. Hitachi and Nakanishi recognize that to have a ‘clean energy’ revolution, recycling must part of the infrastructure.

How important are rare earth metals to our society? Dysprosium and neodymium are used in high-strength electric motor magnets, while yttrium is used to make lasers. Praseodymium is used in aircraft searchlights and lanthanum is used in electric car batteries. These rare earth metals can be found in everything: from low-tech lighter flints, iPod ear buds, and glass polishing, to high-tech magnetic refrigeration, solar panels, wind turbines, and MRI machines. These metals are rare for several reasons. Firstly, most of the metals are found in the Earth’s crust with only a few sources of deposits in the world. Secondly, for our technology to work as efficiently rare earth metals cannot be replaced with another, more common alternative. The lack of these metals in the world and the inability to replace them simply with a more abundant metal make this business all the more lucrative.