{"id":1511266,"date":"2025-01-02T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1511266"},"modified":"2025-01-02T08:30:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T13:30:00","slug":"beyond-china-which-countries-hold-the-key-to-future-rare-earth-supplies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/beyond-china-which-countries-hold-the-key-to-future-rare-earth-supplies\/1511266\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond China: Which Countries Hold The Key To Future Rare Earth Supplies?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beyond China: Which Countries Hold The Key To Future Rare Earth Supplies?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Haley Zaremba via OilPrice.com,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Rare earth elements are crucial for clean energy, advanced technology, and modern warfare, making them a new axis of geopolitical power.<\/p>\n

China currently dominates the global rare earth market due to its near-monopoly on refining capacities.<\/p>\n

Western powers are concerned about China’s control over rare earth supply chains and are seeking to diversify sources and develop their own refining capabilities.<\/p>\n

Rare earth elements are the new oil. This group of\u00a017 metallic elements<\/a>\u00a0has become indispensable for the clean energy transition and for modern manufacturing in general. These elements have\u00a0unique characteristics<\/a>\u00a0that make them essential ingredients for the future of technology.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Rare earths] just change everything about automobiles; about green technology; about the accuracy of weapons systems. And so they\u2019ve just become essential.\u201d<\/strong><\/em> said Jim Kennedy, the president of ThREE Consulting, a rare earths consultancy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want a Prius? You need rare earths. You want a long-range Tesla? You need rare earths. You want a cruise missile that is accurate to 1 meter? You need rare earths.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The particular utility of rare earth elements primarily comes from their uses as catalysts and magnets in traditional and low-carbon technologies. Other important uses of rare earth elements are in the production of special metal alloys, glass, and high-performance electronics. Rare earth elements \u201chave remarkable physical and chemical properties that make them arguably the superheroes of the periodic table,\u201d Ryan Castilloux, the managing director of minerals consultancy Adamas Intelligence, told Foreign Policy.<\/p>\n

Rare earths aren\u2019t really as \u2018rare\u2019 as the name would lead you to believe. <\/strong>These minerals are naturally occurring all over the world \u2013 but the key lies in finding them in great enough concentrations to make their extraction worth the time and money required.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All of this serves to make rare earths the new axis of geopolitical power on a global scale. The nations that have naturally occurring reserves of these elements and the capacities and resources to extract and refine them will find themselves wielding enormous financial and political leverage in the coming years.<\/p>\n

So which countries are at the top of this new geopolitical totem pole?<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

China is far and away the largest producer of rare earth elements. After China, which provides about 38 percent of the world\u2019s raw rare earth minerals, Vietnam has the next biggest rare earth reserves, accounting for about 19 percent. Then there is Brazil with 18.1 percent, Russia with 10.4 percent, India with 6 percent, Australia with 3.5 percent, and finally a tie between the United States and Greenland, accounting for 1.3 percent each. No other country has more than one percent of rare earth reserves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, out of all these countries, only one really has geopolitical control of rare earth supply chains and all of the secondary markets that rely on those materials, and that country is China.<\/strong><\/p>\n

China supplies about 85\u201395 percent of the world\u2019s refined rare earth minerals and has dominated the global market since the late 1990s. This is because Beijing has a near-monopoly on rare earth refining capacities. As we know, a handful of other countries also have significant reserves of critical rare earth elements, but lack the established infrastructure necessary to process them for use in an efficient or cost-effective manner.<\/p>\n

China alone accounts for\u00a085-90 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the world\u2019s rare earth mine-to-metal refining. What\u2019s more, Chinese refineries supply 68 percent of the world\u2019s cobalt, 65 percent of nickel, and 60 percent of EV-battery-grade lithium. As a result, a whopping 75 percent of all EV batteries are made in China.<\/p>\n

There is significant concern that if other nations rich in rare earths don\u2019t step up to compete with China, this is giving Beijing entirely too much leverage and creating a market that is anything but free. So far, however, some experts contend that such worries are overblown. But it\u2019s no secret that rare earths are the new oil, and Western powers are\u00a0scrambling to regain control<\/a>. Global tensions around rare earth are certain to\u00a0heat up in coming years<\/a>, and mitigating such lopsided control of the market will be critical to maintaining balanced trade mechanisms.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nThu, 01\/02\/2025 – 03:30<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/commodities\/beyond-china-which-countries-hold-key-future-rare-earth-supplies<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beyond China: Which Countries Hold The Key To Future Rare Earth Supplies? Authored by Haley Zaremba via OilPrice.com, Rare earth elements are crucial for clean…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1511267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1511266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1511266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1511267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1511266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1511266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1511266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}