Rare earth elements are the new oil. This group of 17 metallic elements has become indispensable for the clean energy transition and for modern manufacturing in general. These elements have unique characteristics that make them essential ingredients for the future of technology.
“[Rare earths] just change everything about automobiles; about green technology; about the accuracy of weapons systems. And so they’ve just become essential.” said Jim Kennedy, the president of ThREE Consulting, a rare earths consultancy. “You 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.”
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 “have remarkable physical and chemical properties that make them arguably the superheroes of the periodic table,” Ryan Castilloux, the managing director of minerals consultancy Adamas Intelligence, told Foreign Policy.
Rare earths aren’t really as ‘rare’ as the name would lead you to believe. These minerals are naturally occurring all over the world – but the key lies in finding them in great enough concentrations to make their extraction worth the time and money required.
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.
So which countries are at the top of this new geopolitical totem pole?
China is far and away the largest producer of rare earth elements. After China, which provides about 38 percent of the world’s 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.
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.
China supplies about 85–95 percent of the world’s 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.
China alone accounts for 85-90 percent of the world’s rare earth mine-to-metal refining. What’s more, Chinese refineries supply 68 percent of the world’s 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.
There is significant concern that if other nations rich in rare earths don’t 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’s no secret that rare earths are the new oil, and Western powers are scrambling to regain control. Global tensions around rare earth are certain to heat up in coming years, and mitigating such lopsided control of the market will be critical to maintaining balanced trade mechanisms.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
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