Can someone please explain to me like I am a 3-year old exactly what 'rare earth metals' are?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2374754,00.asp

Rare Earth Metals Mine to Open in the U.S.

By: Leslie Horn
12.27.2010

While most people don't sit around thinking about rare earth metals, they're still very important resources, vital to many industries. The U.S. had previously ceded the foothold it had in this market to China, but through a partnership with Hitachi Metals, Molycorp will re-open a rare earth mineral mine in the Mojave Desert in California.

"We will probably never be the largest in the world again," Mark Smith, Molycorp chief executive, said in a Guardian report. "It will be hard to overcome China's status in that regard, but we do think we will be a very significant supplier."

Rare earth minerals are especially crucial to the high tech industry. They're key for the production of things like smartphones, smart bombs, electric car batteries, wind turbines, and more. Molycorp originally closed the mine eight years ago. That has left China with a whopping 97 percent of the rare earth metals market worldwide.

According to the Guardian report, China's virtual monopoly on the worldwide market hasn't made it easy for other countries. In October, China slashed exports of these vital materials by 70 percent, which caused prices of rare earth metals to soar.

[SharonAnn]

1. Rare metals which are found by mining.

They are not artificially created metals, but are actually found by mining the earth. They are very scarce and are mined in only a few locations.

Thus "rare" "earth" "metals".

[tridim]

4. Probably not rare-Moon though, or rare-asteroid. nt

[kristopher]

11. That is the best answer of all replies to OP.

As defined by IUPAC, rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a collection of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, namely scandium, yttrium, and the fifteen lanthanides.<1> Scandium and yttrium are considered rare earth elements since they tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanides and exhibit similar chemical properties.

Despite their name, rare earth elements (with the exception of the highly unstable promethium) are relatively plentiful in the Earth's crust, with cerium being the 25th most abundant element at 68 parts per million (similar to copper). However, because of their geochemical properties rare earth elements are typically dispersed and not often found in concentrated and economically exploitable forms known as rare earth minerals.<2> It was the very scarcity of these minerals (previously called "earths") that led to the term "rare earth". The first such mineral discovered was gadolinite, a compound of cerium, yttrium, iron, silicon and other elements. This mineral was extracted from a mine in the village of Ytterby, Sweden; many of the rare earth elements bear names derived from this location.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_metal

[-..__...]

14. So... is it the situation where we (the USA),...

would have to excavate and process 100 tons of ore/material to extract 1oz of element xxx, whereas China would only have to excavate and process 25 tons of ore/material to extract the same amount?

[Hannah Bell]

19. they're not scarce. they used to think they were scarce, but they're not.

they're ubiquitous in the earth's crust.

[jody]

2. See wikipedia link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_metal

[PBS Poll-435]

3. Grab a Periodic Table and read back to front. nt

Scandium, Yttrium, Lanthanum. Cerium, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Promethium, etc.

[Warpy]

5. They are the elements in the skinny part at the bottom of the periodic table

that are essential to manufacturing semiconductors. Were there not a mine here and were China to ban the export and then jack their prices up to the stratosphere, we might find ourselves using vacuum tubes in consumer electronics again. They're called rare earths because the planet has little of them (we're mostly iron and silicon) and/or they're in inaccessible spots, like the the deep sea bed.

[Ken Burch]

6. Rare Earth usually didn't play "metal"

They had more of a "hippie blue-eyed soul" groove:

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. LOL

[Motown_Johnny]

7. They are like the toy with your happy meal, for grown ups

[Luminous Animal]

8. Something that we will go to war over in the future.

[DemoTex]

9. Check out the green elements in this version of the Periodic Table:

The Rare Earth elements have 2 valence electrons, generally speaking. The Halogens (red on this chart) have 7 valence electrons. The Noble Gases (black) have 8 valence electrons, but like most Republicans they won't share anything, so they effectively have zero valence electrons.

[Pancho Sanza]

15. I wonder if Helium will someday be called a 'rare earth', we are just about out of it

and there's no way to make any more. :-)

[-..__...]

16. Here's a #1 we can be proud of...

let's see them Chinee have us over a barrel on the Zeppelin and birthday balloons front...

In 2008, approximately 169 million standard cubic meters (SCM) of helium were extracted from natural gas or withdrawn from helium reserves with approximately 78% from the United States, 10% from Algeria, and most of the remainder from Russia, Poland and Qatar.<77> In the United States, most helium is extracted from natural gas of the Hugoton and nearby gas fields in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.<33> Much of this gas was once sent by pipeline to the National Helium Reserve, but since 2005 this reserve is presently being depleted and sold off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium

And this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. Helium is the one element that is 'made' more than any other on the planet

Every alpha particle emitted as alpha radiation from a radioactive substance is a helium nucleus - 2 protons, 2 neutrons.

The paper from 100 years ago which worked this out

Plus helium is being made by fusion in the sun, although it's not very accessible :) .

[TransitJohn]

12. They don't occur in easily exploitable lodes.

They're predominantly the lanthanides.

[Pancho Sanza]

13. Their rarity makes them valuable = coming soon a highway across the Serengeti

which will do wonders for the wild critters who think it's their home.

<sarcasm>

http://blogs.forbes.com/gordonchang/2010/09/17/the-chinese-road-across-the-serengeti/

[Hannah Bell]

21. they're not rare.

[Pancho Sanza]

22. Neither are diamonds, they're just widely dispersed and that makes it expensive

to locate, extract and market them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Here from wiki

As defined by IUPAC, rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a collection of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, namely scandium, yttrium, and the fifteen lanthanides.<1> Scandium and yttrium are considered rare earth elements since they tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanides and exhibit similar chemical properties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element

There is a nifty chart that tells you what they are used for.

Suffice it to say, no rare earths... no computer or pet scan.

They are essential for modern industrial processes.

[Hannah Bell]

18. Number One: They're not rare. They're ubiquitous in the earth's crust.

China's "monopoly" is mainly due to price -- & that's mainly due to their lack of concern for environmental factors & their slave-labor regime.

We could mine rare earths in the US; but it's more profitable to buy them from slave-labor regimes, so that's what corporations do.

Meanwhile, they're trying to convince the public that they're only found in china.

it's bullshit.

and 10 to one someone is speculating somewhere hoping to make a killing on this phony "news" of rare earth shortage cause of the big bad chinese "monopoly". or 10:1 the us or other countries or those china supplies are trying to pressure china to lower its prices through this propaganda attack.

most of what you read in the news these days is bullshit, propaganda, or irrelevant celebrity gossip.


Setting off speculation that China is manipulating exports to punish certain trade partners, Beijing announced in July it was slashing its six-month export quota of so-called 'rare earths' by 72 percent. Speculation continued this week with reports of an expanding embargo of the minerals.

But the so-called "rare earths" are neither rare nor does China have a lock on them. Although China produces 97 percent of the world's rare earths, it contains only 30 percent of the world's supply. The United States, Russia, and Australia all have significant reserves of the 17 elements essential in semiconducters, lasers, and other high-tech gadgets.

While mining them has proved uneconomical at usual world prices and environmentally harmful, that may be changing....

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/1021/Top-5-rare-earth-minerals-What-are-they/Lanthanum

[lumberjack_jeff]

20. It's not rocket science. Oops.! Just saw the avatar.

Nevermind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element