Chinas Secret Weapon Rare Earths Minerals

 

 China's Secret Weapon Rare Earths Minerals.

 (image source : Solvay)

 

a battle that is

brewing below the radar

the battle for the secret ingredient

that will power

our future you can call it the new gold

you can call it the new

oil the new strategic fuel i'm talking

about the battle

for rare earths what are rare earths how

do we describe them

well if we were in a book or a movie we

could have described them

as all powerful elements

a metal perhaps with supernatural

characteristics

like mithril


as light as a feather and has hardest

dragon scales

a light but supremely strong element

found only in the minds of moria

or unobtanium

this is why we're here unobtainium

because this little gray rock sells for

20 million a kilo

that's the only reason from the james

cameron universe

a highly valuable metal found in small

quantities

on the distant moon pandora or if we

were living in wakanda

the fictional home of a certain panther

then i would have described this

as a rare earth element vibranium

there's vibranium on the strains

it's vibranium all around us a durable

metal which can absorb

any kind of kinetic energy but we don't

live in wakanda or in any of these

worlds we live on planet earth

with a virus on the prowl and there are

no supernatural elements

rare earths do not possess supernatural

characteristics

but they already rule our lives from

smartphones to supersonic jets rare

earths are the secret ingredient of

almost every scientific

wonder and one country

is sitting on a pile of them before i

tell you which

let me show you something do you

remember studying this in school

the very side of it can induce some

horrific flashbacks

this is the periodic table it was not

nice to me in school and i understand

it's not friendly with more students

i mean i'm yet to meet someone who says

my favorite activity is reading the

periodic table

 (image source : Geology)

take a look at the periodic table there

are a couple of rows

that appear to have been kicked out of

this table they don't quite fit in

they sit ignored i'm talking about this

the set of 15 lanthanides

or chemical elements tucked into the

sixth row of the periodic table and

don't worry this is not a chemistry

class

so you take these elements you add

scandium and yatrium at the top

and you get what the world knows as the

rare earth

elements they're very precious now well

why are they rare

because of their distribution they don't

appear in big deposits

in big mines like most elements do

they're much more evenly spread across

the planet so it is that much more

difficult to mine

and refine them it's also more expensive

so despite being fairly abundant rare

earth elements are well

quite rare to find one country has

roughly one third of the world's

reserves of rare earth elements

more than 36 percent of the global

reserves

and as of today it accounts for 90

percent of the global production

no prizes for guessing which country

we're talking about

china rare earth elements are

concentrated in a handful of mines in

three regions in china this includes

mines in the province of inner mongolia

the southern provinces of hunan jiangxi

fujian and others and the province of

sichuan

these areas account for 98 of china's

total production of rare earth elements

and what does china do with them

it manufactures a range of devices let

me give you a rough idea which devices

need rare earths aircraft and missile

guidance tools

wind turbines and magnets electric

vehicles and rechargeable batteries

smartphones and cameras

earphones and speakers energy efficient

light bulbs lcd

plasma screens cds dvds even fertilizers

they all need rare earths rare earth

elements like i said are the secret

ingredient

of every scientific wonder and almost

every chinese product

and china you can see is the king of

rare earth elements

the middle east has oil china has rare

earths

i did not come up with this line deng

xiaoping the former paramount leader of

china did he said it way back in 1992

and the current paramount leader the

president for life the one and only xi

jinping is hoarding these elements

rare earth elements have become china's

secret weapon its trump card in the

trade war with the united states

80 percent of these precious metals used

by the united states

are imported from china 80 percent and

the ccp the chinese communist party has

repeatedly hinted

that it will restrict the exports to

america if the trump administration

imposes

any more sanctions it's quite a threat

the chinese regime is using these

elements as a political weapon

a bargaining chip does the world have

other options

sure it does there are other countries

with large amounts of rare earth

deposits

if extracted they can feed the need

of the american and european markets and

end china's monopoly

which are these countries well there's

canada

there's australia brazil vietnam

and india that's right india was one of

the first countries

one of the first to recognize the

importance of these minerals back in the

1950s

india established what is known today as

the indian rare earths limited a

government-owned corporation

based in mumbai india had an early

mover's advantage

but it lies buried under the not so rare

indian red tape

india's rare earth industry lies wasted

and underused

the minerals lie buried in indian soil

india has the world's

fifth largest reserves of these minerals

if some estimates are to be believed the

deposits

are mostly located in the states of

kerala andhra pradesh chhattisgarh

odisha jharkhand west bengal and the

north eastern states

according to one estimate the domestic

supply chain of rare earth elements in

india

if revived could potentially be worth

90 000 crores in annual turnover 90 000

crore rupees that's close to 12 billion

dollars

and it can generate a net capital

employment

of about 121 000 crores that's 16

billion dollars

as far as the foreign exchange is

concerned the rare earth industry has

the potential of generating

50 000 crore rupees for india this is

some six billion dollars

the scope for the rare earth industry in

india is immense new delhi must come up

with a national strategy to revive it

to its full potential the broken link

between industry bigwigs and researchers

must be re-established

this revival will give both economic and

strategic benefits think of what it can

do for the government's make in india

plan well this pandemic

has taught the whole world the

significance of self-reliance

the prime minister of india calls it the

rare earth industry could be india's

chance to achieve this

not to mention a chance to demolish

china's monopoly