Rare Earth Mineral their importance and the monopoly of China

What is rare earth minerals ?

Rare earth minerals are 17 Chemically related minerals. They are not very rare because very little found in earth ,quite a bit of ore containing these is found .But in those ores the elements of these  metal is very minuscule. Very difficult to refine them and take it out i.e. they are called rare earth.

What is the importance of rare earth minerals ?

Rare earth minerals are very important in the manufacturing of modern high-tech devices such as electric & hybrid vehicles ,satellite ,missile ,cellphone ,headphone ,fighter & stealth aircraft.

I-phone can't vibrate ,earpds will not be able to play ,music or hi-fi system comes to standstill ,wind turbine will not work .Because all of these to work a motor has to spin. A magnet play an important role and that magnet continues to be charge and if the charge goes down .The magnet loose its power. Rare Earth Permanent Magnets (REPM) are the most powerful permanent magnets ever created by human kind. And REPM is created by the mixture of Iron ,Boron and Neodymium.

Electric vehicles cannot function without Lithium and Neodymium. Europium ,Terbium ,Tritium are crucial for targetting mechanism in all weapon system.

How china has monopoly over rare earth minerals ? 

The process to obtain rare earth is environmentally destructive and produces radioactive waste for this reason countries gone away in refining metals like these. China lacks environmental laws plus China has endless expanses of desert where nobody lives.
China deliberately & institutionally made its environmental laws on these refineries lacks. So china can pollute as none else could. So the whole world even those who mined these minerals start sending these to China for processing. US send all the rare earth mined minerals to China and then buy 80 % of it from china.
China has 44 million tonnes of deposits i.e 36.7% of the world and other countries such as Brazil has 18.4% ,Vietnam has 18% , Russia has 10% ,India has 5.8% and rest of the world including Australia and US has 10.9%.

How the world respond to the monoploy of China in rare earth minerals ?

Until 10 years back China control 90% of world rare earth needs today it come down to 60% .In 2010 world realise China had crippling monopoly where it could punish any country by just controlling the supply of rare earth. Senkaku islands are Japanese islands but China claims it own. A chinese fishing vessel goes close to Senkaku islands ,the japanese commander dare to arrest the captain of Chinese fishing boat.

China stopped the supply of rare earths to Japan. This increased the price of rare earth minerals by 9 times. Japan send a delegation to China over this issue .China gave assurance that they will continue the supply of rare earth but Japan has to shift the manufacturing plants of rare earth needed industries to China.

So China use rare earth minerals as a deterance against Senkaku islands and can use this as a strategic weapon against US ,Australia and Japan .

In return two japanese companies Sojitz Corporation and a public sector company Japan Oil gas and metal national group(JOGMEC) invested $ 250 million in a Australian mining corporation named Lynas. After this Japan's one-third need of rare earth minerals are met by these companies. 

Facts related to rare earth mineral

An F-35 stealth aircraft has 427kg of rare earth , a Virginia class nuclear submarine use 4.2 tonnes of rare earth.

According to US Geological Survey US mined 38,000 tonnes of rare earth in 2020 whereas India mined only 3,000 tonnes ,Australia mined 17,000 tonnes but China mined a massive 1,40,000 tonnes .

US production in 2020 was 16% of the world ,Australia's was 7% while India is at 1% of the world production in 2020.

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