Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and I am one of the editors here at how stuff works dot Com. Sitting across from me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. They say that the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once.
That's how Dad did it, and so America does it, and it's worked out pretty well so far. Nice. Thank you. Today we're going to talk about rare earth metals and why they're important in electronics. Yes, this is actually sort of a weird topic for us. It's sort of a science e thing, but it's kind of a stuff. Yeah up, Um, but it's certainly uh, certainly something that's uh sort of a misnomer about rare earth metals. Yeah, yeah, it's. Um, that's one of the things you need to understand first.
Do you want to go into that. Why it's a misnomer? Well, it sounds like a joke. They're neither rare nor are they an Earth all the And you know, some people call them elements, but I think it's fair fairly safe to call them metals. Yeah. A Swedish Army lieutenant discovered the these medals back in seventeen seven and gave them the the the categorical name of rare earth metals because at that point they were very rarely seen. And it turns out it's not because there's very little of it
on Earth. It's just that they tend to be um mixed in with lots of other stuff, and you don't tend to find a whole bunch of it in a big quantity all in one spot. You find tend to and little bits of it spread out over a huge area. And if you wonder where the earth part comes from, I did too, Actually I looked it up in in
Britannica and apparently this comes from the Greeks. And they would define an earth as something that, uh, you could heat up as much as they could heat something up with the technology they had available to them, and it wouldn't change significantly. Um, And it's not, I mean technically, once you've with the with the technology we have available to us, when you run into these oxides. Uh, with these rare earth elements in them, you can in fact
break them down into individual elements. UM. So they're technically not an Earth as described by that, but you know, maybe maybe to the Greeks they would have been. I'm sure of that time. And let me give you a short list of some of the rare earth metals. They're technically seventeen of them, yes they are. There's a gallium, indium, selenium,
to lurium, silicon, zinc, vanadium, lithium, platinum, neo, neodymium. Actually some of these technically don't fall into the rare earth metals either, like platinum, but they they're rare and they're using electronics, so they often get lumped together with them. Cobalt, manganese, syrium, europium, dysphorium, terbium, scandium, scandium. I didn't have that one, Scandium and atrium. I wonder if you pronounce the I or if it's like pronounced
like an eye. I've never heard anyone say it. And the lanthanoids, which is the which are the elements with atomic numbers fifty seven through seventy one. Those are those are technically the rare earth metals. They tend to be heavy elements. Um, they and they're used for different things. I mean a lot of these are used in order to make magnets. Yes, I'm sorry you were about that. Let's well, we're just gonna add another tiny historical tid bits.
And I think I think it's kind of interesting. People pretty much ignored them up until about mid last century. I mean, they really weren't there. They weren't particularly useful for anything, and it was really hard to get enough of them to do anything with them in the first place. But they do make Jonathan pointing out very good permanent magnets. Yeah, that's an important element in lots of electronics. Yeah, I didn't. It's gonna happen that way. It's gonna happen all the time. Yeah.
So anyway, like, um, like, let's say your earbuds for an MP three player, Uh, part of the speaker is a tiny little magnet actually for not necessarily tiny, but with earbuds, they're definitely tiny. So you have to have a permanent magnet as part of the speaker system in these earbuds. Well, obviously you want a permanent magnet that's going to be powerful yet light. You don't want to have, you know, this incredibly heavy device. I mean it is
stuck inside your ear. It's not um, it's not really comfortable, let's say, right, So you want to have some sort of material that's light and yet is able to have a permanent magnetic chart and a lot of these medals fall into that category. And in fact, that's what a lot of them are used for. And uh, but not just speakers. I mean, that's just one example that that's correct. I was going to add that. Um. Uh. I guess what started this whole thing for me was an article
on c neet by Martin Lamonica. Um. And of course we you know, I think each of us delved into it quite substantially more to find out more. But he wrote an really interesting piece about it. Well, we can get into why more in in a few minutes and when we get into more of the application. But one of the benefits of using these medals is that their
their strength to weight ratio is so is so uh useful. Um, They're very strong for their weight, and that's why, as as Jonathan pointed out, uh, they do make excellent applications for things like that. In portable electronics. There and lots and lots of different kinds of portable electronics UM four different things, which we'll get into in a minute here. But UM uh yeah, that's that's just one of those as reasons why they're so useful, right. Yeah. The weight
issue is a is non trivial. Uh. For instance, you know, you hear about people talking about like the iPad, the iPad weighs a little over a pound, and people will talk about how after a little while it feels like it's it's getting heavy in your hands. UM. I mean without the these particular metals to help design well, to help in the design of electronics, UM, they would be even heavier. It would not In fact, it probably would not be compact. We would have much larger electronics uh,
and they would be less efficient, they'd be heavier. UM. It just would not be It wouldn't be the same world that we live in today if we didn't if we had not discovered the applications of these rare earth metals UM and some of the other applications of all things like displays and UM various other electronic components. The EUROPEUM in particular was used to produce color displays, And
that's actually one that's fairly rare. Uh. Some of these rare earth metals are legitimately rare in the sense that we just we haven't found big deposits of them. Now. Granted, most electronics only use a couple of grams of this stuff at at most for a particular device. Yeah, there's there's a notable exception, but we'll get to that a second. Well, yeah, that's that's one of the things too about the using
these devices. You they wouldn't necessarily need to be plentiful, um, except for the obviously the cost um in order to spread them around into the electronics because they are are so light and useful at their size. Um. But yeah, that that talking about the using them in displays. That's the first application I had seen about the mid twentieth
century when they started making color television sets. Um, and they use some of these materials to make I believe I read the color red helped help make the red phosphour and uh in the TV screens. So that's that was one of the earliest, I think widespread uses of the rare earth metals. Yeah, today you you're gonna find it also in a lot of green technology stuff like solar panels, wind generators, fuel cells. UM, these all have
some rare earth metals in them. And actually that's where it's funny, because these are supposed to be answers to things like the oil crisis, and UM, it's funny because they had were starting to hit a rare earth metal crisis. That's true. UM. One of the reasons for that is the the direct drive turbines UH and green technology for wind power. They use an awful lot of some of
these devices. And I note now that some of my notes got cut off when I came in here, so the the number I had written down to use for this particular argument is now lost to me. What was that you happened to happen? Neodymium? Was the was the actual particular metal that because what's happening is let's let's let's talk about where these metals are currently coming from. Okay, They're almost all coming from China, Yes, Lamonica said about of the world's rare earth metals are coming from China
right now. The figure I saw was between and so the vast majority of these metals are all coming out of China. And China doesn't just export these. China uses these metals in various electronics and applications as well. Right, what, it's one of the world's fastest growing economies, if not the fastest growing economy, and of course, uh, you know the popularity of electronics, um, you know in that country. Plus they've the government has been really pushing green technology.
So with the applications and electronics and green technology, Uh, they've wanted to keep a lot of their rare earth metals to themselves to use in that and those applications. The problem being that they've they're plentiful in China and they've driven down the cost of mining them, so it's been sort of economically counterproductive for other countries to do that. They just import it from China. Yeah, that's a good point. Um, you might say, well, why why is it all coming
from China? Does that just mean that all the metals are in China? No, I mean China is an enormous country. So that's that's part. Yeah, But the other element of that is, as us see, it just happens. It's like a drinking game. Every time you hear me say, element have a sip of fruit juice. Yes, So China's big country, there are a lot of rare earth metals there, but there are a lot of rare earth metals across the
entire globe. Because China has driven the cost of mining down so much, it made more sense to just go ahead and purchase the metals from China than it did to invest in mining operations in other parts of the world. In fact, the United States had a rare earth metal mine. Yes it did, and it was shut down in two thousand two. Yes, I believe it's in Colorado. Uh that I can't tell you because I don't know for certain
it is too. It definitely did shut down. No, wait, but one the one to shut down in two thousand two that I was reading was a complex in Mountain Pass, California, California. And that's right, the Colorado connection was the executive director of the Rare Earth Industry and Technology Association, Keith Delaney, who Lamonica quoted, and he is based in Colorado. But yeah, that that mine had shut down in in two thousand two. But they're bringing it back. Yes, because here's the deal is.
As Chris was saying earlier about the wind generation um turbines, China's building a big green windmill type of network within the borders of China, and because it requires a lot of this or maybe not even a lot, but it re wires more neodymium than China actually produces. So that's why China is saying, you know what, We're not gonna export this anymore because we need it. In fact, we need more than what we produce in order to fulfill
this project that we have planned. So um, you're not gonna get any And so that's when the rest of the world said, oh, you know what, depending upon one supplier for this one really particular material is maybe not the best idea because that one supplier can get cut off. The same thing actually happened, Actually, a similar thing happened with Japan. Uh. And this may or may not be
politically um motivated, right Japan. China actually shut down expert exportation of rare earth metals to Japan and uh that might have been because of a diplomatic dispute. China says, no, that's not the reason, but the rest of the world
kind says, yeah, that's kind of the reason. Um. And so that raised a lot of fears and the rest of the world saying, well, if China can do that if they're just gonna shut down exporting out these materials that we depend on in order to make the various electronic devices that are coming out today, where does that leave us, because we're not getting it from anywhere else. Um, right now, what that means is that it would leave us,
uh in panic mode. We wouldn't we wouldn't necessarily run out of the metals immediately, because, as I said, in most applications, we're only using a tiny amount of these medals, you know, maybe a gram for a particular electronic device, with a big exception being hybrid and electric vehicles. Because supposedly a prius uses around thirty pounds of the stuff, So that's a lot compared to you know, an iPod
or something. Yeah, and uh, from from what I can tell, apparently according to to Delaney, that is one of the problems. Even when the mine out in California comes back online and they said sometime in the next couple of years, there's also one in Australia, even with those new efforts, um, it is unlikely that the producers of rare earth metals can keep up with the world's demand for them. So I would imagine that the cost will remain high until
there there is a way to produce them efficiently. Thankfully, China has said, you know, no, no, we're not going to shut down all exports of rare earth metals completely to the world. You know, I would imagine not that they can still make quite a bit of money on the world market with that. But uh, you know, they're the the brewjaja that erupted for about I'd say maybe a couple of days. Uh, sort of has subsided now that they the government has said, you know no, no, no no, no,
don't read you know, that's not we're doing. You know, we will continue to export these things. But it has caused people to go, hey, you know, we really need to step this up. Maybe we need to actually invest in this technology. So this could mean one of many things.
For one thing, China now that I mean essentially has the world over a pit right now, China could say, you know what we're gonna We're gonna increase the cost of these because there is a real value to this material and the and the value is greater than what we're charging and um and until that until that price exceeds what it would be to do the mining here in the United States or other parts of the world.
It would still make more sense to buy to to pay up right, So the price would keep going up and we would keep paying because we'd say, well, the alternative is to mind it ourselves, and it's still not cheaper to mind it ourselves. That would be to pay pay extra money to China. UM. I'm sorry you were
about to say, well, no, I was. I was going to get into something else that we had planned on talking about, which was the reason that this is sort of a sensitive issue too, is that it's not easy to get pure uh forms of the rare earth elements um, simply because they are most often found as oxides, so and they're mixed in with other things that can be
mixed in with thorium and I believe uranium. So it's uh, you know, it's something that's difficult to do, and it's not a cheap process where you just go out and get a shovel and a wheelbarrow and start digging it up. So that's one of the things. Also that China has an advantage over the rest of the world. It appears that most of the rare earth metal deposits in China are not accompanied by radioactive uranium or or thorium. Yes, so they don't have to worry about radiation very much.
That's not the way it is with through most of the world, which means that if we start mining these rare earth metals, we have to take into consideration the fact that there is radioactive material there as well. Yes, so that raises safety concerns. You have to figure out how you're going to store and or dispose of that radioact to material. How do you separate the rare earth metals in a reasonably safe way that's not going to
drive the cost up so much that uh. You know, ultimately, what this can mean to you as a consumer is that the electronics that you purchased today could end up being way more expensive down the road once we start hitting these these limits with the these metals. Uh. And in China, the way that they mine these rare earth metals can be really destructive for the environment as well.
What typically what they'll do is they'll cut down the vegetation in an area and they'll raise up the top soil and they use acids to leach out the rare earth metals UM and those acids can run off into the nearby water table. And that can kill off um plants, and it can affect animals um it's it can it containt water supplies. There's also some allegations that some of these rare earth metal minds in China, for some of the particularly rare metals, that they're actually um somewhat overseen
by a criminal element. Chinese gangs essentially are are running these um some of these rare earth metal minds. So that's another issue, is that when we start purchasing these these electronic devices over here, technically we're kind of funding a criminal organization overseas well. I would imagine too that it's not it's probably like most industries where there is a group and then you know some of the others
are not. And the problem is that the problem is that manufacturers over here can't necessarily tell where they're rare earth metals. Like it's it's not like you can go to the rare earth metal market and get the hey, look, this is free range thorium over your not thorium obviously, but yes, I don't need to worry about the fact that this metal came from this my because this mine's
a legitimate mind. There's no criminal element here there's no way to tell, right, So it's I'm not I'm not placing blame on the manufacturers necessarily because they have to get the stuff from somewhere. Um, I'm just saying that it's a bad system overall because there's no way to know for sure whether or not. Uh, you're enabling this criminal element of like speak. Oh man, how many times am I gonna use that word? The sad thing is, I think you're actually catching it by no doing an
accidentally and then catching it. I did find, as it turns out, I didn't accidentally delete my notes. Um. Yeah. The volume, the volume I was stunned to see was Keith Delaney again speaking of the the direct drive wind turbines used in wind power. Um. Because each megawatt of electricity generated requires half a ton of permanent magnets. Wow, I see that's all. That's a whole lot of um. There's a whole lot of uh these rare earth manimls.
And the thing is UM to that, you know, talking about the electronics, The cost of your electronics going up, the cost of the electricity depending on where you live and what's being used to generate it. Uh, cost of electricity to power those electronics could also go up. Yeah, So I mean it's it's something that matters to us,
but we don't normally think about it. And going back to the green element for just a second, it also means that going green could end up becoming much more expensive, depending on whether or not China, uh, you know, allows exports of these rare earth metals or the green technology. Um, if we do start opening up more minds across the world, it'll all depend upon how efficient those mining processes are. Uh. Otherwise, again, we could see that this green technology, the price of
green technology may rise exponentially. So then you're getting to a point where you're saying, all right, does is it economically feasible to switch from a petroleum based economy or petroleum based fuel source to renewable in g doesn't make
sense financially. And the scary thing is is if this these prices go up high enough, the answer to that is going to be no, it doesn't make sense financially until it gets so bad with the the you know, the oil situation that it almost becomes like a panic to try and fund green technology so that you can
you know, close that gap. And one of the the objections some people have to using oil as an energy source is that it means that we're dependent upon foreign countries for two in order to get our fuel right, and that we're essentially funding some of these countries that have anti American sentiments. So we're giving money to people who don't like us very much, is what that kind of boils down to, the same sort of problem happens here.
If China is the only supplier and we are have to play by China's game, then we are giving money to a foreign power and we're dependent upon that foreign power for energy needs. It's no better than the oil as far as that part of the equation is concerned. Now, granted, there's the whole other part of it. You know, you're not generating pollution by using this kind of power, and
that that's a totally different argument that that. You know, you can still say, well, green technology is superior, but from a from a dependence on foreign nation perspective, it's the same. Yeah. And of course, uh, we're speaking from a point of view from the United States, and many of our listeners come from other countries, but in many cases there a lot of them aren't importing a lot of their rare earth metals from China and other countries too.
It's not something like in the case of Japan, apparently there are not many. It's hot. They really are very rare in Japan itself, and they do rely on imports there more than they would in other countries like we do. Apparently India is heavy a reasonably good supply and they are are minding them themselves as well. But UM, I don't know about a lot of the other countries around
the world. So yeah, I mean it's there's a security situation there too, for whatever countries that may need this for you know, I'm sure a lot of defense electronics rely on on these medals. There was actually a report recently, uh in the United States government from the Department of Defense saying that, um, they were not worried about this current situation and that they did not see it impacting the national security. Uh. I don't know how they could
have said anything else without generating a panic. So I'm not saying that they are being optimistic or they're painting it a certain way. I'm just saying that, UM, I really hope for a resolution of this problem. Well, I uh, you know, I think it's interesting that these medals which really have been you know, they've known about out for
a very long time. Uh, you know, I have just sort of come into providence prominence in the last hundred years or so, and now they are part of, you know, one of you know, some of the more important substances we've really Yeah, and to think that, you know, three years ago, we had no idea what they are, and
now we depend very heavily upon them. Uh. Actually, I guess the only hope I have otherwise is that the whole carbon nanotube thing works out to the point where we find out carbon nanotubes are superior for all of these different applications. I know that, I know carbon nanotube strength to weight ratio is insane depending on how you align the the the graphite sheets. Oh yeah, yeah, Well that that's another fascinating topic that maybe we can talk
about all of that. Maybe another that's again another science, Yeah, carbonano tubes. Yes, Also it makes me want to quote more. Yeah nano nano. Oh. Oh, I almost saw that one coming. It was just about the hand me before it really did. Okay, I think that that wraps up this discussion because I don't I don't think I can talk anymore. I was relying on the element of surprise drink. So, guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode on Rare Earth Metals. We
will talk to you again soon. If you have any suggestions for topics or comments or questions, you can contact us on Twitter and Facebook are handled. There is tech Stuff h s W or you can shoot us an email. That email address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com and Chris and I will talk to you again for really soon. For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. The House stuff Works dot com. I phone app is
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