Rare Earth News

China's rare earth cap sounds alarms for mining companies

In the past year, prices for rare earth elements have made significant jumps as China has continued to lower its cap on exports of the in-demand minerals. While some manufacturers are toying with substitutes, the reality is that rare earths will remain in high demand, Design News reports.

Rare earth metals such as neodymium and dysprosium are crucial for the development of products ranging from hybrid car motors to white LED lights. Magnets produced using neodymium have magnetic fields at least five times as large as those created by other ferric magnets, and when dysprosium is added, it prevents demagnetization from occurring at high temperatures.

Thus, when China tightened its grip on the world's supply of rare earths, many mining companies saw the opportunity to tap into rare earth mining.

Despite recent declines, Chinese mining officials expect the price of rare earth elements to remain high. Now, mining operations are responding to the rallying prices, with some of the leading mines, in terms of quality outside of China, appearing in Canada and other parts of North America.

Several mining operations have begun in Quebec and British Columbia, where vast deposits of rare earths have been discovered.