RARE EARTH MAGNET: The properties of rare earths find uses ranging from powerful magnets to light-emitting diodes.
Image: Courtesy of Ames Laboratory
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A massive wind turbine—capable of turning the breeze into two million watts of power—has 40-meter-long blades made from fiberglass, towers 90 meters above the ground, weighs hundreds of metric tons, and fundamentally relies on roughly 300 kilograms of a soft, silvery metal known as neodymium—a so-called rare earth.
This element forms the basis for the magnets used in the turbines. "Large permanent magnets make the generators feasible," explains materials scientist Alex King, director of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DoE) Ames Laboratory in Iowa, which started making rare earth magnets in the 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project. The stronger the magnets are, the more powerful the generator—and rare earth elements such as neodymium form the basis for the most powerful permanent magnets around.
In the modern world rare earths go far beyond magnets. Spanning 17 elements—from lanthanum to lutetium, plus scandium and yttrium—they find use in computers, screens, superconductors, oil refineries, hybrid or electric vehicles, catalytic converters, compact fluorescent lightbulbs, light-emitting diodes, lasers, audio speakers and microphones, cell phones, MRI machines, telecommunications, battery electrodes, advanced weapons systems, polished glass, and even the electric motors that run automobile windows. "There is no single military system in use by the Pentagon that does not contain rare earths," King notes, ranging from Abrams tanks to radar systems.
Strong attractor
But, in large part, magnets drive the growth in demand for rare earths such as neodymium—swelling by 15 percent per year, according to an analysis published in Science—and dysprosium. Magnets are the key to generating electricity, of course, and electricity is the key to the use of cleaner sources of energy—whether wind turbines or electric vehicles.
At the heart of those devices sits the most powerful magnet available today—a mix of neodymium, iron and boron, which can produce an energy product of as much as 60 megagauss–oersteds (a unit of magnetic strength). For comparison, a typical iron magnet has an energy product of only four megagauss–oersteds and a refrigerator magnet is typically a mere 0.5 megagauss–oersted. "The stronger the magnet, the smaller the magnet can be," explains Luana Iorio, a manager at GE's High Temperature Alloys and Processing Laboratory.
Fortunately, the elements "are neither rare nor earths," as in soil (although they can be found there), King adds. The name comes from their seeming scarcity when first discovered in the late 18th century in an ore found near Ytterby, Sweden. Unfortunately, "finding reasonable concentrations of them that are economically extractable is quite rarer."
As it stands, 97 percent of the 124,000 metric tons of neodymium, dysprosium—the name means "hard to get"—and other important rare earth elements produced each year come from one place: China. "When demand for neodymium started to rise, driven in part by wind turbines and hybrid autos, the Chinese were the only providers left," King says. And demand for the rare earths continues to outpace supply, particularly as China has implemented export quotas.
So the hunt is on for both better ways to use rare earths as well as better ways to mine and, perhaps more important, cleanly separate the rare earths for use.
A critical pass
Vast waste ponds scar the landscape on the banks of the Yellow River, 190 kilometers from the city of Baotou in China. Visible from space, the Bayan–Obo iron mine in Inner Mongolia is the world's largest source of rare earths, and the Chinese companies supplying them employ acid to dissolve them out of ore rock that often also contains radioactive elements like thorium, radium or even uranium. Intensive boiling with strong acids—repeated thousands of times because the elements are so chemically similar—finally separates out the neodymium, dysprosium or cerium.
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16 Comments
Add CommentComputers, cell phones, and compact fluorescent bulbs are constantly being discarded. There should be a systematic recycling of these appliances for their rare earths. Hybrid automobiles will also soon be a significant discard. They also should be mined for rare earths. It is sort of diabolic that the greener you want to be, the more processing there has to be of the necessary rare earths.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank goodness solar materials are mostly made from sand.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery odd to see a big shell oil advertising emblem posted to an article criticizing an alternative energy.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/global_climate_change_lobby/
Economic recycling of rare earth elements (REEs) -- as well as increased production -- both will be critical if we are to meet rapidly rising global REE demand. Our company (Molycorp, Inc.) is now looking at recycling in two areas: REEs used in compact fluorescent lighting, and REE alloy left over from permanent magnet manufacture. Both areas offer great promise. In fact, we have designed our new, soon-to-be-built, state-of-the-art REE processing facility in California with eye toward maximizing recycling opportunities, with a highly flexible circuit design; an ability to co-process recycled material with primary production; and the lowest cost operation in industry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are considerable diposits of neodymium in our
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMojavi Desert in southern California. However, our senator, Diane Feinstein, saw to it that the desert be
made off limits to all mining there through having it declared a National Monument. Interestingly, her husband, Richard Blum, has vast business interest China, which has the only other known deposit of neodymium.
The comments identifies the need for reprocessing and recycling of those items that utilize these rare earths. This should be a given for all technologic processes to harvest all reuseable products used in their construction. The 'losses' that occur in reprocessing can be readily acquired from China but may not remain a market of suitable size to warrant China continuing to produce these rare earths for American manufacturing opeations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMarket demand will drive the Federal government to remove certain areas from 'protected' status. This may also be accomplished by allowing limited extraction of these rare earths for American markets. Public opinion will usually overcome greed factors that surround political figures in their actions for the 'public good'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust to play the devil's advocate, we should now invest heavily into wind and EV technologies that make us dependent on foreign resources whose extraction produced horrible ecological destruction? Isn't this essentially the same formula that produced gasoline price increases from $0.25/gal. in the 1960s to several dollars per gallon in a few short years?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's a sucker's play: when our infrastructure is eventually dependent on diminishing foreign resources their costs will rise accordingly.
By the way, I'd wager that if the discrete costs of producing these rare Earth elements were identifiable in an auditable accounting (even ignoring any eventual environmental reclamation costs), we'd find that they are currently being sold at a loss on the producer's bet to 'develop markets'. Suckers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wish I shared your optimizm. I see no sign of opening the Mojavi to mining. When do you think it will happen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wish I shared your optimizm. I see no sign of opening the Mojavi to mining. When do you think it will happen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe might remember that powerful electric motors were once made using just iron laminations and copper wire. They were heavier and larger, but they worked very well. In fact, capability to control the field strength gave them better speed control.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe best thing to do is quit installing Wind Turbines. Wind MUST be complemented by Fossil Fuel power generation. It is most practical, and in most cases unavoidable to use fast spooling NG power plants to complement Wind. MOST of the total Wind/NG system energy - 80 to 90% will come from the NG - and cycling inefficiencies induced in that 80-90% will waste as much fuel as the Wind Energy would theoretically save. A Total SCAM to increase consumption of the temporary glut in NG supplies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWind Energy DOES NOT reduce emissions:
http://www.masterresource.org/2009/11/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-i-a-framework-and-calculator/
Emissions INCREASE, due to Wind Energy in Colorado:
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/BENTEK-How-Less-Became-More.pdf
We BADLY need those high strength Neodymium magnets for Electric Vehicles, E-Bikes, E scooters & HEV's. The Prius uses two PMSM/G's. An 18 kw & a 33 kw. They are especially needed for the flat pancake Wheel Hub Motors, which I believe is the best way to make E-vehicles. The vastly improved efficiency of Electric Vehicles over ICE Vehicles is a much more important use of Neodymium magnets than way-too-costly Wind Turbines. Examples, the Crusher UGV and UQM high efficiency 150 kw wheel motors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Kh7FVgDCU&feature=related
http://www.uqm.com/pdfs/powerphase%20150%20spec%20sheet%20update%209-21-09.pdf
Afghanistan has rare earth element (REE) concentrations. First discovered by the Soviets after their invasion, it was more completely mapped out by our USGS.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientists at Leeds University in the UK found that they could extract neodymium out of Titanium Dioxide processing waste water.
China thought that their demand for REEs would match their exports by 2012, until the recession hit and they projected 2014. But then the taxpayer subsidized demand for wind turbines moved the equilibrium forward to 2012. China is flexing its power to force manufacturers to relocate to China.
Can you say MADE IN CHINA?
Wind power is extremely expensive, and it is driving up the price of the REE commodities. We should slow down the subsidizing of wind turbines so as to ensure we have enough REE supply for more critical uses.
Coincidentally, rare earth mining (REE) and processing in China is creating a huge environmental pollution problem. Some of the waste water ponds are flushing poisons into the Yellow River and into the Pacific. And Chinese REE processing air pollution drifts over North America.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile environmentalists pretend their solutions are 'green' the reality is they're forcing an increase of source pollution.
For more, read China’s Rare Earth Elements Industry:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat Can the West Learn? March 2010
Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS)
http://www.iags.org/rareearth0310hurst.pdf
Cindy Hurst is an analyst for the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office,
Fort Leavenworth, KS.
Mountain Pass is in the Mojave.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe water (needed in quantity for extraction)out west, is overallocated among AZ, NV, and vastly overpopulated CA.
Commentators ignore the immense military use of materiel better used for peaceful purposes.
The military since Iraq/Afgh, has taken 44% of US tax dollars (although military budget is about 1/4 of national spending, many other programs pay for themselves, resultiing in the 44% figure of waste, through fear and manipulation of other peoples and nations).
Should US citizens awaken, such materials & research could be increased immensely by cutting military budgets by 80%. The US spends 50% of all money spent in the world for military purposes.
Ignored in commentary is the impact of continuing and increasing energy use. Global warming appears to be accelerating faster than predictions.
It is simplistic to presume that mining every possible source of anything is a viable answer to economic or supply problems.
Without a living, breathing biological world that feeds us, technology will not improve, or far less, support each of our lives.
The Mojave does not automatically exist for extractive industry or wasteful destructive activity of any kind. As much is tied up by military as by preservation.
It is a home to myriad species, a part of a mysterious universe which exploration (scientific AND that basic to our original nature) and knowledge opens up a broader, more fulfilled life, rather than miserable dependence on evermore miniscule applications of technology.
To limit impacts on the environment and atmosphere,while ceasing to live in a universe in which one perceives constant lack, here is aclear order of priorities to consider:
1. Reduce the overbloomed human population (I suggest through reduced number of offspring, rather than the catastrophic methods which will occur absent this)
2. Reduce demand - e.g. the bloated US military. Depend less on constant use of technologies nonexistent before late 20th century. Magnets to reintroduce electrical power through hybrid braking are more important than the latest throwaway cell phone with tricks. Humans lived full and rich lives for well over 100,000 yrs without those.
3. I understand that fast breeder nuclear reactors can use and reuse many radioactive materials associated with rare earths.
3. Recycling military equipment for peaceful purposes will free vast quantities of materials of all kinds. Do you recycle as much as you can? Recycling without fail is this priority.
Technologies vital to preservation of biodiversity are priority 1.