In recent years, the U.S. and other Western nations have invested in projects to mine these resources—essential for the production of electric vehicles, cellphones and wind turbines—an effort these countries are now accelerating given how far they still trail China.
Last week President Trump signed an executive order to speed the development of mines. Miners welcomed the move, but caution it takes around 10 years to set up a mine and that the West also needs to develop the capability to process these resources into the materials used in final products.
Rare-earth elements are one of the 35 types of minerals that the U.S. government has deemed critical to economic and national security. The U.S. imports 80% of its rare-earth elements from China. For 14 of the 35 critical types of minerals, the U.S. has no domestic production. China has built its dominant position because of their abundance there and the country’s more lax environmental laws make it easier to mine them. It today dominates the entire supply chain.
Up until the 1980s, the U.S. was the world’s biggest producer of rare earths and created the technology to process them, but now has only one producing mine and no processing plants. (That one is California”s Mountain Pass mine–shown in the photo)-
Classroom discussion questions:
- Why are these rare minerals an OM issue?
- Relate the new mining push to the “Triple Bottom Line” discussed in Supp. 5 on p.195-6 of your Heizer/Render/Munson text.