Dyprosium: the gold rush of the 21st century

"Without rare earths and the miniaturisation capabilities they provide, computers would be the size of classrooms instead of the size of smartphones," says Julie Michelle Klinger, an assistant professor of international relations at Boston University's Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and an expert in the politics of development, environment, and security in Latin America and China.

In recent years, fears that the earth's reserves of these elements will someday be exhausted have helped fuel a race to harvest them, particularly among countries such as the United States, China, and Brazil.

Experts point to Bayan Obo, a mining district in Inner Mongolia dubbed "the rare-earth capital of the world," which could be mined out in 50 years, and they are eyeing untapped sources like the Amazon, and even the asteroids in our solar system.

Klinger, whose research on rare earths and the geopolitics surrounding them will be published in the forthcoming book Rare Earth Frontiers, is less concerned. For one thing, she says, rare earths are not rare.

While the elements were believed to be scarce when they were discovered in Sweden in the 18th century, they are in fact "remarkably well distributed in the Earth's crust. We could go dig along the banks of the Charles River in Boston and probably find some traces of them," she says.

According to Klinger, rare earths make up almost one-fifth of naturally occurring elements, and are more than twice as abundant as copper in the Earth's crust. And we don't gobble them nearly as quickly as we have with copper.

That's because rare earths are to technology what baking soda is to chocolate chip cookies: a little goes a long way. According to a report from Adamas Intelligence, which publishes research on metals and mining, global consumption of rare earths was just over 120,000 metric tons in 2014, compared to copper at nearly 22 million metric tons.

What does concern Klinger is a "structural scarcity" of rare earths. Only one country—China—produces the vast majority of the elements, and while China's resources are abundant, they're not limitless, as concerns over Bayan Obo's supply show.

Klinger says the space race, in part attributed to the quest for rare earths, is really driven by political agendas—a chance for countries and companies to stake a claim to previously protected territories, gaining wealth and power in the process.

Her research has uncovered many historical examples of countries engaging in high-stakes brinkmanship involving rare earths, and she says some global players may be gearing up to do the same again. Such posturing is unnecessary, says Klinger.

A better way to keep our computers portable without sabotaging international relations or strip-mining asteroids would be to change the way we currently harvest rare earths. Another may be to stop calling them rare.

Klinger believes there are better ways to maintain a steady production of rare earths than cutting down rainforest or launching heavy machinery into space. First, she says, China's efforts to reduce production should be supported—that would broaden the market and relieve the country's environmental burden.

After the 2010 panic sparked by China's export restrictions, the World Trade Organization ruled against China's rare earth export quotas, further cementing the country's near monopoly and, says Klinger, contributing to "highly uneven global production done in a way that's devastating" to the environment—and people.

She has seen the effects firsthand at Bayan Obo. "The heavy metals, fluorine, and arsenic accumulated in the town's soil and water from decades of mining have slowly poisoned nearby residents and their livestock," Klinger wrote in the Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies in 2013. "Some true locals are tragically recognisable by their blistered skin and discolored teeth."

That doesn't mean Klinger wants to spread the health problems around. "We don't need to dig new holes in the ground," she says. She would like the industry to "change the paradigm of how we get resources" by following the example of the Brazilian firm CBMM, which has a global monopoly in niobium, an element used mainly in steel and other alloys.

That company developed technology to extract rare earths from existing mining waste. Klinger says that, with research, the technology could work in other sites—such as silver or phosphate mines—whose waste includes rare earths.

That would require publicity and investment, along with public pressure and tax incentives to encourage major buyers to pay a premium for greener rare earths, but it could nudge more companies to adopt more innovative and sustainable methods.