Are We Losing the Race for Rare Earths?
Are We Losing the Race for Rare Earths?
November 20, 2012
Eric Hannis is senior fellow in defense studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C.
The United States, like most of the industrialized world, is currently engaged in a race to develop viable, non-Chinese sources of the rare earth elements that are so critical to modern technologies. And we better move fast, or we will lose that race.
Why are rare earths so important? Everything from smartphones to iPods to missile systems requires rare earths. Almost every piece of high tech gadgetry contains some combination of rare earths to make volumes louder, E-mails vibrate, and bombs able to hit their targets. Nations that control rare earth production own one of the most capable economic and national security levers in the modern world. Over the last quarter century, that lever has been controlled overwhelmingly by China.
....and it continues
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2012/11/20/the-us-needs-rare-earth-independence-from-china