Hi Dan, do not get easily distracted with news that confuses you more than enlight. Let's talk about facts and the facts are the following. In 2022, 97% of the BEV use rare earths. Why? As I told you before, it is the technology with better efficiency. Remember please that rare earths are not used in the battery (not the important ones at least, I know some lanthanum and cerium are used, but this is irrelevant). Rare Earths are used in magnets that go in the motor. So you have a sort of idea. The motor is around 12% of the cost of the electric car, but the battery is around 30%. If the motor allows you to be efficient on the most costly part of the car, this technology will not be easily replaced. It doesnt matter what type of battery will take the lead as the dominant design for the EVs, the fact is that they will always need an efficient motor to reduce other difficult to get and expensive critical materials such as nickel, lithium and graphite. I was just reading this article... short and to the point that magnets without rare earths will not replace high performance magnets.
And again, there will be many attempts to change the technology, but if that was possible in the foreseeable future governments wouldn't be investing so much in rare earths as they are.
- Neo performance materials received grant from european government (18.7million euros).
- Lynas was awarded $125m to build a HREE separation plant in the US
- MP was awarded $25m to build a HREE and $35m to build a LREE separation plant.
- Australia approved Aud 700m to iluka to build a top notch separation plant of rare earths in Australia
High performance magnets are essential for high performance applications (EVs, drones, e-planes, e-ships, e-trains, the last 3 still yet to be developed commercially). And as I told you before, the reduction of HREE in the magnets is positive to HREE projects, as we can now supply more electric cars than before. Finally, HREE are very scarce, mostly controlled by China and Myanmar (on 90% in supply, and 100% in separation), and that is why governments are worried that in the future, where demand will be higher than supply, China will prioritize the internal market and there won´t be efficient EVs for the other part of the World. This is the opportunity we are pursuing, and with our high environmental standards, we are very well position to take it, specially for the West.