Wind and solar power also mean there is a sudden demand for tons
of rare earth elements that weren't terribly important a decade ago.
Surface mining
for rare earth elements used in smartphones and wind turbines is difficult and rarely done in the United States.
Part of that research explored methods for
extracting rare earth elements from ores found outside of China and for recovering those elements from recycled materials.
Whether it's research on the extraction of
rare earth elements from acid mine drainage, biomass growth and conversion, improving renewable energy technology, or enhancing processes that enable us to better utilize our natural resources, we are proud to be a driving force behind the responsible development of our energy resources.
Researchers at state universities in the Southeast are closing in on whether one of the region's biggest liabilities — coal mine waste — might become a valuable asset by
supplying rare earth elements needed for clean energy and other applications.
If any of these technologies is implemented on the scale required to significantly reduce carbon emissions, demand for
certain rare earth elements will almost inevitably exceed current supply — and quite probably known reserves.
Working there, the pair has created the novel method for processing drive units and electric motors to chemically
separate rare earth elements — specifically neodymium, dysprosium, and praseodymium — from other materials used to make the devices.
«We're hoping that starts to change and that the United States becomes less dependent on foreign countries to
recover rare earth elements.»
«Technologies for production and storage of renewables depend
on rare earth elements like neodymium in wind or lithium in electric car batteries.
The new alloy — a potential replacement for high - performance permanent magnets found in automobile engines and wind turbines — eliminates the use of one of the scarcest and
costliest rare earth elements, dysprosium, and instead uses cerium, the most abundant rare earth.
We also participate in the the Critical Materials Institute Energy Innovation Hub to develop novel surface chemistries for
rare earth element recovery.
Its gold projects include Essakane, Rosebel, Westwood, Mouska, Côté as
well Rare Earth Elements projects all in Canada; Boto project in Senegel and Pitangui Project in Brazil.
Observations Regarding Past and Potential Future Mining and Its Impacts At Bokan Mountain, Prince of Wales Island, Alaska: Potential
Rare Earth Element Mining and Uranium Mine Remediation.
China can do this because they have undercut all the world's production of
rare earth elements with low wages, low currency and no environmental enforcement.
Sales volume actually increased slightly, as did base pricing, but differences in exchange rates and a decline in what it can charge for
rare earth elements outweighed those improvements, the company said.
The United States still holds about 13 million metric tons of
rare earth elements according to the US Geological Survey but these supplies have yet to be exploited.
Geologists actually mapping the country's mineral bounty suspect its prime cache of
coveted rare earth elements is considerably larger than the latest estimate lets on
The principles of reduce, replace and recycle must be applied at every stage to ensure we
utilise rare earth elements efficiently, substitute more common materials where possible and design products to be dismantled and recycled.
There are 17
rare earths elements used in electric cars, wind turbines, mobile phones, computers and hundreds of other products.
Ultimately, the scarcity of
rare earth elements comes down to our own short - sightedness and the apparent low cost of business as usual — dig it up, use it, discard it.
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.
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.
But it takes several years to start or restart a mine and demand for
several rare earth elements — notably neodymium, europium, terbium and dysprosium — is forecast to outpace supply in the near term, according to a 2010 report by the British Geological Survey.
The new lamp avoids those issues because it was fabricated with a solid - state phosphor made from a thin film of KMgF3, which is easy to make, avoids the use of toxic gasses and does not require
expensive rare earth elements.
Time is short — already global corporations are moving in, from oil companies like BP and Shell to miners like India's iron giant ArcelorMittal, not to mention Australian company Greenland Minerals
chasing rare earth elements.
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — February 4, 2016 — Southern Research is using $ 1 million in federal funding to develop and test a method to extract
valuable rare earth elements (REEs) from coal fly ash, the minuscule waste particles captured by anti-pollution devices in coal - fired power plants.
NETL plans to select no more than four of these projects for around $ 6.5 million in Phase 2 funding, which targets technology that will lead to the economical recovery of
rare earth elements at scale.
Oxygen isotope analysis and
rare earth element composition are only two of many other tests that a stone might have to undergo to be classified if it is a Martian or a Lunar meteorite.
A new rare - earth magnet recycling process developed by researchers at the Critical Materials Institute (CMI) dissolves magnets in an acid - free solution and recovers high
purity rare earth elements.
As some of the excitement
around rare earth elements seems to have abated since the heady highs of fall 2009, we decided to re-visit this very small but intriguing sector of the market with an expert in Clean Technology / Alternative Energy, Dr. Jon Hykawy of Byron Capital Markets.
Black Ops II is set in 2025, where China and the United States are locked in a new cold war, after China bans the export of
rare earth elements following a cyberattack, which crippled the Chinese Stock Market.
The Lakes can not ecologically tolerate industrial turbines with hundreds of gallons of oil and lubricants,
toxic rare earth elements, and non-recyclable carbon fibre blades.
The answer lies in whether the University of Kentucky, Virginia Tech and West Virginia University, working with federal energy laboratories, a few coal companies and large manufacturers, can identify ways and locations to economically extract and
process rare earth elements from the waste streams left over from mining coal throughout Appalachia and Western Kentucky.
«Adding
certain rare earth elements to the mix attracts impurities,» says John Perepezko, a materials science and engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
«Our innovative development work to
recover rare earth elements and metals such as lithium from waste streams has the potential to deliver significant and long - lasting benefits,» said Bill Grieco, vice president of Southern Research's Energy & Environment division.
The new molecule, described in Chemistry — A European Journal, contains carbon, nickel, chlorine, nitrogen, and molybdenum, but lacks the
costly rare earth elements that have bedeviled efforts to commercialize super-strong new magnets.
In an effort to help develop a sustainable domestic supply
of rare earth elements and lessen the United States» dependence on China for materials that are vital to the production of electronics, wind turbines, and many other technologies, two researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) have developed a method of extracting rare earths from the drive units and motors of discarded electric and hybrid cars.