Rare Earth Elements (REE) 

Discussion: Rare Earth Elements

• A Swedish mining company has identified more than 1 million tonnes of rare earth oxides in the country’s far north, the largest known such deposit in Europe.

About Rare Earth Elements

• These are a set of 17 metallic elements.
  • These include the 15 lanthanides on the periodic table plus Scandium and Yttrium.
• REEs are classified as light RE elements (LREE) and heavy RE elements (HREE).
• 17 metallic elements are lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium, scandium, yttrium.
• They are called rare because it was difficult to extract them from their oxide’s forms.
• China alone accounts for 44 million tonnes of reserves followed by Vietnam, Brazil and Russia.

Significance of Rare Earth Elements

• These have unique magnetic, luminescent, and electrochemical properties.
• These are necessary components, especially for high-tech consumer products, such as cellular telephones, computer hard drives, and flat screen monitors and televisions.
• They’re also used in electric car motors(neodymium), lithium-ion batteries, solar panels, wind turbines (neodymium and dysprosium) and to transitioning to a clean-tech-driven economy.
• Scandium is used in televisions and fluorescent lamps, and yttrium is used in drugs to treat rheumatoid arthritis and cancer.
• Used in space shuttle components, jet engine turbines, and drones. E.g., Cerium is essential to NASA’s Space Shuttle Programme.

What Does The Discovery Mean For Europe And The World?

• Relief to western countries against the backdrop of the fraught relations between China and other western countries
• Breaking Chinese monopoly: Globally, China holds a monopoly over rare earths production, following the withdrawal of USA from this business due to environmental and health issues.
• Boost to Minerals Security Partnership (MSP)
  • In August 2022, US and 10 other Partners came together for this alliance known as MSP.
    • Partners include Canada, Australia, Finland, Germany, France, Japan, Republic of Korea, Sweden, UK, US, and European Commission.
  • The goal of the MSP is to ensure that critical minerals (Cobalt, Nickel, Lithium etc and also the 17 “rare earth” minerals) are produced, processed, and recycled in a manner that supports the ability of countries to realize the full economic development benefit of their geological endowments.
  • The alliance was seen as primarily focused on evolving an alternative to China.