Quote:
Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy
Is there such a thing as “ethically sourced” rare earth metals? Aren’t they all from some variety of slave or child labor?
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Here is a download for you. No, I'm not in the mining business, but I invest from time to time in the companies.
Currently most rare earth ore is mined in China, Australia, US, India, Malaysia, various other countries, and - this is the important part -
all shipped to China for processing to refined rare earth materials. China totally dominates the processing of rare earth ore and thus the supply of refined rare earth material - like >95% share. China also mines the majority of rare earth ore, but that is mostly because it has the processing facilities, not because it has the majority of rare earth deposits. Rare earth deposits are all over the world, they aren't particularly "rare" in that sense.
Chinese rare earth mining and processing doesn't use slave/child labor (at least, its not thought to be a big part of the operations, though there could be a sprinkling of it), but it is
environmentally very damaging - which is part of how China dominated the market, the government was willing to heavily pollute its own land and water and other countries were happy to let it do so.
Some Australian and US companies are building rare earth
processing facilities. Lynas has these facilities in Malaysia and Australia, and MP Materials has these in California. They are doing the processing in a way that isn't as polluting as what the Chinese are doing, and some new processing methods are being developed that are even less environmentally damaging, those will probably be used by the Australian and US companies.
So the West is making
pretty good progress at reducing its dependence on China for processed rare earths, and governments have supported the companies with all sorts of grants (many from defense department sources, for obvious reasons).
EXCEPT that the West has, as far as I can tell,
done nothing to address the other way that China controls the market, which is that periodically China will dump rare earths on the global market, drive the price down, and hold it there until the Western companies go out of business or pull back on expansion projects. It does this about once a decade.
You would think that the West (US, Japan, Europe, etc) would have placed
import controls or targeted tariffs or anti-dumping penalties on Chinese rare earth producers, to prevent China from doing this. However, it hasn't - in the US, neither party has ever taken any effective steps, and that includes Trump and Biden. Why - I don't know, but I'd guess the companies that use rare earth materials have whined about raising their costs, and those are a lot bigger and louder companies than the very small companies trying to produce rare earths.
Disclosure - I bought some Lynas and some MP a few months ago, betting that trade wars will be good for these stocks. Owned them for a while a few years ago too.
P.S. I see mention of cobalt etc. That is not a "rare earth". Nothing I said above applies to cobalt, or lithium either. I'm talking only about rare earths - neodynium, dysprosium, cerium, praseodymium, etc.