– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

Now, you've probably heard people

talking recently about rare earths, rare

earth elements. But you might be

wondering to yourself, well, what are

they? How much of a big deal are they?

And should we be worried about them?

Well, over the course of the next few

minutes, we're going to go through that.

We'll start with that question of what

are they? And, you know, do we actually

kind of encounter them? Do you encounter

them in your everyday life? The short

answer, spoiler, yes. This is the

periodic table. You might well recognize

it. Where are the rare earth elements?

Well, look, it's this kind of area here.

So, look at that. There there they all

are all lined up kind of obscure. You

know, no one's talking all that much

about scandium or itrium or neodymium or

at least until they were they were not

talking about it much until a few years

ago. But this is all really important

stuff. And the reason that rare earths

matter, it's not so much because of what

they do on their own. It's because of

what they do when combined with other

materials. So you add them to an alloy

and it makes things stronger. It makes

it more heat resistant. It makes magnets

more powerful. Let me just kind of give

you an example of that. I mean, so, so

three tangible places where you're going

to see quite a lot of rare earths. Um,

fighter jets, this is particularly the

kind of defense side of it. Fighter

jets, you're talking about kind of 418

kg in an F-35 fighter jet. Type 51

destroyer, 2.6 tons of rare earths uh in

them. Something like a Virginia class

submarine, 4.6 tons of rare earths in

there. Now, all of that seems kind of,

you know, obviously important but quite

abstract. But there's another place

where we all see it in our everyday

lives and that is magnets. So neodymium

when it's added to boron and iron is

basically the best magnet in the world.

I'll show you a kind of reason for that

in a moment. But um you might be

wondering so where is it in your life?

Well if you have something like this so

some earbuds you've got neodymium.

You're dependent on neodymium because

you need really powerful magnets to

create speakers that are so tiny tiny as

the ones in here. And also by the way

when I take this here are the little

things that wouldn't you wouldn't have

that without rare earth. When you close

that you get that satisfying snap that

is also neodymium iron boron magnets. So

rare earth may may seem abstract but

actually it's in all of our lives. Uh

and it's elsewhere as well basically

pretty much any electronic device uh

these days and you know in your car. So

in your car for instance think about

sitting in your car the seat controls.

So being able to lift that seat to move

that seat forward and backwards if it's

electronic. Well, that is a it's it's a

motor. It's a little rare earth motor

being able to raise electric windows and

close them. Again, that's rare earth

magnets going in there, making that

function. And airbags, there are even

rare earths in airbags as well. In other

words, if you can't get rare earths,

then you're in trouble. And it's not

just inside cars as well. I mean, think

about like a car factory. The motors

that go into robots, that's rare earths

as well. You need those really powerful

magnets to make them work. And it's not

just that as well as within EVs. Okay,

so this is an EV motor. You can see the

copper there. Those are the kind of

copper uh windings. But inside most EV

motors, you have a lot of magnets as

well. And those magnets are rare earth

magnets. So it's all invisible, but it's

really important. And when I talk about

those magnets, just give you a sense of

why this is kind of important. What this

is showing you. So, the higher these

bars are, the more powerful, the more

magnetic power you're getting from

different types of magnets. And you've

got a range of different kind of

elements and compounds uh and in recipes

for magnets there. These are

conventional magnets. Now, look at rare

earth magnets. Just look at how much

more powerful they are than the other

type. And that's the point. Magnets are

incredibly important for any kind of

motion, for any speakers, for

microphones, for anything else. Uh and

we need quite a lot of them. But

actually the scale of what we're talking

about is not enormous. You only need

quite a small amount of rare earths to

make something function really well. And

another good example of that is consider

a jet engine. So the blades in a jet

engine, they need to function at a

temperature that is higher than the

metal's melting point. If you can get

that into your head. Um, and in order to

do that, they need what's known as anria

stabilized zuconia uh film on the

outside. And that enables them not to

melt. So no rare earths and itrium is a

rare earth. No rare earths and you just

don't have jet engines, at least modern

jet engines. So this is incredibly

essential. It's it's part of the bedrock

of how we make civilization work these

days. And if you're looking at just what

the functions of these rare earths are.

So so we talked about jet engines a

moment ago. That would come in the the

metallergy section of things. There's,

you know, glass polishing, ceramics,

catalysts as well. So it goes into

catalytic converters. But magnets is by

far and away. This is just looking at

the volume of rare earths coming out out

of the ground. Magnets is by far in the

way the biggest and actually when you

look at the value so the amount that

people are spending on rare earths

across the uh the planet the majority of

that is magnets. So it's magnets that

are going into motors for the most place

uh as well as things like speakers and

airpods and so on. And here's where the

political side of things comes in.

Because when you're looking at where

these rare earths are coming out of the

ground, the vast majority come out of

the ground in China. 69% of the total uh

of of the volume mined out of the

ground, the oxides uh comes from China.

And actually that's 69%. But then when

you consider the processing, so the

post-processing stuff, because most of

most of the the rare earths are then

turned into products in China, actually

91% of global supplies is Chinese. And

that's not just the case, by the way,

for rare earth. Look at things like

copper. Look at lithium, manganese,

graphite, cobalt. China is really

dominant in all of this. They have

decided years ago that they wanted to be

dominant in these supply chains. and not

just the supply chains but also making

the stuff afterwards. So graphite's

there. They also want to be the dominant

player when it comes to making the

anodess that go into batteries. That's

why they're in graphite, cobalt for

batteries as well. Manganesees too,

lithium, copper as well. So that is, you

know, it's part of this bigger story

about Chinese dominance. But here's

where there are a few kind of myths that

are worth busting. The first of them is

that despite the name, rare earths

aren't actually that rare. So there's

quite a lot of these elements in bits of

the ground. You know, actually if you if

you pull a chunk of rock of earth out of

the ground, you will find some rare

earth elements in there, albeit in small

quantities. But even when you look at

decent ores, well, China, yes, has a

lot, 44 million tons, but there's a lot

of it also in Brazil, and they're not

really mining much of it at the moment

in Brazil. Uh there's a lot in India,

there's a lot in Australia as well, 6

million tons in Australia. Now, most of

those countries aren't doing all that

much in the way of mining. Most of it's

happening in China. Why is that? Well,

let's just kind of zoom in and focus on

the biggest of all the mines in China.

So, that's Bayan Obo. It's just in kind

of Inner Mongolia uh there in China. And

have a look at this mine. Okay, we're

going to kind of zoom out uh or zoom in

there and have a look at how much this

mine has expanded in recent years. And

you're going to notice other things as

well. So, this is the primary mining

site. This is back in 2001.

And look at what happened in the

intervening years. Okay. So, you can see

2006, you've got these excavations

happening over there to the west. And

now, keep your eye on this area here.

And we'll zoom on. We'll kind of fast

forward to the present day. Look at

that. So, this has been an enormous

expansion. And you have a whole new

mining area over there. This place is

pumping out basically most of the

world's rare earths in China. And the

other thing you'll probably have noticed

looking at it is look at all of these

tailing dams where the waste is being

disposed of. Producing rare earths is a

really dirty process. It is really

dirty. It's really hard to do basically

because you're having to do about 100

different processes to go from the ore

to that final metal that you're turning

into magnets. And to give you a sense of

that, okay, so this is showing you the

amount of carbon emissions from various

different metal processing. And you

you're probably familiar with the fact

that making steel is really carbon

intensive. You know, think of all those

blast furnaces. Well, that's steel

there. It's actually quite small in

comparison with other things like copper

and nickel and aluminium at least per

weight uh per amount of kilogram that

you're producing. But now compare all of

that to neodymium which is that that

kind of key rare earth in all of those

magnets. And look at that. Boy, I mean

there is more carbon emissions that

coming per kilogram of rare earths than

any other metal in the world. It is

really dirty to produce. And one of the

upshots of that is everyone else out

there with the you know all of their

carbon targets has said well we just

don't want to do this in our countries.

So now it is mostly happening in China

and it's happening at scale as you saw a

moment ago and it's happening at such a

scale that China is able to produce

these things at a far lower cost than

almost anyone else in the world. Well

actually clear by far and away anyone

else in the world. This is just showing

you a couple of examples. Dsposium and

turbium two rare earths rare earth

elements. Look at how much Chinese

prices are. And now let's compare that

with European prices because there are

some producers outside uh of China. But

just look at how much more expensive it

is to get European rare earths versus

the Chinese stuff. And that's the issue.

Stuff like those earbuds are cheap right

now because you can get cheap Chinese

rare earths but is produced with all

these carbon emissions at the same time.

But people aren't thinking about all

this. They are thinking about it a bit

more now though because China has

basically said we are going to impose

restrictions on the rare earths coming

out of China. You're going to have to

sign up to get licenses. And as a

result, Donald Trump has said well no

not not happy with that. I'm going to

raise tariffs on you again. And so this

is where the the latest kind of state of

play this ever moving map of tariffs uh

that the US is imposing on other

countries around the world. You'll

recall not re not that long ago uh it

said there were going to be secondary

tariffs on India for all of the the

refining it's doing of Russian gas uh

Russian oil rather. Now Donald Trump has

said there's going to be an extra 100%

tariff on China. We'll have to see

whether that eventually happens. But

this trade war we've been talking about

a lot recently seems like it might be

back on again. But finally, I just want

to kind of raise that question. So,

China is doing that with rare earths.

It's limiting this critical ingredient

that no one else is producing. And that

raises a question. Is there anything

similar that the US could do? And here's

something interesting. Okay, so we'll go

back to that map. Okay, so there's

China. That's where the rare earths are.

Swing across to the US and there's

somewhere called Spruce Pine. It's

another mining site. It's in North

Carolina. They don't produce rare earths

here, but they produce something perhaps

even more special in there. They are

mining what's known as ultra high purity

quartz. And this is a type of basically

sand, really pure sand that you need to

make the wafers that go into silicon

chips. If you don't have this place, you

don't have silicon chips or solar

panels. So perhaps one thing, who knows

that the US may end up thinking about is

whether it can do the same thing that

China is doing with its mine on the

other side of the world with this

critical ingredient. But who knows? What

we do know is that we're on a roller

coaster and there's going to be more of

this stuff in the coming months.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
earths /ɜːrθs/ A2	noun - plural of earth, referring to the planet or soil
elements /ˈelɪmənts/ B1	noun - substances that cannot be broken down into simpler substances
magnets /ˈmæɡnɪts/ B1	noun - objects that attract iron or magnetic materials
rare /reər/ A2	adjective - not common or frequent
powerful /ˈpaʊərfəl/ B1	adjective - having great strength or energy
jets /dʒets/ B1	noun - aircraft powered by jet engines
speakers /ˈspiːkərz/ B1	noun - devices that produce sound
motors /ˈmoʊtərz/ B1	noun - machines that convert energy into mechanical motion
engines /ˈɛndʒɪnz/ B1	noun - machines that produce power
china /ˈtʃaɪnə/ A2	noun - a country in East Asia
mining /ˈmaɪnɪŋ/ B1	noun - the process of extracting minerals from the earth verb - to extract minerals from the earth
carbon /ˈkɑːrbən/ B2	noun - a chemical element (C) or related emissions
emissions /ɪˈmɪʃənz/ B2	noun - substances released into the atmosphere
scale /skeɪl/ B1	noun - the size or extent of something
quartz /kwɔːrts/ C1	noun - a hard mineral crystal
silicon /ˈsɪlɪkən/ C1	noun - a chemical element used in electronics