Now, you've probably heard people
00:00
talking recently about rare earths, rare
00:01
earth elements. But you might be
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wondering to yourself, well, what are
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they? How much of a big deal are they?
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And should we be worried about them?
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Well, over the course of the next few
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minutes, we're going to go through that.
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We'll start with that question of what
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are they? And, you know, do we actually
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kind of encounter them? Do you encounter
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them in your everyday life? The short
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answer, spoiler, yes. This is the
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periodic table. You might well recognize
00:21
it. Where are the rare earth elements?
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Well, look, it's this kind of area here.
00:26
So, look at that. There there they all
00:28
are all lined up kind of obscure. You
00:30
know, no one's talking all that much
00:33
about scandium or itrium or neodymium or
00:35
at least until they were they were not
00:39
talking about it much until a few years
00:40
ago. But this is all really important
00:41
stuff. And the reason that rare earths
00:44
matter, it's not so much because of what
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they do on their own. It's because of
00:48
what they do when combined with other
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materials. So you add them to an alloy
00:52
and it makes things stronger. It makes
00:54
it more heat resistant. It makes magnets
00:56
more powerful. Let me just kind of give
00:58
you an example of that. I mean, so, so
00:59
three tangible places where you're going
01:01
to see quite a lot of rare earths. Um,
01:02
fighter jets, this is particularly the
01:05
kind of defense side of it. Fighter
01:06
jets, you're talking about kind of 418
01:07
kg in an F-35 fighter jet. Type 51
01:09
destroyer, 2.6 tons of rare earths uh in
01:13
them. Something like a Virginia class
01:16
submarine, 4.6 tons of rare earths in
01:18
there. Now, all of that seems kind of,
01:22
you know, obviously important but quite
01:24
abstract. But there's another place
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where we all see it in our everyday
01:28
lives and that is magnets. So neodymium
01:29
when it's added to boron and iron is
01:33
basically the best magnet in the world.
01:35
I'll show you a kind of reason for that
01:37
in a moment. But um you might be
01:38
wondering so where is it in your life?
01:40
Well if you have something like this so
01:42
some earbuds you've got neodymium.
01:44
You're dependent on neodymium because
01:47
you need really powerful magnets to
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create speakers that are so tiny tiny as
01:52
the ones in here. And also by the way
01:54
when I take this here are the little
01:56
things that wouldn't you wouldn't have
01:58
that without rare earth. When you close
01:59
that you get that satisfying snap that
02:01
is also neodymium iron boron magnets. So
02:03
rare earth may may seem abstract but
02:07
actually it's in all of our lives. Uh
02:09
and it's elsewhere as well basically
02:11
pretty much any electronic device uh
02:13
these days and you know in your car. So
02:14
in your car for instance think about
02:17
sitting in your car the seat controls.
02:19
So being able to lift that seat to move
02:21
that seat forward and backwards if it's
02:22
electronic. Well, that is a it's it's a
02:24
motor. It's a little rare earth motor
02:26
being able to raise electric windows and
02:28
close them. Again, that's rare earth
02:30
magnets going in there, making that
02:32
function. And airbags, there are even
02:33
rare earths in airbags as well. In other
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words, if you can't get rare earths,
02:38
then you're in trouble. And it's not
02:40
just inside cars as well. I mean, think
02:42
about like a car factory. The motors
02:43
that go into robots, that's rare earths
02:45
as well. You need those really powerful
02:48
magnets to make them work. And it's not
02:50
just that as well as within EVs. Okay,
02:52
so this is an EV motor. You can see the
02:56
copper there. Those are the kind of
02:58
copper uh windings. But inside most EV
02:59
motors, you have a lot of magnets as
03:03
well. And those magnets are rare earth
03:04
magnets. So it's all invisible, but it's
03:07
really important. And when I talk about
03:10
those magnets, just give you a sense of
03:12
why this is kind of important. What this
03:13
is showing you. So, the higher these
03:16
bars are, the more powerful, the more
03:18
magnetic power you're getting from
03:19
different types of magnets. And you've
03:21
got a range of different kind of
03:22
elements and compounds uh and in recipes
03:24
for magnets there. These are
03:27
conventional magnets. Now, look at rare
03:28
earth magnets. Just look at how much
03:32
more powerful they are than the other
03:34
type. And that's the point. Magnets are
03:36
incredibly important for any kind of
03:38
motion, for any speakers, for
03:40
microphones, for anything else. Uh and
03:42
we need quite a lot of them. But
03:45
actually the scale of what we're talking
03:47
about is not enormous. You only need
03:48
quite a small amount of rare earths to
03:50
make something function really well. And
03:52
another good example of that is consider
03:54
a jet engine. So the blades in a jet
03:56
engine, they need to function at a
03:58
temperature that is higher than the
04:01
metal's melting point. If you can get
04:03
that into your head. Um, and in order to
04:05
do that, they need what's known as anria
04:07
stabilized zuconia uh film on the
04:10
outside. And that enables them not to
04:13
melt. So no rare earths and itrium is a
04:15
rare earth. No rare earths and you just
04:18
don't have jet engines, at least modern
04:20
jet engines. So this is incredibly
04:22
essential. It's it's part of the bedrock
04:24
of how we make civilization work these
04:26
days. And if you're looking at just what
04:29
the functions of these rare earths are.
04:31
So so we talked about jet engines a
04:33
moment ago. That would come in the the
04:35
metallergy section of things. There's,
04:36
you know, glass polishing, ceramics,
04:38
catalysts as well. So it goes into
04:39
catalytic converters. But magnets is by
04:41
far and away. This is just looking at
04:44
the volume of rare earths coming out out
04:46
of the ground. Magnets is by far in the
04:47
way the biggest and actually when you
04:49
look at the value so the amount that
04:50
people are spending on rare earths
04:52
across the uh the planet the majority of
04:54
that is magnets. So it's magnets that
04:57
are going into motors for the most place
04:59
uh as well as things like speakers and
05:01
airpods and so on. And here's where the
05:03
political side of things comes in.
05:06
Because when you're looking at where
05:08
these rare earths are coming out of the
05:09
ground, the vast majority come out of
05:11
the ground in China. 69% of the total uh
05:14
of of the volume mined out of the
05:18
ground, the oxides uh comes from China.
05:20
And actually that's 69%. But then when
05:22
you consider the processing, so the
05:24
post-processing stuff, because most of
05:27
most of the the rare earths are then
05:29
turned into products in China, actually
05:30
91% of global supplies is Chinese. And
05:33
that's not just the case, by the way,
05:37
for rare earth. Look at things like
05:38
copper. Look at lithium, manganese,
05:40
graphite, cobalt. China is really
05:42
dominant in all of this. They have
05:44
decided years ago that they wanted to be
05:45
dominant in these supply chains. and not
05:47
just the supply chains but also making
05:49
the stuff afterwards. So graphite's
05:51
there. They also want to be the dominant
05:53
player when it comes to making the
05:55
anodess that go into batteries. That's
05:56
why they're in graphite, cobalt for
05:57
batteries as well. Manganesees too,
05:59
lithium, copper as well. So that is, you
06:01
know, it's part of this bigger story
06:04
about Chinese dominance. But here's
06:05
where there are a few kind of myths that
06:07
are worth busting. The first of them is
06:08
that despite the name, rare earths
06:10
aren't actually that rare. So there's
06:13
quite a lot of these elements in bits of
06:15
the ground. You know, actually if you if
06:18
you pull a chunk of rock of earth out of
06:19
the ground, you will find some rare
06:21
earth elements in there, albeit in small
06:22
quantities. But even when you look at
06:24
decent ores, well, China, yes, has a
06:26
lot, 44 million tons, but there's a lot
06:28
of it also in Brazil, and they're not
06:31
really mining much of it at the moment
06:32
in Brazil. Uh there's a lot in India,
06:33
there's a lot in Australia as well, 6
06:36
million tons in Australia. Now, most of
06:37
those countries aren't doing all that
06:40
much in the way of mining. Most of it's
06:41
happening in China. Why is that? Well,
06:43
let's just kind of zoom in and focus on
06:46
the biggest of all the mines in China.
06:49
So, that's Bayan Obo. It's just in kind
06:51
of Inner Mongolia uh there in China. And
06:53
have a look at this mine. Okay, we're
06:55
going to kind of zoom out uh or zoom in
06:57
there and have a look at how much this
06:59
mine has expanded in recent years. And
07:01
you're going to notice other things as
07:04
well. So, this is the primary mining
07:05
site. This is back in 2001.
07:06
And look at what happened in the
07:09
intervening years. Okay. So, you can see
07:10
2006, you've got these excavations
07:13
happening over there to the west. And
07:15
now, keep your eye on this area here.
07:18
And we'll zoom on. We'll kind of fast
07:20
forward to the present day. Look at
07:22
that. So, this has been an enormous
07:24
expansion. And you have a whole new
07:27
mining area over there. This place is
07:28
pumping out basically most of the
07:31
world's rare earths in China. And the
07:32
other thing you'll probably have noticed
07:35
looking at it is look at all of these
07:36
tailing dams where the waste is being
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disposed of. Producing rare earths is a
07:40
really dirty process. It is really
07:44
dirty. It's really hard to do basically
07:46
because you're having to do about 100
07:48
different processes to go from the ore
07:49
to that final metal that you're turning
07:51
into magnets. And to give you a sense of
07:54
that, okay, so this is showing you the
07:56
amount of carbon emissions from various
07:57
different metal processing. And you
07:59
you're probably familiar with the fact
08:01
that making steel is really carbon
08:02
intensive. You know, think of all those
08:04
blast furnaces. Well, that's steel
08:05
there. It's actually quite small in
08:07
comparison with other things like copper
08:09
and nickel and aluminium at least per
08:11
weight uh per amount of kilogram that
08:13
you're producing. But now compare all of
08:16
that to neodymium which is that that
08:18
kind of key rare earth in all of those
08:20
magnets. And look at that. Boy, I mean
08:22
there is more carbon emissions that
08:25
coming per kilogram of rare earths than
08:27
any other metal in the world. It is
08:29
really dirty to produce. And one of the
08:31
upshots of that is everyone else out
08:33
there with the you know all of their
08:36
carbon targets has said well we just
08:38
don't want to do this in our countries.
08:40
So now it is mostly happening in China
08:42
and it's happening at scale as you saw a
08:44
moment ago and it's happening at such a
08:46
scale that China is able to produce
08:48
these things at a far lower cost than
08:50
almost anyone else in the world. Well
08:52
actually clear by far and away anyone
08:54
else in the world. This is just showing
08:56
you a couple of examples. Dsposium and
08:57
turbium two rare earths rare earth
08:58
elements. Look at how much Chinese
09:01
prices are. And now let's compare that
09:03
with European prices because there are
09:05
some producers outside uh of China. But
09:06
just look at how much more expensive it
09:10
is to get European rare earths versus
09:11
the Chinese stuff. And that's the issue.
09:14
Stuff like those earbuds are cheap right
09:17
now because you can get cheap Chinese
09:20
rare earths but is produced with all
09:22
these carbon emissions at the same time.
09:23
But people aren't thinking about all
09:26
this. They are thinking about it a bit
09:27
more now though because China has
09:29
basically said we are going to impose
09:30
restrictions on the rare earths coming
09:32
out of China. You're going to have to
09:33
sign up to get licenses. And as a
09:35
result, Donald Trump has said well no
09:37
not not happy with that. I'm going to
09:39
raise tariffs on you again. And so this
09:41
is where the the latest kind of state of
09:43
play this ever moving map of tariffs uh
09:45
that the US is imposing on other
09:47
countries around the world. You'll
09:49
recall not re not that long ago uh it
09:50
said there were going to be secondary
09:53
tariffs on India for all of the the
09:54
refining it's doing of Russian gas uh
09:56
Russian oil rather. Now Donald Trump has
09:58
said there's going to be an extra 100%
10:00
tariff on China. We'll have to see
10:02
whether that eventually happens. But
10:05
this trade war we've been talking about
10:07
a lot recently seems like it might be
10:08
back on again. But finally, I just want
10:10
to kind of raise that question. So,
10:13
China is doing that with rare earths.
10:14
It's limiting this critical ingredient
10:16
that no one else is producing. And that
10:18
raises a question. Is there anything
10:21
similar that the US could do? And here's
10:22
something interesting. Okay, so we'll go
10:25
back to that map. Okay, so there's
10:26
China. That's where the rare earths are.
10:28
Swing across to the US and there's
10:29
somewhere called Spruce Pine. It's
10:33
another mining site. It's in North
10:34
Carolina. They don't produce rare earths
10:36
here, but they produce something perhaps
10:38
even more special in there. They are
10:40
mining what's known as ultra high purity
10:42
quartz. And this is a type of basically
10:45
sand, really pure sand that you need to
10:48
make the wafers that go into silicon
10:51
chips. If you don't have this place, you
10:54
don't have silicon chips or solar
10:56
panels. So perhaps one thing, who knows
10:58
that the US may end up thinking about is
11:02
whether it can do the same thing that
11:04
China is doing with its mine on the
11:06
other side of the world with this
11:07
critical ingredient. But who knows? What
11:09
we do know is that we're on a roller
11:12
coaster and there's going to be more of
11:14
this stuff in the coming months.
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