Just one of the REMs

So you’ve seen it in the headlines — the U.S. has uncovered an estimated $1 trillion worth of minerals in Afghanistan.  Besides iron and copper (largest mineral deposits discovered), there are deposits of niobium, a soft metal used in producing superconducting steel, lithium, gold, copper, and rare earth elements (REEs).¹

If your chemistry is as rusty as mine, here’s a brief run-down on REEs:
They are a family of 17 chemically similar metallic elements, including lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, europium and yttrium, used in nearly every electronic device² essential in building “green” technologies³ and necessary for military applications.⁴

That will satisfy some of you.  For readers looking for a little more detail on this subject, continue reading as we provide a rare (pun intended) in-depth explanation of a dinner topic.

Common abbreviations used when referring to rare earth materials:

• RE = rare earth
• REM = rare earth metals
• REE = rare earth elements
• REO = rare earth oxides
• LREE = light rare earth elements (La-Sm)
• HREE = heavy rare earth elements (Eu-Lu)

While REEs are relatively abundant in the earth’s crust, finding deposits significant enough to mine is less common. China has been the dominant provider (~95% of world’s supply) of rare earth materials since the 1990s by cornering the market with the sheer scale of their production. The extraction and refinement of rare earth metals can cost anywhere between $500 million to $1 billion per mine and separation plantaccording to Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist.

Due to increasing global demand and diminishing supply, China has been lowering its export quotas for rare-earth metals by about 6% annually since 2000 and are expected to completely ban the exportation of REEs by 2015.

Although China is the dominant provider, it has only ~54% of the world’s rare earth deposits. The U.S., Canada, and Australia have large known RE deposits and mining developments are underway in those countries.

Companies of note:

Molycorp Minerals LLC – Possessing one of the largest, richest RE mines in the world (Mountain Pass, CA), it was closed back in the late ’90s but is projected to re-open in 2011.
Avalon Rare Metals- 100%-owned Nechalacho Deposit (Thor Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada), these deposits contain the more valuable ‘heavy’ rare earths.
Lynas Corporation Limited- A concentration plant is scheduled for completion by the end of this year in Mt Weld, Western Australia.  A materials processing plant should start production in late 2011 in Kuantan, Malaysia.

Read on:
CBC.ca – Investors rush into rare earth element mining
Telegraph.co.uk – World faces hi-tech crunch as China eyes ban on rare metal exports
NaturalNews.com – Global supply of rare earth elements could be wiped out by 2012
MoneyTalks.net – An Impressive Rare Earth Discovery – in Canada
(image above taken from http://www.ctia.com.cn/TungstenNews/2009/14756.html)

Kissinger was the U.S. Secretary of State in the mid-70s for Nixon and Ford.  A Harvard grad, the German-born government employee was the one guy who came away from the Watergate scandal unscathed.  Foreign policy has always been Kissinger’s claim to fame, most notably when he helped ease the tension among the U.S., China, and the Soviet Union.  Kissinger’s negotiations led to treaties which helped reduce arms and made relations a little more civil among the major world powers.

Currently 86, Kissinger is still outspoken, sometimes to the point of controversy, and he is often consulted on foreign policy and diplomacy even to this day.  Not a year goes by that his name doesn’t come up in the news, and now you’ll be ready the next time you see a “Kissinger” in the headlines.

Read on:

USAToday.com – Kissinger released from hospital

Wikipedia – Henry Kissinger

• The New Jersey Nets have started the season 0-13 and are still waiting for their first win.
• The new Twilight movie made $72.7 million in its opening day, smashing the record previously held by The Dark Knight.
• Oprah announced that she is doing her show for one more year and stopping in 2011, 25 years after her debut.
• A Senate vote of 60-39 on Saturday means that the health care bill will be debated for weeks before a vote on the bill itself will occur, likely in December.
• Two NFL teams, the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts, are 9-0 heading into Week 11 tomorrow.  Both teams are on the road Sunday.
• Sarah Palin’s book (Going Rogue: An American Life) is #1 on the Amazon and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists.
• President Obama visited China recently, and unless you looked hard, you wouldn’t have known from the papers.  Talks with Chinese officials ranged from energy to military to a decrease in nuclear weapons.

The problems between China and Tibet are detailed are fascinating, but this dinner topic is about understanding who the heck the Dalai Lama is.  First of all, that’s not his birth name – it’s more of a title or name bestowed upon “the head of state and spiritual leader of the Tibetan people.” (Source: tibet.com)  Some other facts about the Dalai Lama you should know before getting into a conversation this weekend:

• The birth name of the current Dalai Lama is Lhamo Dhondrub, given a new, 7-word name once he became the Dalai Lama, ending with Tenzin Gyatso, which means ”ocean of wisdom.”¹
• The current Dalai Lama is the 14th spiritual leader of Tibet, was born in 1935, and was publicly declared the new Dalai Lama in 1939 (the previous Dalai Lama died in 1933).²
• The Dalai Lama is “chosen” after the previous one dies, sought out as the reincarnation of all preceding Dalai Lamas.  Despite this tradition, talk of a democratic election for the next Dalai Lama has been discussed.³
• He has won the Nobel Peace Prize and received the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal.

There are plenty more interesting things to read about the history of the Dalai Lama and Tibet, but the above should get you through a short conversation over drinks.

Read on:

Dalai Lama ban halts conference (bbc.co.uk)

Breaking down the 6.7 billion humanoids a little more, over 300 million people live in the United States, and that’s a very distant third to India (1.15 billion) and China (1.33 billion).  That’s right – over a third of the world’s population live in either India or China. 

Now you understand why large companies cater to China.  If you want to develop and sell a gadget, toy, widget, software, etc., it only makes sense to make it appeal to the country housing about 20% of the world.  It’s also common knowledge that many U.S. companies farm out jobs to India.  National loyalties aside, tapping into a country of over 1 billion people – many of them educated, qualified, and ready to work - it’s easy to see why so many jobs head “East.”

Bonus stats

• 4th most populated country: Indonesia (~237 million)
• Canada? 37th most populated country (~33 million)

All numbers approximated and taken from census.gov.

Read on:

Census.gov - countries ranked by population (2008)

Census.gov – U.S. POPClock (very interesting)