Rare earths have become integral to the manufacture of many carbon-neutral technologies — plus a whole host of tools that move the modern world.
Source: E. DEADY/GLOBAL RARE EARTH ELEMENT MINES, DEPOSITS AND OCCURRENCES/BRITISH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 2021
Half a world away, another environmental disaster was unfolding. The vast majority — between 80 and 90 percent — of rare earth elements on the market since the 1990s have come from China. One site alone, the massive Bayan Obo mine in Inner Mongolia, accounted for 45 percent of rare earth production in 2019.
The country’s rare earth industry was causing “severe damage to the ecological environment,” China’s State Council wrote in 2010. The release of heavy metals and other pollutants during mining led to “the destruction of vegetation and pollution of surface water, groundwater and farmland.” The “excessive rare earth mining,” the council wrote, led to landslides and clogged rivers.
Mount Weld didn’t have anywhere near the same sort of environmental impact seen in China: Its location was too remote and the mine was just a fraction of the size of Bayan Obo, according to Saleem Ali, an environmental planner at the University of Delaware. The United States, meanwhile, was eager to once again have its own source of rare earths — and Mountain Pass was still the best prospect.
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