The problem with Rare Earth is that the West collectively acts like 3 year old who are to dumb to solve incredibly simple problems.
Rare earth contained lots of Thorium and that has to be handled as nuclear waste and that means you have 1000s of tons of nuclear waste on your hands. This is of course completely idiotic because Thorium not really a big problem as it is not radioactive.
The few Rare Earth mines that do exist only extract the lower group so you can avoid the Thorium.
Because the US drives policy for the whole West, there is basically no Rare Earth mining in the West.
China on the other hand understands that the more expensive rare earths are outside of China the more likely people will manufacture in China.
There was quite a bit of effort to change this and it got traction in congress because many people are really concerned that all US military equipment depends on rare earths from China.
Rare earth contained lots of Thorium and that has to be handled as nuclear waste and that means you have 1000s of tons of nuclear waste on your hands. This is of course completely idiotic because Thorium not really a big problem as it is not radioactive.
The few Rare Earth mines that do exist only extract the lower group so you can avoid the Thorium.
Because the US drives policy for the whole West, there is basically no Rare Earth mining in the West.
China on the other hand understands that the more expensive rare earths are outside of China the more likely people will manufacture in China.
There was quite a bit of effort to change this and it got traction in congress because many people are really concerned that all US military equipment depends on rare earths from China.
See:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7QNZ56j-HM
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxwF93wnRQo