By Clay Dillow Posted 09.20.2010 at 11:48 am 11 Comments

Neodymium Images of Elements via Wikimedia

Rare earth elements have received a good deal of attention lately, not least because they are indeed very rare, and the country holding most known reserves – China – is gobbling them up faster than it can mine them, leaving few leftovers for export. But now Boeing has announced a deal to deploy its remote sensing technology to map out possible U.S. deposits of rare earth elements in an effort to rebuild a domestic supply chain for U.S. industry.

Rare earth minerals are crucial for everything from high-tech computing hardware to cell phones to military tech. Some estimates suggest China holds as much as 97 percent of the planet’s rare earth oxides, but even with those vast holdings the nation recently cut back on exports to feed its own insatiable demand for the stuff.

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Science, Clay Dillow, boeing, energy, environment, rare earth elements, rare earth oxides, rare earth shortage, remote sensing satellites
Meanwhile, new rare earth mines are planned in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Africa, but operations won’t be up and running for a few years. During that time, Boeing’s remote sensing technology will hopefully be able to confirm the existence of both “light” and “heavy” rare earth deposits in places like Idaho and Montana, where earlier sampling has shown concentrations of some valuable rare earth elements.

Boeing’s proprietary technology can be deployed from overhead via airplanes or satellites, scanning wide swaths of the ground for electromagnetic signatures that suggest the presence of certain substances like neodymium. The highly magnetic element is used in everything from hard drives to hybrid cars to fighter jets, and securing reserves of the stuff is essential to future industrial advances in everything from computing to alternative energy.

Put another way, we need rare earth elements to move forward with a lot of the technologies that are widely considered to be the future, be they wind turbines, cleaner-burning cars, or smart electrical grids. Which explains Boeing’s enthusiasm for joining the search; Boeing builds everything from airliners to satellites to fighter jets, not to mention many of the high-tech flight, targeting, and navigation systems therein. In fact, though Boeing isn’t saying much about the technology, there’s a good chance the very sensing tech being used to search for rare earth elements is itself chock full of rare earth elements.

That fact isn’t lost on companies like Boeing. Re-establishing a domestic supply chain of rare earths won’t take place overnight, but with so much skin in the game there’s a good chance American industry will figure out how to get it done.

[TechNewsDaily]

11 Comments

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old-scratch
09/20/10 at 12:12 pm

learn to speak Chinese. . ..soon.

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Delkomatic
09/20/10 at 1:13 pm

Bah Chinese need to learn to speak better English...You under estimate the resolve of American...well I think you know where I am going with this. Americans will do what it takes when it takes it to do it.

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Delkomatic
09/20/10 at 1:13 pm

Bah Chinese need to learn to speak better English...You under estimate the resolve of American...well I think you know where I am going with this. Americans will do what it takes when it takes it to do it.

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alias007
09/20/10 at 1:15 pm

Commander Data: "Captain, long range scans are showing high levels of Titanium in the Eastern-most region of those mountains."

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Astromarine
09/20/10 at 1:30 pm

This is a neat near term solution, but if we don't want to stay forever at the late 20th-early 21st-century level of civilization we seriously need to start mining space resources in the mid and of course long term.

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ralphrabbets
09/20/10 at 1:39 pm

Mine the asteroid belt?

I bet China havn't thought of that...(not like they can pull it of anyway)

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TheFourth
09/20/10 at 3:29 pm

Cool! Because if you're going to rape something, you need to do it the right way!

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jeditalian
09/20/10 at 4:45 pm

chinese couldn't pull it off? what do you think would happen if everyone in china were to play DDR simultaneously?
of course we could always use Remote viewing/sensing with humans if we didn't have Boeing.

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Oakspar77777
09/21/10 at 8:25 am

Rare earths are great, but America's wealth is based, not on technology, but on the fact that we grow 1/3 of the world's food with 5% of the world's population.

Unfortunately, that food production is based on the use of carbon fuels (fertilizer, pesticide, irrigation, and mass processing) and alternative energy only remove carbon fuels from irrigation and processing.

So, by the time we NEED rare earths for a renewable energy culture, food production will be valuable enough to offset the cost.

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trireme
09/21/10 at 9:00 pm

The problem with rare earths is not that no one else has them, it's that the low price of Chinese ores has put other mining companies out of business. Once China can no longer meet the global demand, prices will rise, and mining in other countries will become profitable again. Perhaps this Boeing technology will reduce the costs for US companies, making them more competitive again.

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Dustin2127
09/22/10 at 9:57 pm

I agree with above posters, not going into space for rare earths will be the cause of technological stagnation.



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