# Researchers Looking for Rare Earth Alternatives



## EVDL Archive (Jul 26, 2007)

U.S. Energy Department to General Motors finding ways to reduce or eliminate use of the 17 rare earth metals.

More...


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## Snakub (Sep 8, 2008)

This story is kind of ambiguous are they looking to phase out the use of rare earths or just looking to the U.S. mines to reduce our dependency on China? I wonder if the U.S. really has reserves of these specific metals scandium,yttrium,lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium etc. Does anyone have any knowledge of what rare earths are used for in the production of EV's or cars in general?


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## rmay635703 (Oct 23, 2008)

Snakub said:


> This story is kind of ambiguous are they looking to phase out the use of rare earths or just looking to the U.S. mines to reduce our dependency on China?


I think it would be both



Snakub said:


> I wonder if the U.S. really has reserves of these specific metals scandium,yttrium,lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium etc. Does anyone have any knowledge of what rare earths are used for in the production of EV's or cars in general?


All of those COULD be used but that does not mean they NEED to be used. The millitary and cellular phone industries would be much more impacted than EV's. Our millitary is rather scared of being forced to source everything from china.

In terms of EV's many of those relate to stablizing Lithium batteries which is questionable in of itself or
to making rare earth magnetics which is also unnecessary in an EV.


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## rogerd (Feb 22, 2011)

China controls rare earths market. It is the leading exporter and has the largest reserves of these. In a recent spat with Japan, the Chinese simply turned off the supply of rare earths to Japan with out explicitly mentioning anything. The Japanese were in left in lurch with no fall back options. At that point they started scrambling to find other sources and found precious few countries had any significant rare earth deposits. The few in Africa were also controlled by China. 

I think that shook up the world. Because rare earths are an important component in most computing and mobile phone devices.

That's reason why today America is looking for alternatives.


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## RoughRider (Aug 14, 2008)

not only america is looking for it...

lets say, the rest of the world beside china...


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## rogerd (Feb 22, 2011)

RoughRider said:


> not only america is looking for it...
> 
> lets say, the rest of the world beside china...


Absolutely right


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