From a supply point of view the big drops in rare earths prices over the last few years signal that for consumers all is well. Supplies are abundant, basically. They are at the moment. But a number of studies tell a very different story a few years down the road with potential shortages of elements such as dysprosium and possibly even neodymium. With China set to remain dominant for many more years in the supply – and crucially – the processing of certain critical rare earths there could be some big problems looming for non-Chinese manufacturers. Some projections suggest that there won't be enough of some elements to go around in as little as three or four year's time. So whereas new primary production is absolutely essential other solutions need to be considered as well. One source lies in the very offices many of us work in. Smart phones, tablets, PC hard drives, air conditioners even the light bulbs etc., all contain rare earths. Welcome to urban mining. But recycling those rare earths is far from easy. From the little bit of research I did I found 5 key challenges (I'm sure there are others):
REEs are often used in such tiny quantities that isolating and extracting them is barely viable in some cases.
They're sometimes embedded into other materials from which extraction is very difficult.
Existing extraction processes designed to recover metals, such as gold, may actually cause valuable rare earths and even minor metals to be lost.
There are challenges in collecting the relevant scrap.
Many manufacturers make their products in a way that makes recycling difficult (i.e. they're hard to take apart).
LYC Price at posting:
29.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
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