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https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/chinese-heavy-metal-how-
beijing-could-use-rare-earths-to-outplay-america/
Chinese Heavy Metal: How Beijing Could Use Rare Earths to Outplay America
By putting tariffs on these materials, vital for energy and defense
technology, the White House would be shooting the U.S. in the foot
Ashley Feng, Sagatom Saha
August 3, 2018
As the United States and China begin imposing tit-for-tat tariffs upon tens
of billions of dollars’ worth of traded goods, America has swept one of its
own national security vulnerabilities into the mix: rare-earth elements (
REE). The Trump administration has added rare earths and cobalt to its
retaliatory tariff list. REEs, as well as other critical minerals like
cobalt and lithium, are necessary ingredients for advanced clean
technologies, particularly in the defense and clean energy sectors. Why rare
-earths were included is unclear, but the United States is highly reliant on
China for those raw materials.
The White House has correctly identified America’s dependency on China as a
vulnerability, but enacting tariffs will only further limit supply
available to the U.S. Instead, the United States should diversify its
mineral imports away from China, increase supply by promoting domestic
production and reduce demand by investing in alternatives and substitutes to
REE-intensive technology.
China’s Power Play
In 2011, the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s economic
planning body, identified the development of the rare-earth elements as a
strategic resource. Four years later, the Ministry of Industry and
Information Technology released its five-year plan for REEs, setting
ambitious production and market-share goals for the domestic industry to
meet by 2020.
China’s interest in critical minerals is tied to its larger ambitions in
the global clean energy trade. Nearly all clean energy products—from solar
panels to electric vehicles—require considerable amounts of REEs, as well
as lithium and cobalt. Because of the myriad benefits these products provide
, from zeroing out emissions to energy independence, demand for clean energy
technologies will skyrocket in coming decades: Countries around the world
are expected to invest $8.4 trillion in wind and solar alone by 2050. To
accomplish this, 1,291 gigawatts of battery storage will be added to the
grid during the same period.
In other words, today’s global clean energy market is small relative to its
potential. Already the world’s largest clean energy manufacturer, China is
preparing for market growth. The Chinese government called last year for
its battery makers to double their capacity by 2020 and start investing in
production facilities overseas.
Recognizing the opportunity to control an even larger market, China is
heavily investing in access to rare earth minerals, monopolizing materials
critical to the future of the global clean energy trade.
Already, more than 80 percent of the world’s rare-earth elements are
extracted in China. But the Chinese government isn’t done—they have higher
ambitions for REEs. By 2020, China wants to increase domestic REE
production by 15 percent annually while also decreasing the proportion of
primary raw materials meant to be exported from 57 percent down to 30
percent. Beijing’s intention to control the outward flow of REEs would
create bottlenecks limiting the ability of non-Chinese companies to
manufacture their products outside of China.
As a result of fast-paced growth in the clean energy sector, cobalt
shortages are already expected by the early 2020s. If scarcity comes to bear
for any critical mineral, Chinese clean energy firms will be the last to
suffer globally.
Extracting the Elements
The “rare” in REE is a misnomer—while the elements aren’t as rare as
precious metals, they can be hard to extract and refine and are often found
in unstable regions, increasing their cost. The supply of lithium and cobalt
, other crucial elements in batteries that China also hopes to monopolize,
are also limited and can be hard to extract.
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Sign up for Scientific American’s free newsletters.
Besides reducing its rare-earth elements exports and increasing domestic
production, China is also snapping up critical mineral access outside of its
own borders, focusing on metals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper
—all essential elements in producing batteries.
While China mines most of the world’s REEs, the country only holds about
one-third of the remaining reserve and is less dominant in the mining of
other critical minerals. China only produces 7 percent of the world’s
lithium, holding only 20 percent of recoverable reserves. Beijing also has
less of a firm grasp on production of cobalt, which is rarer. Roughly 60
percent of all cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
which holds half of economically recoverable reserves globally. Likewise,
countries in southern and eastern Africa offer some of the greatest
potential for REE extraction. Unlike the U.S., China has fewer qualms about
investing in these mines, where human trafficking and child labor have been
identified.
Mining firm China Molybdenum announced in 2016 it was buying the Tenke mine
in the largest private investment ever made in the DRC. Tenke is one of
Africa’s largest copper miners and holds major cobalt reserves. In 2007,
two state-owned companies, Sinohydro Corporation and China Railway
Construction Corporation, signed a minerals-for-infrastructure deal,
allowing them to gain access to large reserves of copper and cobalt for the
price of a few roads and hospitals.
Compounding this, Tianqi Lithium, a major Chinese firm, is buying up lithium
assets abroad. The firm already owns 51 percent of the world’s largest
hard rock lithium mine at Greenbushes in western Australia, and is currently
investing in a plant to convert the mine’s output into battery-grade
lithium.
Tianqi is also aggressively bidding for a Chilean company, SQM, that already
produces more than 20 percent of global lithium supply and could soon
quadruple its output. Together, the two would have 70 percent of the world’
s lithium market, according to the petition’s estimates.
It will be exceedingly hard for America to maintain access to critical
minerals from other countries if Beijing successfully acquires these sources
first.
America’s Kryptonite
While China has been barreling ahead in its quest to dominate REEs, the
United States has only become more dependent on REE imports—rare earths
were not mined at all in the U.S. in 2017, with China supplying 78 percent
of imports in between 2013 and 2016. These elements are necessary to
manufacture not only wind turbines and solar panels, but also cruise
missiles and stealth aircrafts. Top officials in the Trump administration
have already highlighted U.S. dependence on imported rare-earth elements.
Testifying to Congress on the worldwide threats to the United States, then-
CIA Director Mike Pompeo highlighted the need for the U.S. to develop a
method to reduce our dependence. China once before reduced its REE exports
to exact political leverage. In 2010, China reduced its overall exports by
40 percent, and embargoed Japan amid a territorial dispute. Japan ultimately
folded. Illegal mining in China ultimately blunted Beijing’s embargo, but
a second trade war over REEs would likely be more successful. The Chinese
government has been cutting down on corruption, exerting tighter control on
regional mines, while maintaining a ban on foreign investment in rare earth
mining.
By holding the largest, cheapest reserves, China could artificially limit
supply and move prices as Saudi Arabia and OPEC do with oil, even though the
cartel does not produce most of the world’s oil. While no one country or
cartel can threaten to cut off the entire world’s oil supply—the 1973
embargo proved just that—OPEC still maintains an outsized influence in the
market. At its current pace, Beijing could achieve a similar role in the
global clean energy trade.
Refining a Solution
As China’s use of economic coercion for economic and political gain
continues, the United States should take this vulnerability seriously as the
clean energy sector increasingly represents more of the American workforce,
economy and energy production.
The administration should listen to trade associations when they ask for the
critical materials to not be included on the list of tariffs. Furthermore,
China has taken a stronger stance against coal mining reflective of its
leadership in the global movement on climate action. However, within its own
borders, China seems to be less receptive to local protests by residents
who live near rare-earth mining operations. U.S. officials should highlight
this hypocrisy in international forums to countries eager to work with China
based on new climate leadership.
Congress should also take action by passing the Rare Earth Element Advanced
Coal Technologies Act, which appropriates money for the assistant secretary
for fossil energy to create a program to develop advanced refining and
extraction techniques to make more domestic REE deposits economically viable
and to identify and mitigate disruptions to the global REE supply chain.
However, the bill should also allow for the U.S. Geological Survey to
provide insight on domestic REE supplies and vulnerabilities.
Congress can also step up funding for the Department of Energy’s Critical
Minerals Institute, allowing it to invest more in research and development,
stand up for more prize competitions, and initiate private-public
partnerships with companies to develop batteries that use less critical
minerals or eliminate them altogether. Developing more advanced techniques
to recycle used or faulty batteries could also offset a significant portion
of American demand. Lastly, the U.S. can reasonably ease restrictions for
mining critical minerals on public lands to jumpstart domestic production.
In the clean energy economy of the future, critical minerals will be just as
essential—and geopolitical—as oil is today. To avoid making the same
mistake twice, the U.S. should preemptively its own clean energy
independence.
beijing-could-use-rare-earths-to-outplay-america/
Chinese Heavy Metal: How Beijing Could Use Rare Earths to Outplay America
By putting tariffs on these materials, vital for energy and defense
technology, the White House would be shooting the U.S. in the foot
Ashley Feng, Sagatom Saha
August 3, 2018
As the United States and China begin imposing tit-for-tat tariffs upon tens
of billions of dollars’ worth of traded goods, America has swept one of its
own national security vulnerabilities into the mix: rare-earth elements (
REE). The Trump administration has added rare earths and cobalt to its
retaliatory tariff list. REEs, as well as other critical minerals like
cobalt and lithium, are necessary ingredients for advanced clean
technologies, particularly in the defense and clean energy sectors. Why rare
-earths were included is unclear, but the United States is highly reliant on
China for those raw materials.
The White House has correctly identified America’s dependency on China as a
vulnerability, but enacting tariffs will only further limit supply
available to the U.S. Instead, the United States should diversify its
mineral imports away from China, increase supply by promoting domestic
production and reduce demand by investing in alternatives and substitutes to
REE-intensive technology.
China’s Power Play
In 2011, the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s economic
planning body, identified the development of the rare-earth elements as a
strategic resource. Four years later, the Ministry of Industry and
Information Technology released its five-year plan for REEs, setting
ambitious production and market-share goals for the domestic industry to
meet by 2020.
China’s interest in critical minerals is tied to its larger ambitions in
the global clean energy trade. Nearly all clean energy products—from solar
panels to electric vehicles—require considerable amounts of REEs, as well
as lithium and cobalt. Because of the myriad benefits these products provide
, from zeroing out emissions to energy independence, demand for clean energy
technologies will skyrocket in coming decades: Countries around the world
are expected to invest $8.4 trillion in wind and solar alone by 2050. To
accomplish this, 1,291 gigawatts of battery storage will be added to the
grid during the same period.
In other words, today’s global clean energy market is small relative to its
potential. Already the world’s largest clean energy manufacturer, China is
preparing for market growth. The Chinese government called last year for
its battery makers to double their capacity by 2020 and start investing in
production facilities overseas.
Recognizing the opportunity to control an even larger market, China is
heavily investing in access to rare earth minerals, monopolizing materials
critical to the future of the global clean energy trade.
Already, more than 80 percent of the world’s rare-earth elements are
extracted in China. But the Chinese government isn’t done—they have higher
ambitions for REEs. By 2020, China wants to increase domestic REE
production by 15 percent annually while also decreasing the proportion of
primary raw materials meant to be exported from 57 percent down to 30
percent. Beijing’s intention to control the outward flow of REEs would
create bottlenecks limiting the ability of non-Chinese companies to
manufacture their products outside of China.
As a result of fast-paced growth in the clean energy sector, cobalt
shortages are already expected by the early 2020s. If scarcity comes to bear
for any critical mineral, Chinese clean energy firms will be the last to
suffer globally.
Extracting the Elements
The “rare” in REE is a misnomer—while the elements aren’t as rare as
precious metals, they can be hard to extract and refine and are often found
in unstable regions, increasing their cost. The supply of lithium and cobalt
, other crucial elements in batteries that China also hopes to monopolize,
are also limited and can be hard to extract.
newsletter promo
Sign up for Scientific American’s free newsletters.
Besides reducing its rare-earth elements exports and increasing domestic
production, China is also snapping up critical mineral access outside of its
own borders, focusing on metals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper
—all essential elements in producing batteries.
While China mines most of the world’s REEs, the country only holds about
one-third of the remaining reserve and is less dominant in the mining of
other critical minerals. China only produces 7 percent of the world’s
lithium, holding only 20 percent of recoverable reserves. Beijing also has
less of a firm grasp on production of cobalt, which is rarer. Roughly 60
percent of all cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
which holds half of economically recoverable reserves globally. Likewise,
countries in southern and eastern Africa offer some of the greatest
potential for REE extraction. Unlike the U.S., China has fewer qualms about
investing in these mines, where human trafficking and child labor have been
identified.
Mining firm China Molybdenum announced in 2016 it was buying the Tenke mine
in the largest private investment ever made in the DRC. Tenke is one of
Africa’s largest copper miners and holds major cobalt reserves. In 2007,
two state-owned companies, Sinohydro Corporation and China Railway
Construction Corporation, signed a minerals-for-infrastructure deal,
allowing them to gain access to large reserves of copper and cobalt for the
price of a few roads and hospitals.
Compounding this, Tianqi Lithium, a major Chinese firm, is buying up lithium
assets abroad. The firm already owns 51 percent of the world’s largest
hard rock lithium mine at Greenbushes in western Australia, and is currently
investing in a plant to convert the mine’s output into battery-grade
lithium.
Tianqi is also aggressively bidding for a Chilean company, SQM, that already
produces more than 20 percent of global lithium supply and could soon
quadruple its output. Together, the two would have 70 percent of the world’
s lithium market, according to the petition’s estimates.
It will be exceedingly hard for America to maintain access to critical
minerals from other countries if Beijing successfully acquires these sources
first.
America’s Kryptonite
While China has been barreling ahead in its quest to dominate REEs, the
United States has only become more dependent on REE imports—rare earths
were not mined at all in the U.S. in 2017, with China supplying 78 percent
of imports in between 2013 and 2016. These elements are necessary to
manufacture not only wind turbines and solar panels, but also cruise
missiles and stealth aircrafts. Top officials in the Trump administration
have already highlighted U.S. dependence on imported rare-earth elements.
Testifying to Congress on the worldwide threats to the United States, then-
CIA Director Mike Pompeo highlighted the need for the U.S. to develop a
method to reduce our dependence. China once before reduced its REE exports
to exact political leverage. In 2010, China reduced its overall exports by
40 percent, and embargoed Japan amid a territorial dispute. Japan ultimately
folded. Illegal mining in China ultimately blunted Beijing’s embargo, but
a second trade war over REEs would likely be more successful. The Chinese
government has been cutting down on corruption, exerting tighter control on
regional mines, while maintaining a ban on foreign investment in rare earth
mining.
By holding the largest, cheapest reserves, China could artificially limit
supply and move prices as Saudi Arabia and OPEC do with oil, even though the
cartel does not produce most of the world’s oil. While no one country or
cartel can threaten to cut off the entire world’s oil supply—the 1973
embargo proved just that—OPEC still maintains an outsized influence in the
market. At its current pace, Beijing could achieve a similar role in the
global clean energy trade.
Refining a Solution
As China’s use of economic coercion for economic and political gain
continues, the United States should take this vulnerability seriously as the
clean energy sector increasingly represents more of the American workforce,
economy and energy production.
The administration should listen to trade associations when they ask for the
critical materials to not be included on the list of tariffs. Furthermore,
China has taken a stronger stance against coal mining reflective of its
leadership in the global movement on climate action. However, within its own
borders, China seems to be less receptive to local protests by residents
who live near rare-earth mining operations. U.S. officials should highlight
this hypocrisy in international forums to countries eager to work with China
based on new climate leadership.
Congress should also take action by passing the Rare Earth Element Advanced
Coal Technologies Act, which appropriates money for the assistant secretary
for fossil energy to create a program to develop advanced refining and
extraction techniques to make more domestic REE deposits economically viable
and to identify and mitigate disruptions to the global REE supply chain.
However, the bill should also allow for the U.S. Geological Survey to
provide insight on domestic REE supplies and vulnerabilities.
Congress can also step up funding for the Department of Energy’s Critical
Minerals Institute, allowing it to invest more in research and development,
stand up for more prize competitions, and initiate private-public
partnerships with companies to develop batteries that use less critical
minerals or eliminate them altogether. Developing more advanced techniques
to recycle used or faulty batteries could also offset a significant portion
of American demand. Lastly, the U.S. can reasonably ease restrictions for
mining critical minerals on public lands to jumpstart domestic production.
In the clean energy economy of the future, critical minerals will be just as
essential—and geopolitical—as oil is today. To avoid making the same
mistake twice, the U.S. should preemptively its own clean energy
independence.