Up until recently most of them were produced from just one mine in Mountain Pass, California. Now the major source is China. 97% of these elements are mined in China and as demand has skyrocketed over the last decade from 40,000 tons to 120,000 tons China has started reserving supplies for its own economic expansion. Now, it only exports about 30,000 tons a year - only a quarter of the supply the world needs now and far less than the demands of the green technologies needed for a carbon free future.
This dependence has caused a growing panic and a scramble to find and develop new sources for the elements as well as other solutions to the looming crisis..
Rare earth elements are incorporated into many modern technological devices, including superconductors, samarium-cobalt and neodymium-iron-boron high-flux rare-earth magnets, electronic polishers, refining catalysts and hybrid car components (primarily batteries and magnets), says the Wikipedia article. The automobile industry uses tens of thousands of tons of rare earth elements each year, and advanced military technology depends on these elements, too. They are in mobile phones, iPad and many other things we already think of as indispensable. Lots of "green" technologies depend on them, including wind turbines, low-energy light bulbs and hybrid car batteries.
The elements themselves are abundant in the Earth's crust. New sources have been found in Greenland and Utah but extraction is difficult and demand seems certain to outstrip supply.
Rare Earth Elements or rare earth metals are a collection of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, namely scandium, yttrium, and the fifteen lanthanides. Scandium and yttrium are considered rare earths since they tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanides and exhibit similar chemical properties.
Graph by Michael Diggles
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