History of Rare Earth MetalsRare earth metals were first discovered in 1787, but it wasn't until the 1940s that a chemist figured out how to separate the metals from the other unusable substances and then twenty years later, scientists started to figure out the metals' uses.
Rare earth metals are far from rare (they were considered rare back in the 18th century when they were first discovered). They are found everywhere in the world and are as abundant as tin and nickel but currently, 95% of the world's supply comes from China, although countries like the United States are said to have 13% of the world's supply.
The other problem with these little known elements is that they aren't easy to process. Until now, the world has been happy to let China supply these elements because Chinese labor is cheap and as they try to become the world's go-to country for green technology, they were happy to do the work to hold the monopoly on these metals.
Rare earth metals are far from rare (they were considered rare back in the 18th century when they were first discovered). They are found everywhere in the world and are as abundant as tin and nickel but currently, 95% of the world's supply comes from China, although countries like the United States are said to have 13% of the world's supply.
The other problem with these little known elements is that they aren't easy to process. Until now, the world has been happy to let China supply these elements because Chinese labor is cheap and as they try to become the world's go-to country for green technology, they were happy to do the work to hold the monopoly on these metals.
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