Rare earth rocks Congress, clean energy industry

The National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act recently passed 256 to 160 in the U.S. House mostly along party lines with GOP voting primarily in favor.

Haven't heard of it?

Hardly surprising. Metals and mining don't usually inspire excitement amongst the general public. The act would make it easier to begin mining the obscure minerals used in solar, wind and other green industry applications. Production currently is dominated by China.

Minecraft

An exception to this apathy for all things mineral is epitomized by my 15-year-old son Kiefer. He's addicted to the online game Minecraft, which involves seeking out various ores used to build and create structures, transportation networks and whatever else resides in the gamer's imagination. Kiefer, along with about 6.7 million others, purchased the game. They build entire civilizations, often while linked to other gamers.


These gamers understand the importance of metal, at least to a degree.

Society needs the stuff. Iron and steel are the building blocks of civilization. The first blacksmith to produce a perfectly balanced sword found his product in high demand. Wars were won with less.

The importance of rare earth

Precision-crafted folded steel and a sword edge that cleaves an opponent's armor like butter are less important in this age of complex technological advances. (But such devices make great movies, for example "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.")

Metals like lanthanum, cerium, yttrium and neodymium have risen to the forefront today because of their value creating many of the devices and mechanisms integral to clean energy -- wind turbines, batteries and the like.

That's why companies like Los Angeles-based American Elements, which supplies such rare earth metals, have gone public in support of the proposed National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act.

Mining act details

The bill's text says exploration and subsequent production of rare earth minerals would contribute significantly to the U.S. economy and "general welfare of the country," and that industrialization of China and India has driven demand. It warns of China's potential dominance of a resource so "necessary for telecommunications, military technologies, healthcare technologies, and conventional and renewable energy technologies."

The bill says it would require the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to more efficiently develop domestic sources and "enhance government coordination on permitting and review by avoiding duplicative reviews." Getting a mine permitted and operating takes a heck of a lot of time in today's regulatory climate.

Exactly how the act would make it all work is something to be worked through in committee. However, this is resource friendly legislation. The word strategic is used.

Corporate connection

American Elements says U.S. National Laboratories and companies like General Electric, Honeywell, General Motors and Boeing have come out in favor of the proposed act.

"The U.S. environmental movement is simply shooting itself in the foot on this one," says Michael Silver, CEO of American Elements, in a statement. He says all parties must appreciate the "whole supply chain to building the energy efficient non-polluting America."

To build an electric car, wind turbine or fuel cell requires lanthanum and neodymium, both classified rare earth metals. Solar panels require indium. Advanced batteries require lithium. Yet this country mines virtually none of them in large part because of the newness of green technologies.

"Even the most ardent environmentalist would agree we do not have 40 years to begin dealing with carbon emissions and global warming," Silver says. "Now is the time to appreciate the fundamental relationship between metal mining and America's energy independent future and to do what is necessary to realize that future as soon as possible."

Happy Road memories

Mining certainly can be messy. Happy Road in Fairbanks, Alaska was the site of mid 20th century gold mining. The signs were obscured by several decades by the time I considered it kid paradise. Telltale signs were a swath of fine-ground golden sand and hulking rusted machinery that processed lode ore that had been drawn from inside the base of Murphy Dome.

The rest of Fairbanks was a mess. Miners washed away entire hillsides and valleys to get at the gold. They left nothing but rocks and gravel. Later in the 1970s and early 1980s, a modern mining operation even destroyed much of the old Happy Road site.

But that's progress.

Mining can be done efficiently and without too much disruption to the environment. But it needs environmental oversight. Rules dictating the how, where and why must be reached in full view with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Hitting the hydrogen highway is the ultimate video game

Hydrogen is not yet a viable, cheap and easy-to-use fuel.

But the quest to solve that clean energy puzzle continues.

Sciencedaily.com reports that scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a nickel-molybdenum-nitride catalyst to more cheaply crack hydrogen from water. Chemist Kotaro Sasaki is quoted as saying his team wanted to find a high-activity low-cost method of extracting hydrogen.

He says the catalyst "actually outperformed our expectations."

And according to globalenergyworld.com, Lynne Macaskie, professor of applied microbiology at the University of Birmingham in England, reports a method of creating hydrogen from food waste. "The bacteria can produce hydrogen," says Macaskie at a bioenergy workshop in São Paulo, Brazil. "At the moment manufacturers pay to dispose of waste, but with our technique they could convert it to clean electricity instead.”

Not ready for prime time

Impressive. So what's the hold-up? Why can't entrepreneurial ingenuity figure out a way to get a clean fuel on the market that could transform our skies and reduce the competitive pressures forcing up the price of gasoline, diesel and other fossil fuel?

The answer thus far has been cost and technology. Solve the dilemma and emission-free power remains a matter of infrastructure.

The benefits are many. Hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe and No. 3 on Earth.

However, the reality painted by this Pres. George W. Bush-era study remains relatively static.

"To be economically competitive with the present fossil fuel economy ... the cost of producing hydrogen must be lowered by a factor of 4." The study, Basic Research Needs for the Hydrogen Economy, published by Argonne National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy in May 2003, says the performance and reliability of hydrogen technology for transportation and other uses must be "improved dramatically."

The ultimate gamer's quest

Unless, of course, somebody figures out the game. Compare the challenge to one found in a video game, perhaps the most difficult ever, with multiple levels, constant attacks by impossible to kill opponents, no cheats and the most elusive final key in recorded history.

Carrying this analogy further, I introduce gaming expert Pyree, who posted this answer to the question of most impossible game on tomshardware.com forum: "So apparently the hardest game is this one called 'Dark Souls,' made by Japanese game studio From Software."

Pyree, whose alter ego appears to be Wall Street Journal reporter Ryan Kuo, says the game makes it simply impossible to avoid dying excessively and horribly. There is no way to save or pause the game and if your avatar dies, the level resets. "Only attempt it if you are the hardcorest of the hardcorest rpg gamer and love to take on a near impossible challenge," he says.

Dark Souls to clean energy

Whether or not hydrogen is the Dark Souls of the clean energy world, I don't know. But I do know it will take some serious smarts and tenacity to break the code, find all the clues and track down the ultimate treasure.

How close we're getting depends upon whom is asked. I posed the question to a guy I've gotten to know here in the San Joaquin Valley. His answer surprised me. "Getting close," he says.

How close? By the sounds of it, very. I may be providing an update to my series on the hydrogen highway quite soon. A hint is here in a post by Laurence O'Sullivan on suite101.com that says, "Combined together, wind and hydrogen can cancel out their inherent defects and be an effective tool in the battle against carbon dioxide and global warming."

Pulling onto the hydrogen highway

There is also activity on the corporate front. Mercedes-Benz recruited drivers like actress Diane Kruger to drive its electric fuel cell vehicle, the B-Class F-Cell in California. Kruger is one of more than 35 "environmental enthusiasts and early adopters" in the state. Kruger, who stars in "Farewell, My Queen," drives the rig, which converts compressed hydrogen into electricity to deliver a range of up to 240 miles and an average of 55 mpg equivalent while emitting only water vapor.

I also checked in on Bob Lazar, whose company, American Hydrogen Energy, is gearing up to produce kits that convert gasoline-burning automobiles to run on hydrogen. Lazar converted his 1994 Corvette to run on H2 produced by solar panels.

Lazar explains how it works this way: "The hydrogen gas is safely stored in a solid form (advanced metal hydride) and is in fact safer in a collision than your Gasoline tank. The only exhaust you get from burning Hydrogen as a fuel is water vapor (steam), with very small amounts of nitrogen oxides. It's about a 'green' a fuel as you can get."

Rare Earth complications

Yet Lazar has encountered trials. His latest has to do with source materials. He says in a recent update on his website that the conversion system is dependent upon rare Earth metals and compounds. The Chinese government's decision to limit export of the country's domestic supply means prices have skyrocketed and more than quadrupled the cost of his conversion kits.

China dominates the rare Earth market. U.S. deposits exist but remain mostly out of reach due to a lack of mining. The materials have names like lanthanum, cerium, yttrium and neodymium and also are used in the manufacture of electric car batteries, wind turbines and solar panels.

China has spent the past several years locking up supply of these elements, planning ahead and banking on their value escalating.

"We are looking into all possibilities," Lazar says.

So the game continues. I'll drop in another quarter, and push "Ready Player One."

Photo: Actress Diane Kruger fills up her Mercedes B-Class F-Cell.
More posts:
Hydrogen Highway: Demonstrating a fill-up in LA
Hydrogen power integration as fast as a Zeppelin
Hydrogen Highway is possible but unrealistic, for now

Can China hijack green energy?

Rare earth may determine the future of clean energy.

I'm not talking about Gil Bridges and Ray Monette of the rock band Rare Earth, noted for such hits as "Get Ready" and "I Just Want to Celebrate," although that does make a sort of poetic sense. The band is back together and touring, after all.

No, I'm talking about world domination by China of an industry so important, it's success or failure may mean the difference between survival and mass evacuation in low-lying countries like Bangladesh.

Much of the clean energy industry depends upon extremely obscure elements that have come to be known as rare earth. They have names like lanthanum, cerium, yttrium and neodymium and are used in the manufacture of electric car batteries, wind turbines and solar panels. China has spent the past several years locking up supply of these elements, planning ahead and banking on their value escalating.

And the stakes are high. The recent study, "Energy Policy," by Stanford University professors Mark Delucchi and Mark Jacobson says wind, water and solar could supply all of our energy needs in 20 to 40 years. While that may be unlikely given today's energy mix, the sector is sure to increase despite the domination of increasingly costly and damaging fossil fuels.

Rare earth elements, while relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust, are hard to find in "minable concentrations," as the U.S. Geological Survey explains in its 2010 rare earth report. Thus the problem -- and the name.

China, according to USGS, has reserves of 55 million metric tons, while the United States has 19 million metric tons. Both countries dominate known reserves. However, China is better positioned to take advantage of its mines.

"China accounts for 97 percent of the worldwide rare earth metal production and the country's new export quotas have caused prices to skyrocket," write Euan Sadden and Kerry-Ann Adamson of Boulder, Colo.-based Pike Research in the May 2011 report "Rare Earth Metals in the Cleantech Industry."

That means if a company wants to build batteries, wind turbines or solar panels, it likely must get its materials from China. However, the Chinese are hardly slouches at trade and their manufacturers have already begun to dominate production of solar panels. Analysts say they intend to the same with the rest of the cleantech industry.

U.S. and European companies looking to build the massive collector sites for wind may find themselves with no other competitive alternative other than purchasing from Chinese suppliers. And for an emerging industry dependent upon falling prices for more universal adoption reliance on a single source could be bad. Real bad.

Ian Fletcher, author of "Free Trade Doesn't Work" and Huffington Post blogger, frames the debate in simple terms.

"Why are they important? For example, the so-called rare earths among these materials are needed to make the super-strong magnets that are needed whenever you want to mechanically generate (or consume) electricity efficiently," Fletcher writes in a recent post. And he says that according to estimates in the recent book "Red Alert," by Stephen Leeb, a 3-megawatt wind turbine contains about 2 tons of rare earth metals.

"Even a humble Toyota Prius contains 22 pounds of lanthanum in its battery," he says. "No lanthanum, no electric cars."

But the news isn't all bad.

Fletcher noted that Congress in 2010 passed the Rare Earths and Critical Materials Revitalization Act, which states that it is meant to "to assure the long-term, secure, and sustainable supply of rare earth materials sufficient to satisfy the national security, economic well-being, and industrial production needs of the United States."

This apparently kept the Mountain Pass mine in California's Mohave desert in domestic hands. Fletcher said Australia similarly checked a Chinese buyout in 2009.

Activity at the Mountain Pass mine, according to USGS, resumed operation in 2007, producing refined rare earth products. The federal agency's report also detailed efforts to develop other commercial-grade mine sites, saying that investment and exploration "surged" in 2010. Sites included Bear Lodge in Wyoming; Diamond Creek in Idaho; Elk Creek in Nebraska; Hoidas Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada; Lemhi Pass in Idaho-Montana; and Nechalacho (Thor Lake) in Northwest Territories, Canada.

Other sites included Dubbo Zirconia in New South Wales, Australia; Kangankunde in Malawi; Mount Weld in Western Australia, Australia; and Nolans Project in Northern Territory, Australia.

The jury's still out. China's in serious production mode as only a state-controlled economy can dictate. But U.S. capitalism has a way of overcoming challenges. The clean energy industry, at least from a purely job creation perspective, offers some very good opportunities worldwide.

It would be nice for the home team to win this one or at least become a World Cup scale competitor.

In the meantime, the band Rare Earth offers this bit of wisdom I'd like to see implemented: "Fe Fi Fo Fo Fum, Look out baby now here I come."