Sweden finds the largest deposit of rare earth metals in Europe

Hello from cloudy and soon to be snowing, Colorado. The big news of late is that in Sweden, a state-owned mining company, has announced that it’s found a million metric tons of rare earth oxides. And a lot of folks are saying, you know, this is what’s going to break China’s stranglehold on that space. 

Rare earth metals are used in a lot of different technological applications. A little goes a long way. They’re used in everything from sunglasses to photo development to green tech to semiconductors. So kind of a big space, and the Chinese do dominate at the moment about 90% of total supply. But I’m really not all excited about this Swedish announcement for three big reasons. 

Number one, this is Europe, and you don’t have to find a lot in the ground for it to be Europe’s largest deposit of anything. So a million tonnes of oxides sounds like a lot. But generally out of every tonne or two of rock, you only get about an ounce of material. So while a little does go a long way, this really isn’t all that much. 

Second, this is still Europe, and the Swedes themselves are saying 10 to 15 years before the first stuff makes it to market. The technologies involved in purifying rare earth requires several 100 vats of acid as you slowly dissolve and then tease out the materials from one another. They all have similar physical characteristics and atomic weights. So separating them is very difficult, and honestly a little toxic. 

Third, but most importantly, it really doesn’t matter because we really don’t have a rare earths problem. And yes, yes, yes, 90% do come from the Chinese. But there’s a few things about rare earths that most people just have forgotten.