A Shanghai maglev train, levitating several millimeters above the rails, thanks to the magnetic metal neodymium.
Imagine a magnet so powerful that it can make trains levitate. This miraculous metal is not fictional – it is called neodymium, and it is one of the most powerful and widely used magnets in the world. Unlike most metals, neodymium permanently retains its magnetic qualities over time. This makes it invaluable for high-tech applications, including computer hard drives, speakers, headphones, microphones, and the engines inside electric cars and wind turbines. However, despite the dependence of modern technologies on neodymium, the ability of the United States to access this essential resource is increasingly under threat.
In his 2015 popular science book, Rare: the high-stakes race to satisfy our need for the scarcest metals on earth, PhD chemist Keith Veronese explores the scarcity of earth’s rarest metals, including a special group known as rare earth elements (REE). The seventeen REEs, including train-levitating neodymium, possess similar magnetic and electrical properties. REEs are considered scarce for several reasons. First, they naturally occur in such small quantities that they would require an impossibly large amount of energy – and money – to extract. As such, one of the only sources of REEs is concentrated mineral deposits, where REEs have collected over time.
The location of neodymium and other REE deposits, however, depends upon geological forces tied to the very formation of earth’s continents. Over 1000 million years ago, the planet’s only landmass was a singular super-continent known as Nuna. When Nuna fragmented into several smaller continents, that awoke thermal vents deep within the earth that, much like a volcano, spewed magma-heated water to the planet’s surface. In this process, neodymium and other REEs near the interior of the earth were transported via water to more accessible regions of the planet’s crust. In this way, over 400 million years, miniscule amounts of REEs concentrated in large mineral deposits.
The location of ancient thermal vents, and by extension neodymium deposits, has significant implications for resource availability. Unfortunately, many ancient thermal vents were concentrated in certain regions. For example, China possesses the greatest number of REE and neodymium mineral deposits (one in three globally), while Japan lacks REE deposits of any kind. The natural, inequitable distribution of REE deposits provides China with a competitive edge in the REE and neodymium market.
As such, resource scarcity is also impacted by sociopolitical factors. In the case of REEs, China controlled as much as 96% of the market in 2011. This near monopoly was no accident – as late as the 1980s, the United States remained the primary producer of REEs. By the mid-1970s, however, China’s newly elected chairman Deng Xiaoping facilitated the country’s incredible economic growth via market reform. As part of this growth, Deng artificially lowered the price of Chinese REEs, so much so that within two decades, REE mining in other countries collapsed, unable to compete with China’s competitive prices.
China’s monopoly holds implications for artificially induced resource scarcity. In 2011, China created a minor international crisis by reducing its REE exports by 40%. Within one year, the cost of neodymium jumped by more than six times. While neodymium prices dropped in subsequent years, and China lifted the export ban in 2015, another REE embargo could greatly cripple the ability of the United States to access resources necessary for every aspect of modern life.
In response to the 2011 embargo, western nations including Australia and the United States began to re-open their abandoned REE mines. In consequence, by 2015, China’s control of the REE market had dropped to 86%. While these statistics are encouraging, U.S REE self-sufficiency is virtually impossible. Geologically, half of the seventeen REEs are not found in the United States at all. In the case of neodymium, which is found within U.S. borders, the time needed to repurpose old mines to adhere to present day environmental standards would take years, as well as billions of dollars.
What does neodymium scarcity mean for magnetic levitation (maglev) trains? Unfortunately, the magnetic fields produced by neodymium have no substitutes; without this REE, maglev trains are impossible. That being said, neodymium has great potential to revolutionize the transportation industry. Neodymium greatly increases the speed of the trains– using magnetic propulsion, the train can travel at over 370 miles per hour. In perspective, a six-hour drive between Los Angeles and San Francisco could be reduced to an hour and 15 minute trip on a Maglev train. While still commercially unviable due to the high cost of building magnetic rail tracks, maglev trains present a potential avenue for quick and efficient travel that has already been adopted (to a limited extent) in Germany, China, and Japan.
Even though neodymium deposits exist, however, U.S. maglev trains cannot be built without Chinese cooperation. Veronese’s Rare aptly demonstrates that resource scarcity is not only a product of geological rarity, but also a matter of trade disputes and international relations. Maintaining international alliances may be just as important as mining U.S. neodymium deposits themselves.