To the editor:
Mr. Crean wrote in early August that Mr. Trump’s recent restrictions of rare earth elements from China prodded U.S. domestic production and helped to secure alternative supply chains. His examples shade truth.
True, Australia is expanding Arafura’s Northern Territory Nolans Project in direct response to Trump-triggered element restrictions, says an article on Confer.com. Brazil eyes increased production but faces profound environmental and regulatory challenges, and it must surmount daunting infrastructural limitations, according to a White House fact sheet.
Momentum to revitalize the Mountain Pass Mine came when Biden’s administration framed rare earth elements as a national security priority in Executive Order 14017 of 2021. Biden mobilized grants, loans and tax credits and broke down barriers to mining, refining and recycling of critical minerals, all in response to China’s element dominance and to the benefit of Mountain Mine owners.
Chances for relief from Myanmar are nil: China imports two-thirds of its heavy rare earth elements from Myanmar and, according to the Stimson Center, efforts to source elements from Myanmar are untenable due to poor infrastructure, disastrous environmental indifference, Chinese control over processing, instability and legal risk.
In 2023, federal funding enabled Georgia Tech and Georgia State University research that proved heavy rare earth elements could be mined from kaolin deposits, notably at Buffalo Creek, according to Georgia Tech.
Pea Ridge mine exploitation will come about through Caldera Holding’s partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratories, the laboratory said on its website in 2023. Those minerals can be exploited only using membrane solvent extraction techniques, an Oak Ridge breakthrough.
In November 2023, the Biden administration brokered the Caldera-ORNL deal to apply the membrane extraction techniques at scale. It took ORNL nearly a decade to develop the techniques, work that began under Obama, gained some momentum under first Trump, and reached licensing maturity under Biden, according to the lab’s website.
Don’t look for Ukraine-origin rare earth elements in free markets during our lifetime: Ukraine’s rare earth element deposits largely lie in Russia-occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea.
Al Craft
1980 University of Maine at Fort Kent graduate
Raleigh, North Carolina
