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Home » U.S. Army To Process Rare Earths...
Current Affair
- The United States (US) Army plans to fund the construction of a Rare Earths processing facility to secure the domestic supply of these minerals.
Rationale
- China threatened to stop exporting Rare Earth materials to the US
- to secure the domestic supply of minerals
Rare Earths
- Rare Earth Metals are a set of 17 chemical elements in the periodic table.
- 15 lanthanides, scandium, yttrium
- According to the Rare Earth Technology Alliance (RETA), the estimated size of the Rare Earth sector is between $10 billion and $15 billion.
Utility
- building consumer electronics, in healthcare and advanced transportation.
- technologies of computers and networks, communications, clean energy, environmental mitigation, etc.
- manufacturing defense equipment.
- space shuttle components, jet engine turbines, and drones.
Why and how does China dominate?
- In China, the mining of Rare Earths began in the 1950s.
- After the Cultural Revolution in China ended, the country focussed on exploiting its natural resources.
- In 1992, China’s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping compared the status of Rare Earth reserves to that of oil in the Middle East.
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