RESEARCH: Tilling the Rare Earth

Julie Klinger argues that recycling rare earths is a better policy than mining for them in remote and ecologically sensitive areas.

China’s new government leadership appears likely to continue enforcing production and export controls on the country’s rare earth industry. Currently, the producer of 95 percent of the world’s rare earth elements (REEs), China has been under fire since 2009 to lift its export quotas on these strategic elements essential to the manufacture of everything from iPhones to missiles. Since China restricted exports in 2009, prices for some elements have increased as much as 80-fold.