My understanding is that these elements aren’t that rare - we have plenty right here. The question is cost - if you extract them domestically using environmentally-sound methods, the costs are higher than the world market prices of said elements, thanks to Chinese production, which does not take the environment into consideration. Molycorp, an NYSE-listed company that operates a mine in CA, has lost hundreds of millions of dollars, which is a big deal, given that its annual sales are also in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Molycorp has been spending a lot of dollars expanding the Mountain Pass mine in California this past year. They must think it is economically worthwhile.
Project Phoenix
http://www.molycorp.com/about-us/project-phoenix
Project Phoenix, which began construction in January 2011, is our expansion and modernization project at our flagship Mountain Pass, California, rare earth resource and production facility. We are transforming Mountain Pass and creating the world’s most technologically advanced, energy efficient, and environmentally superior rare earth production facility.
All key production components of our new state-of-the-art rare earth manufacturing complex are up and operational, and we have begun ramping up to our full-scale “Phase 1” run rate. The project is anticipated to achieve a Phase 1 run rate of 19,050 metric tons (mt) of rare earth oxide equivalent (REO) per year by mid-2013.
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Did the recent mine losses of hundreds of millions of dollars include new construction costing hundreds of millions of dollars?