Apple taps recycled rare earth elements for iPhone parts

Reuters ^ | September 18, 2019 | Stephen Nellis

[2ndDivisionVet]

Apple Inc’s new iPhones will use recycled rare earth elements in a key component, the company said on Wednesday.

Apple said it will use recycled rare earths in its “Taptic Engine,” a part that lets iPhones mimic a physical button click despite being a flat pane of glass. The part is about one-quarter of the rare earth elements inside the iPhone models.

Rare earths, a group of 17 specialized minerals, have become a flash point in trade tensions between the United States and China. The elements are used in weapons, consumer electronics and other goods.

China dominates the processing of the raw minerals, and has implied through its state-controlled media that it could restrict rare earths sales to the United States, just as it did to Japan after a diplomatic dispute in 2010.

Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, said Apple’s use of recycled rare earths was “not related” to trade tensions but could help it maintain a steady supply.

[Paladin2]

"Rare earths, a group of 17 specialized minerals,"

They are not minerals [though they may usually come from same], they are Elements.

They are not specialized anymore than any other Element is.

[nwrep]

Agreed. Specialized only in that they are much rarer than, say, iron or aluminum. Sloppy reporting.

[spokeshave]

OH Noes...they aren’t organic.

[Paladin2]

Apparently, clearly NOT sustainable.

If the ‘Rat elites can’t get their new iPhones does the Communism/Socialism/Leftist-Fascism World end?

[catnipman]

all the rare earth elements in all the “Taptic Engines” in the world are probably not enough to make the permanent magnets in a single electric automobile or a single windmill ...

[txnativegop]

and how much energy is expended to recycle them? just curious.

[KobraKai]

The way the science community uses the term ‘rare’ with these elements is misleading to most. It’s not like baseball cards, with common, uncommon, and ‘rare’. It’s not like that.

Rare in this instance pertains to the difficulty of extraction. A ‘rare earth element’ is much harder to extract, therefore much more expensive to obtain. I don’t think it means there is a shortfall.

[IncPen]

Ping

[Swordmaker]

Apple using recycled rare earths for iPhone production rather than newly mined minerals. —PING!

APPLE and Rare Earth’s PING!

If you want on or off the Apple/Mac/iOS Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Spktyr]

Something that seems to be missing in all this - because of the destruction of the US capacity to mine many of the rare earths needed in modern electronics, the manufacture of a lot of devices and components that need these materials is forced to use the only commercially available source, China. China now has, for many of their rare earth substances, a “if you want it, you have to build the component/device that uses it here” policy. If you don’t, they simply won’t sell them to you.

By using recycled rare earth materials, Apple divorces themselves from the Chinese local manufacturing requirements at least to a degree and in the short term. China can’t control what happens to scrapped devices.

And no, you can’t just spin up a mine that’s been closed down for decades - even if you could physically do it, there are regulatory hurdles to do so.

[txnativegop]

that makes sense, thanks.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

current Status of Rare earth mining in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_rare_earth_mine

Snip...”Affiliates of two U.S. investment fund advisors, JHL Capital Group LLC and QVT Financial LP and Shenghe Resources Holding Co., a Chinese minority shareholder, acquired Mountain Pass in July 2017 with the goal of reviving America’s rare earth industry.[10] The venture does business under the name MP Materials (www.mpmaterials.com).[11] MP Materials resumed mining and refining operations in January 2018.[12”...

There is also a private company in—I Think—Alabama that has some specialty mining product and whose mines have some REEs which are not their primary product. (Easier to mine specialty clays than get permitting for REEs.)

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

current Status of Rare earth mining in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_rare_earth_mine

Snip...”Affiliates of two U.S. investment fund advisors, JHL Capital Group LLC and QVT Financial LP and Shenghe Resources Holding Co., a Chinese minority shareholder, acquired Mountain Pass in July 2017 with the goal of reviving America’s rare earth industry.[10] The venture does business under the name MP Materials (www.mpmaterials.com).[11] MP Materials resumed mining and refining operations in January 2018.[12”...

There is also a private company in—I Think—Alabama that has some specialty mining product and whose mines have some REEs which are not their primary product. (Easier to mine specialty clays than get permitting for REEs.)

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Hiccup!

[JohnBovenmyer]

I'm not sure the problem is that they are physically difficult to extract, but that policy has made them artificially difficult to extract. Rare earth elements are mostly found in ores along with the common, currently worse than worthless, element Thorium. Take out the 'good stuff' and what's left behind includes Thorium. Currently there are very few uses for that element so its market price is essentially zilch. But Thorium is weakly radioactive. Take it out of the ground, to get the good stuff packaged along, and now you're liable for its radioactivity and have to manage that until your liability decays. Which takes even longer than the American judicial process. Thus even though the rare earth elements in the ore are quite valuable, as are the phosphates (for fertilizer) also often found therein, the associated American legal costs are even greater. So mining them — in this country — is uneconomical.

Change the value of Thorium and this changes. China values the Thorium radiation liability at zero (along with all the other environmental liabilities of mining) so willingly mines most of the world's production. Theoretically Thorium can be used in nuclear reactors to produce loads of valuable electricity, and along the way expend its radioactive liability. Moreover, Thorium reactors can theoretically profitably destroy several other sorts of radioactive liability. The science behind Thorium reactors seems solid, but engineering and experiential proof is limited. Generic nuclear power environmental laws, driven by mindless liberal fears over Uranium reactors, currently block them — in this country. China is actively pursuing the Thorium dream of cheap, abundant, probably safe, power. Proposed US legislation could unblock both US Thorium reactors and US rare earth production.

[KobraKai]

Very interesting!