Rare Earths Reserves: Top 8 Countries

Investing News Network ^ | Feb 5, 2025 | Melissa Pistilli

[McGruff]

The outlook for rare earths is supported by strong supply and demand fundamentals as the world heads into a new economic era with a focus on clean energy and technological advancements.

But with supply chain worries rising, it’s worth looking at which countries have the highest rare earths reserves. Many of the world’s major rare earths producers have large reserves, but some countries with high reserves have low output.

1. China

2. Brazil

3. India

4. Australia

5. Russia

6. Vietnam

7. United States

8. Greenland

[Soul of the South]

We have the rare earths in the United States. All we have to do is mine them and process them. Why buy from China or give billions to other countries?

[BJ1]

>>>We have the rare earths in the United States. All we have to do is mine them and process them. Why buy from China or give billions to other countries?<<<

The rare earths are often found in the waste stream of other mining operations. It needs a ton of extra processing and with our EPA not economically viable with the low cost production (or dumping) from China. In six months time America could be producing everything we need.

[woodbutcher1963]

The EPA.

Do you want a LITHIUM mine in your backyard?
Or an open pit mine for almost anything?
No, of course you don’t. Nobody does.
There was one mine out in Nevada years ago that shut down because of regulations/costs/etc.

The reason many of these minerals are processed in countries like China, India, Brazil and other places is because the LEGAL long term issues.

The Congo is the number one country for the resource COBALT. It is extracted from the ground in open pit and wildcat mines. The cobalt dust permeates the air throughout the town surrounding the mine. The result is babies being continually born with BIRTH DEFECTS. Things like missing or mutated limbs, cleft pallets, etc. Things that would get that mine shut down immediately in the USA, Europe or any other first or even second world country.

This is the same reason so many dangerous chemicals are now produced in Asia. This is the same reason why NO corporations LEGAL DEPARTMENT advise on building these facilities either here in North America or Western Europe.

[_longranger81]

Part of the problem with rare earths is limited locations, but the other problem is that mining and refining them is incredibly toxic and dangerous to people and the environment. Advocates of creating an energy economy requiring maybe 100 times the battery production we used to have don’t five a damn about this, and shield themselves from the harsh realities involved.

[mac_truck]

In six months time America could be producing everything we need.

What would you ball park estimate the quantities needed are?

[enumerated]

Note that Ukraine is not on the list, but Greenland is…

[HartleyMBaldwin]

Reserves, or merely resources? A lot of people use the term “reserve” when referring to an indicated resource, which is highly misleading.

[BJ1]

Rare earths can be taken from tailings from other mining operations. However there is one dedicated rare earth mine in the usa. It’s mountain pass in california. It’s my understanding the ore is shipped to china for processing.

So the six months time I mentioned before is merely to ramp up the processing here. Wiki said it produced 15.8% of the world’s supply of rare earths. There is also a newer discovery near Wheatland, WY that is billed as a world leader. It sounds like these 2 locations alone would not only provide enough rare earths for our country, but have enough to export to friendly countries.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Just having “rare earths” is meaningless, as they are 17, *seventeen*, different elements. And while several of them will tend to cluster together in a given ore, as different elements, they have different properties. To make things even more confusing, there are two not-”rare earth” elements included with them, scandium and yttrium, just because they are typically found with them.

So you have a “rare earth” mine? Which “rare earth” elements are in it?

The other 15:

Lanthanum (La)
Cerium (Ce)
Praseodymium (Pr)
Neodymium (Nd)
Promethium (Pm)
Samarium (Sm)
Europium (Eu)
Gadolinium (Gd)
Terbium (Tb)
Dysprosium (Dy)
Holmium (Ho)
Erbium (Er)
Thulium (Tm)
Ytterbium (Yb)
Lutetium (Lu)

[cowboyusa]

We just made a deal with India.

[Soul of the South]

“This is the same reason so many dangerous chemicals are now produced in Asia. This is the same reason why NO corporations LEGAL DEPARTMENT advise on building these facilities either here in North America or Western Europe.”

I’m very familiar with the EPA and what it has done to US manufacturing. I once was involved with a textile dye house that took clear water out of a mountain stream and reprocessed it coming in and going out. The water emitted was far cleaner that what entered the plant and testing by the company, the state, and the EPA showed the quality of the emitted water beat the most stringent drinking water requirements. It still wasn’t good enough for the EPA. This factory, which was the major employer in a small rural town is now closed and most of the small businesses in the town closed shortly after the factory payroll no longer fueled the town’s economy. The people who still live in the area now drive 30 miles to buy food and basic provisions. In the 1990’s and early 2000’s this experience was repeated in thousands of small towns across America.

We were told by the globalists American workers were overpaid and unproductive versus Asian workers. It was a lie. The output per employee of that American factory was 50% higher than the Chinese factory that replaced it. The Chinese factory, located on a river, cleaned the incoming water enough to achieve the shade matching requirements of the customers. The effluent exited the Chinese factory with no treatment, coloring the river. So now chemicals and poisons that used to be cleaned up by the American factory, flow down the river and into the ocean, ultimately impacting life across the planet, including our homeland.

The wastelands of our western desert have rare earth minerals. They can be mined through processes that protect the environment. Or we buy them from China and Africa where the processes destroy the environment, poison the workers, and the waste ultimately flows into the oceans or into the underground water ecosystem.

Somehow the progressive “scientists” and politicians, who constantly advocate for drastic policies and regulations to “save the planet”, never consider the total impact, and cost, of their policies on the environment and people. They have an “out of site, out of mind” view of the world resulting in their policies doing more harm than good as long as they can remain blissfully unaware of the consequences.

[woodbutcher1963]

AMEN!

FYI, my father in law sold textile manufacturing equipment all around the world. He or one of his salesman may have been a supplier to your factory at one point. He is now 87. Long retired.