"China and the U.S. have some of the largest rare earth mineral deposits, but other deposits exist in countries such as Australia, Brazil, India, Malaysia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Thailand, according to the USGS.
Mining is just the first step. Extracting the individual rare earth metals from the raw ore requires thousands of stainless steel tanks holding many chemical solutions, according to Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist. The overall refining process converts ore into oxides, and then converts the oxides into refined metals.
Only China currently has the equipment to refine rare earth metals from start to finish, and it supplies as much as 97 percent of the world's rare earth oxides. Opening one mine and building a separation plant might cost anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion"
Chump change to Obama he can just pull it out of his stash.
Now that would be worth some stimulus money. A much better investment than Solyndra. It has a much better chance of making a profit. There is a real market for rare earth metals.
Which is equivalent to the cost of subsidizing one bankrupt solar company.
There is a very significan deposit of rare earths located on a perfect site in southern Alaska that is owned by a Canadian corporation. It seems that it has taken forever to obtain the needed permits to begin mining. It seems that our government seems determined to roadblock all mining in the US if at all possible.