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Ytterby there are two secret pasts. Two centuries ago, the sleepy village- now dotted with vacation homes belonging to wealthy residents of nearby Stockholm- was a restless mining settlement, shipping out high-grade feldspar for the royal porcelain factories of Europe and quartz to line the blast furnaces springing up across England. It is also the birthplace of some of natures most wondrous and least appreciated chemical elements. The latter story began in 1787, when an amateur geologist named Carl Arrhenius was visiting a mine in Ytterby. He discovered an unusually heavy black rock among the gray outcroppings and, being a man of healthy scientific curiosity, sent a sample for analysis to Johan Gadolin, a prominent chemist at the Royal Academy of Turku in Finland. In 1794 Gadolin concluded that the specimen contained an entirely new element, later named yttrium. By 1879 chemists had isolated six additional elements from the same rock, bringing the grand total in the newly invented periodic table to 70. Three of those elementsytterbium, erbium, and terbium- were simply given additional variants on the name Ytterby, while the other three were named holmium (for Stockholm), scandium, and thulium (both from the Latin for Scandanavia), in the nationalistic fashion then in favor. After a long, lucrative run, the Ytterby quarry was closed in 1933. In many ways, though, the towns influence looms larger than ever. The elements discovered there, known collectively as rare earths, today form the backbone of the modern wired and wireless world- even though you have probably never heard of them. th The name rare earths made sense to the 19 century mind; rare because it seemed at first that they came only from Scandanavia, and earths because they occurred in an earthly oxide form from which it was exceptionally hard to obtain the pure metal. Today it is clear that the rare earths are hardly rare. The most th common of them, cerium, ranks 25 in abundance in the earths crust, one place ahead of homely copper. Yttrium is twice as abundant as lead; all of the rareearth metals (with the exception of radioactive promethium) are more common than
by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Six valuable rare earths, shown in powdered oxide form. Neodumium, a key component of electronic devices, is at front.
silver. The earths part is also misleading. These elements are actually metals, and quite marvelous ones at that. The warm glow of terbium is essential to high-efficiency compact-fluorescent bulbs. Europium is widely exploited to make vivid displays for laptop computers and smart phones. Rare earths also pop up in more unexpected places like baseball bats, European currency, and night-vision goggles. With their growing popularity comes new value, and even political notoriety. Terbium and europium recently overtook silver in price, reaching $40 an ounce. The growing demand for rare earths has become the subject of numerous government reports and a bill that passed in the House of Representatives. The reason these elements are causing such a stir is not their scarcity but their inaccessibility. Rare earths tend to occur in hard rock such as granites, where they lump together in a uniform way that makes them difficult to extract. Separating out the desired elements demands a toxic and dangerous process, and China has the best infrastructure for doing so economically. China holds about 36 percent of the worlds 110 million tons of recoverable rare-earth ores, with the rest scattered worldwide, principally in the United States, India, Australia, and Russia. Yet China currently produces as much as 97 percent of the worlds rare earth oxides, according to the US Government Accountability Office. Pekka Pyykk, a professor of chemistry at the University of Helsinki, puts it this way:
by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
iron alloy containing terbium and dysprosium has a particularly useful property: It expands and contracts efficiently in the presence of a magnetic field. Sensors, actuators, and injectors commonly use such materials, for instance to regulate the flow of gasoline into an auto motive engine. Compact, powerful magnets are key components for efficient generators and electric motors, and this makes rare earths star players in green technology. (Molycorp Minerals- the biggest rare-earth mining operation in the United Statesoptimistically calls them the green elements.) Lanthanide-flecked supermagnets are used to generate electricity in wind turbines. A turbine capable of generating 2.5 megawatts of power typically uses 700 pounds of neodymium. High-speed maglev trains make extensive use of such magnets to levitate the cars above their tracks. The Toyota Prius is practically a rolling exhibit of rare earths, containing eight different elements, for a total of 25 pounds of rare earthiness.
by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
compound works to convert carbon monoxide emissions in automotive exhaust to less harmful carbon dioxide. As a fine powder mixed into diesel fuel, cerium oxide can also clean up the sooty fumes produced by trucks and buses. Industry consumes 55,000 tons of cerium every year. The element, pulled from a type of weathered granite called monazite, fetches about $60 a pound. Useful and yet so unfamiliar: the average person is still largely in the dark about rare earths, even though many of them are literally casting light into the world. Cerium is a crucial element in the intense, white-light arc lamps used by moviemakers to illuminate the action on-set. Glass doped with cerium oxide effectively absorbs ultraviolet light. That makes it useful for UV-blocking windows and sunglasses, as well as for protecting X-ray equipment from radiation damage. Two other rare-earth metals, neodymium and praseodymium, work their magic at the other end of the spectrum. They impeded infrared light and so are incorporated into welders goggles to protect workers eyes from the heat. These oxides also absorb yellow and green, so glass made with them has a characteristic mauve tinge. More broadly, rare earths add color to our world because of their rich and varied optical properties. The glazes on earthenware dishes and vases commonly contain oxides of tin (white), copper (blue), or iron (amber). But rare-earth oxides can dissolve in the glaze to create more exotic hues, such as pink and lime green, with a sharp, electric appearance that artists love. They can be transparent, which really brings ceramics alive, says David Pier, a ceramicist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Adding erbium oxide, for example, gives a subtle tone-
The Mountain Pass mine in California restarted operations earlier this year, providing a rare-earth alternative to China.
by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
of this year, owing to its property as a permanent supermagnet when alloyed with cobalt. Samariums ability to stay strongly magnetic in extreme temperatures makes it a favorite of the military for use in precision-guided weapons. In April, China took steps to keep prices high by extending a national ban on rare-earth exploration and the opening of new mines. For all the dire headlines, the latest rareearth frenzy may be little more than a bubble. Not so long ago, China aggressively pursued cheaper means of isolating rare earths, benefiting from the absence of costly environmental regulations, which is how the country acquired its current near-monopoly. But its dominance could well be temporary. Because of its cheap prices, the competitors closed down, says Pekka Pyykk. In the present situation, new capacity will undoubtedly be restarted. Mountain Pass, California, is one of the places where American rare earths may rise again. Here, Molycorp used to meet much of the worlds demand for these elements. The company shuttered its operations in 2002, but earlier this year it reopened its mine. Another American company, U.S. Rare Earths, owns mineral rights to lanthanide resources in Montana and Idaho; according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, these are in early exploratory stages of development. Mines in these areas may take up to 15 years to bring online, the report states, largely due to the time it takes to comply with multiple state and federal regulations. A visit to other parts of the periodic table could also turn up substitutes for some of the lanthanides. In January, Toyota- spooked by rising prices and supply concerns- announced that it is developing a new type of propulsion, called an induction motor, for future electric and hybrid vehicles. The technology notably does not rely on rare-earth elements. For now, the world is hooked on the lanthanides, and China is the only place that has the processing capacity up and running. As for Ytterby, that mine at least is unlikely to reopen. It is now a historic landmark, located just off the intersection of Terbium and Mine roads. A small sign commemorates
by Hugh Aldersey-Williams