The Pentagon turns to coal ash to escape Chinese dominance of rare earth elements
C oal box can be the next source of elements that the US defense industry uses in everything from night vision goggles to smart bombs gyroscopes.
The Senate Committee on Armed Services included a provision in the recently discovered 2020 defense budget that allows an increase in funding for the Pentagon to develop the capability of producing rare earth material from coal ash, the remains of burnt coal, as China threatens to limit supplies.
"[Y] You have to make sure you have either [a] stock or access to them," Acting Deputy Minister of Defense David Norquist told Washington Examiner . "And then there is an area where, when you look across the system and you look at your future production, [you] the question: Do I have it? Do I have enough of them? Do I have access to them? Where are they produced ? And I think it's a right place for Congress to have focused on. "
A trade department survey in 201[ads1]6 found 66% of respondents, most defense vendors, imported rare earths. Rare earths such as neodymium and dysprosium may not be household names, but they range from mobile phones to F-35 fighters. China is the world's leading supplier, producing 70% of world supplies in 2018, according to the US Geological Survey.
The country has threatened rare earth gas supplies when it beats Trump's administration over trade policy.
"I think part of the reason we see them threatening is that they don't have lots of other points of influence that the United States does," said Zack Cooper, a researcher specializing in the US and China competition at the American Enterprise Institute. "The United States has control not only of the financial system, to a great extent, but also almost everything traded in the world trades with dollars … So they have to find the places where they have an asymmetric edge, and this is one of the few, so I am not surprised that they threaten to use it. "Unlike their names, rare earths are quite common. But they are scattered across the Earth's surface in trace amounts that are extraordinarily difficult to distinguish from surrounding ore. This makes the production of rare earths not only expensive but extremely dirty. Extracting them involves a number of processes that are harmful to the environment. Because there is little profit to be made in rare earths, the last US mine closed in 2015.
China, home to about one-third of the world's rare earth reserves, has helped the market by subsidizing production and receiving environmental costs. Last year, it produced 120,000 tons of rare earths, compared to the 15,000 tons produced in the United States
China has already shown its willingness to use its rare earth as weapons. Beijing cut rare earth exports to Japan in a 2010 frightening dispute.
"It sent a shock wave through Japan because this would affect their supply chain for a variety of things like computers and cell phones," said Dean Cheng, senior researcher specializing in Chinese military capabilities at the Heritage Foundation. "But it was also the first time the Chinese have actually done something that people were worried about, but never seen, which will they ever use their financial power for political purposes."
This embargo was lifted in 2015, but the message to rare earth-dependent countries was clear: China may not be a reliable source. This, experts say, is likely why Congress has raised the question. It is also why they focus on coal ash, which contains traces of rare earths, such as the solution.
The United States produces nearly 80 million tons of coal ash each year, from which rare earths could be derived, according to Rochester Institute of Technology researchers.
from coal ash is technically feasible, but [it’s] did not clear how much it would cost compared to other alternatives, "said Eric Williams, one of the researchers, Washington Examiner .
The government has already invested in some coal gas recovery methods, although no one has proven to be commercially viable. But Williams and his colleague researchers believe that a method that uses compressed carbon dioxide to extract rare earths is similar to how caffeine is removed from coffee beans can be a reasonable solution. They also claim that it can be beneficial for the coal industry when the country moves away from coal-fired power plants.
Although China would cut rare earth exports, some experts believe the impact may be limited as Beijing already showed its hand once before. Some countries such as Brazil and Vietnam have been interested in exporting rare earths and presenting a potential alternative supply chain.
