Precious metals that could save the planet

Baotou was of little interest to the outside world for millennia. When one of the first visitors reached its walls in 1925, it was described as "a little husk of a town in a great hollow shell of mud ramparts". Some 84 years later, this once barren outpost of Inner Mongolia has been transformed into the powerhouse of China's dominance of the market in some of the globe's most sought-after minerals.
As a result, Baotou has rapidly become of great interest to the outside world. China, which by accident of geography holds about 50 per of the world's rare earth deposits and currently produces 97 per of global supplies, has made no secret of the nature or scale of its ambitions, summarised by former premier Deng Xiaoping when he said: "The Middle East has oil. China has rare earths."
In 1999, President Jiang Zemin went further on a visit to Baotou when he summed up Beijing's strategy as being "to improve the development and applications of rare earth, and change the resource advantage into economic superiority".

In the intervening decade, demand for rare earth elements (REEs) has ballooned from 40,000 tonnes to a predicted 200,000 tonnes by 2014. The reason is that the particular properties of luminescence, magnetism and conductivity of rare earths have been increasingly harnessed by scientists to create a vast gamut of technologies from fibre-optic cables to advanced X-ray machines; flat television screens to the movable fins on guided missiles; and filters for viruses to navigation systems.

Above all, they are an integral part of the technologies that politicians are relying on to try to avert the worst effects of global warming. From the generators of wind turbines to catalytic converters, and the batteries on hybrid cars to alloys that dramatically reduce leakage from overhead power cables, rare earths are at the heart of the green revolution.

As one senior delegate at a recent international conference on REEs put it: "There is hardly a day that goes by that a new application for rare earths isn't found in Baotou; they are almost entirely related to low-carbon tech. Ironic isn't it? The world's greatest polluter by volume is in pole position when it comes to the raw materials to save us from global warming."

The result is that the rare earth industry in China is rapidly moving from a role as a provider of rare earth extracts for export, worth a few hundred million dollars a year to Chinese GDP, to a producer of finished REE components worth billions. In response to Chinese reductions in exports, global manufacturers are forced to move factories making rare-earth rich components to China to ensure continued production.
*Cerium (Ce) – catalytic converters for diesel engines

*Praseodymium (Pr) – an alloying agent for aircraft engines

*Neodymium (Nd) – a key component of high-efficiency magnets and hard disc drives

*Lanthanum (La) – a major ingredient for hybrid car batteries

*Samarium (Sm) – lasers and nuclear reactor safety

*Promethium (Pm) – portable X-rays and a nuclear battery

*Gadolinium (Gd) – shielding for nuclear reactors, compact discs

*Dysprosium (Dy) – improves the efficiency of hybrid vehicle motors

*Terbium (Tb) – a component in low-energy light bulbs

*Erbium (Er) – fibre optics

*Europium (Eu) – used in flat screen displays and lasers

*Holmium (Ho) – nuclear control rods, ultra-powerful magnets

*Thulium (Tm) – lasers, portable X-rays

*Ytterbium (Yb) – monitoring equipment for earthquakes

*Lutetium (Lu) – oil refining
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