Rare earth: The New Great Game
22nd November 2009
It is a complicated story, involving a whole chunk of the Periodic Table, high secrecy, patent battles and conspiracy theory.
But it boils down to this – 97% of the specialist metals that are crucial to green technology are currently mined in China.
China is already limiting exports and has plans to limit them some more. As a result much of the hi-tech metals industry is also moving to China.