BUSINESS | THIS TEXT CHANGES EACH ISSUE arths By Tim Lougheed Toronto’s <strong>Avalon</strong> <strong>Rare</strong> <strong>Metals</strong> has joined the global race to extract rare earth chemicals - key elements in many energy -generating green technologies. FEBRUARY 2012 CANADIAN CHEMICAL NEWS 23
H umanity’s longstanding love affair with gold may not have waned, but we are being wooed by some serious rivals in the periodic table. They are the rare earths, which are actually metals and not all that rare. These 17 elements are appearing in more and more of our high technology hardware, particularly the latest generation of green energy-generating technology. And with more than 95 per cent of the world’s rare earth production taking place within China, which has announced its intention to reserve that supply for its own growing use, the hunt is on to diversify the world market for these hot commodities. Such dramatic attention to rare earths is comparatively recent. They have often been regarded by prospectors as little more than a nuisance, comparatively useless materials that interfere with the refining of tantalum or niobium, the kinds of metals that really make money. In fact, until the 1980s the world’s largest source of rare earths was a mine in California’s Mojave Desert, which was shut down as demand tapered off. By 2010, however, Colorado Congressman Mike Coffman had introduced American legislation that would brand rare earths as economically strategic. “Our nation must act to protect our security interests with regard to rare earth elements,” Coffman said last year. “China is neither an ally of the United States nor is it a reliable trade partner when it comes to these strategic metals.” Dubbed RESTART, for <strong>Rare</strong> <strong>Earths</strong> Supply-Chain Technology and Resources Transformation Act, the proposal would promote the development of all relevant exploration, mining and processing capacity. The move parallels the revival of output from the Mojave Desert mine, which is expected to ramp up sharply in the next few years. Meanwhile, companies are scouring obscure corners of the globe elsewhere to investigate other sources of rare earths. One of the most promising of those sites is near Great Slave Lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Known formally as the Nechalacho <strong>Rare</strong> Earth Elements Deposit, it is located at Thor Lake, about 200 kilometres east of Yellowknife. The site was initially surveyed in the 1930s, when all that was in evidence was a large body of granite and gabbro, a form of igneous rock comparable to basalt. By the 1970s, aerial surveys with a gamma ray spectrometer showed high radiometric values raised the possibility of uranium. The readings were actually caused by thorium, which turned out to be affiliated with a substantial collection of rare earths. That survey and the ensuing discovery was made by Highwood Resources, a predecessor to Vancouver-based Beta Minerals, which held the mining lease on the property. Over the next 30 years, it would invest some $12 million to assess the rare earths potential of Thor Lake, sinking some 200 test holes. Nevertheless, there was little incentive for more ambitious development while the price of most rare earths remained low and the logistics of extracting them from such an isolated location remained daunting. By 2005, representatives of Toronto-based <strong>Avalon</strong> <strong>Rare</strong> <strong>Metals</strong> were prepared to adopt a different perspective and the company acquired the title to Thor Lake from Beta. This move was spearheaded by <strong>Avalon</strong> CEO Don Bubar, who has subsequently been lauded for his prescience with regard to the demand for rare earths. Among those at the heart of this strategic acquisition is Bill Mercer, who has headed up the Thor Lake project for <strong>Avalon</strong> since 2007. He explains that in just a few years, the demand for rare earths has been nurtured by a new generation of consumer products that take advantage of these elements. A typical example is an innovative electric motor introduced by the U.K.-based firm Dyson, which has used it 24 L’ACTUALITÉ CHIMIQUE CANADIENNE FÉVRIER 2012
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