U.S. measures its rare earths reserves

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- The United States has 13 million tons of valuable and vital rare earth elements, but extracting them could take years, a report on the country's supply says.

"Rare earths" are elements vital to modern life and advanced technologies and are used in everything from disc drives, hybrid cars and sunglasses to lasers and aircraft used by the military, NewScientist.com reported Friday.

Ninety-seven percent of the world's supply is controlled by China, which has been tightening its export quotas, leading many industrialized nations to start measuring their own resources of the indispensable elements.

The U.S. Geological Survey has examined national reserves of the elements as part of an assessment of the threat posed to defense by limited rare earth supplies.

It found that while the United States has the third-largest reserves in the world after China and the Commonwealth of Independent States, nations that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, the only rare earths mine the country ever operated, at Mountain Pass, California, is currently inactive.

Mining could restart there within two years, but any other new mines would be a long time coming online, the report says.

The report suggests the United States could overcome its dependency on China's rare earth monopoly by looking to other future suppliers of rare earths, including Australia and Canada.