Method to assess rare metals described

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Feb. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers have announced the development of a methodology for governments and corporations to determine the availability of critical metals.

Based on a U.S. National Research Council template, the methodology is designed to help determine the risks of not having access to critical metals and to guide decision-making strategies for resource use.

"If you're a corporation, you don't want to design and manufacture something only to find out that you don't have important materials," Thomas Graedel, professor of industrial ecology at Yale University, said.

"This work was stimulated by China's attempt to horde rare earth metals, which are being almost entirely mined and processed in China," Graedel said in a university release Monday. "We asked ourselves: How do you know what's scarce? If you know a metal is scarce, how do you know if you should worry about it?"

The more concentrated the mineral deposits in one area, the higher the risk of supply restriction, he said.

The new methodology has been designed to determine rare metals' scarcity risk, environmental implications, and vulnerability to supply restriction, he said.