Not sure those supply numbers are accurate.
First off, the term: "recoverable" needs to be listed in the context of
recoverable "at a price per kg".
My Oxford source says that abundance of Nd is very high - Nd=40 ppm in
the earths crust... which is surprisingly high - much higher than many
common metals like lead. It is particularly abundant in Monazite sand,
which is also where Th is found most cheaply.
For comparison Th is about 8 ppm or five times less in abundance than
Nd, and uranium is only 2.3 ppm - yet ten years ago "proved uranium
reserves recoverable at $130/kg" were 3.38 million tons (WEC, 1998) and
are now *much* higher with China and Russia entering the free-market,
creating oversupply and forcing US producers into bankruptcy. The
current price for U due to over-supply is only about $30/kg on the
international market, in large amounts. Much higher in the USA.
IOW of these three metals, only U has a well-established "tonnage
market" and you can probably base the future cost of Nd on that. In
actual demand, Nd today is 'chicken feed' compared to many metals (like
lead, for instance) and expecially compared to what it will be, *IF* OU
magnetics are proved.
If the ratio between U, Th and Nd holds - that should put Nd up to
around 50 million metric tons recoverable at a similar price - or really
much less price per kg (if demand increases) since it is recoverable by
the simple expedient of passing PM magnets over crushed Monazite
sand.... whereas Th requires chemical leaching, so Nd should be much
cheaper to enrich from Monazite if there were real industrial demand.
Many Islands like Madagascar are composed of mostly monazite sand. If
China really wanted to corner the market (nearly impossible anyway),
they would be buying up the monazite sand acreage there - but they have
more than they can ever sell anyway at home. It is just a matter of
price, politics and supply and demand. The price will come way down
before it goes way up - when the demand materializes -- despite what
China has been doing lately.
Jones
...and this could be good news for other magnet-heads besides Steron,
maybe even in Hotlanta.... <g>
Terry Blanton wrote:
But magnets will NOT save the world. Consider this:
There are known recoverable reserves of Rare Earth Elements in the
entire world of approximately 6 million metric tons. Of this REE about
20% is neodymium. According to Sean, he expects to get 0.5 W/cc from
his technology.
The density of NdFeBo magnets is 7.5 g/cc. The Nd content is 27% by
weight; so, the density of Nd in a magnet is 2.03 g/cc. This means
that we can expect to get 0.5 W per 2.03 g of Nd.
With known extractable reserves of 1.2 million metric tons of Nd in
the world, if we used ALL the Nd to make electricity, we could
generate 1.2 x 10^12 g times 0.25 W/g or 300 Gigawatts. The US
generating capacity in Dec of 2005 was 1.07 Terawatts.
Terry
