http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...BdFH_blog.html

Turns out one of the main commercial uses (besides party balloons) is the cooling of superconducting magnets in MRI machines. Kind of important if you need medical help.

Made me wonder what the global reserves are for some of the other rare earth elements. Then I found this report - http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R41347.pdf.

Some very weird stuff like lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium. A mouthful ... but it's important for all kinds of reasons - hybrid engines, catalysts, magnets, hard drives, lasers and a bunch of other important things.

rare.png

What is important though is almost all of it comes from China - as in 97% of it. Wonder if this could not have repercussions down the road for those countries who don't have it in abundance?

Just found this report titled Rare earth elements on the endangered list - makes for some interesting reading. To be honest, I was not aware the situation was so dire. This comment puts it in perspective:

in January 2003 indium was selling for around $60 per kilogram, whereas August 2006 it was valued at over $1000 per kilogram.