Rare earth elements are used in mature markets (such as catalysts, glassmaking, lighting, and metallurgy), which account for 59 percent of the total worldwide consumption of rare earth elements, and in newer, high-growth markets (such as battery alloys, ceramics, and permanent magnets), which account for 41 percent of the total worldwide consumption of rare earth elements.

The extraction of fossil fuels and mineral resources has grown exponentially since the early 20th century and far from decelerating, it is expected to increase in the coming decades. “The Limits to Growth” (Meadows et al., 1972) already alerted that if demand of metals and fossil fuels maintained the same trend, mankind would sooner or later be close to collapse. The book provoked a strong controversy between those that considered that the Earth was plentiful of non-renewable resources (technooptimists) and those who believed in the need for a rational management of the planetary mineral endowment.

The concentration of production of rare earth elements (REEs) outside the United States raises the important issue of supply vulnerability. REEs are used for new energy technologies and national security applications. Is the United States vulnerable to supply disruptions of REEs? Are these elements essential to U.S. national security and economic well-being?
There are 17 rare earth elements (REEs), 15 within the chemical group called lanthanides, plus yttrium and scandium. The lanthanides consist of the following: lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium. Rare earths are moderately abundant in the earth’s crust, some even more abundant than copper, lead, gold, and platinum.

The Pan European Reserves and Resources Reporting Committee (PERC) Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves (further referred to as ‘the Code’) sets out minimum standards, recommendations and guidelines for Public Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Europe. The history of development of this code is summarised in Appendix 4.  This 2008 edition supersedes all previous editions of The Reporting Code and the IMM Reporting Code. <...>

A brief history

1991: IMM code, broadly similar to JORC
2001: “The Reporting Code” sponsored by professional bodies IMM, GSL, IGI, and EFG, and aligned with CRIRSCO
2006: Reserves committee re-formed as PERC
2008: Updated PERC Code issued

This work investigates the permissibility and viability of property rights on the celestial bodies, particularly the extraterrestrial aspects of land and mineral resources ownership. In lay terms, it aims to find an answer to the question “Who owns the Moon?”

In 1992, 13 companies operated 23 primary aluminum reduction plants. Based on published market prices, the output of primary metal in 1992 was valued at $5.2 billion. Packaging accounted for an estimated 35% of domestic consumption; transportation, 20%; building, 17%; electrical, 9%; consumer durables, 8%; and other uses, 11 %. Aluminum recovered in 1992 from purchased scrap was about 2.6 Mt, of which about 40% came from new (manufacturing) scrap and 60% from old scrap (discarded aluminum products). Aluminum recovered from old scrap was equivalent to about 30% of apparent consumption.

This memoir reports on the geology and mineral resources of about 220 000 km2 of ground, roughly the size of the island of Great Britain, constituting almost the sum total of what is loosely called here the ‘Bolivian shield’: that part of the Precambrian Brazilian Shield lying in Bolivia (Figure 1). The area lies in the Bolivian departments of Santa Cruz and Beni and is bounded to the north and east by Brazil.

It is often assumed that when China becomes aroused to the need of equipping herself with the tools and technique of America and Europe, there will be a great and rapid industrial and commercial advance comparable with that of England, Germany, and the United States during the last century. Her supposed untold wealth, in uvast resources” of raw materials and man power, when organized, is to produce, we are told, both the fiercest industrial competition the world has ever seen and the greatest potential market. The Industrial Revolution of the West, it is forebodingly asserted, is only the curtain-raiser for the vaster drama of the twentieth century to be played in Asia, where “the stage seems set for catastrophe.”