Rare Earths Aren’t Rare, with Julie Klinger-Ep. 254

“Rare earths aren’t actually rare, nor are they earths,” Julie Klinger told me. Julie is an associate professor at UW Madison and literally wrote the book on rare earth elements—Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes.

I interviewed her last week, the day after Trump signed a rare earths deal with China, which had been threatening export restrictions. I knew from all the hubbub they were important for US national security and our supply chain, but I didn’t realize these elements seem to pop up in everything, including a ton of the materials used in precision machining.

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Interview Highlights

China’s “Monopoly” Isn’t What You Think

Rare earths comprise 17 chemically similar elements on the periodic table. Julie calls them “spice metals.” You add a tiny bit to glass, steel, or other alloys and they do amazing stuff. They make things lighter, faster, stronger, brighter. They’re in your iPhone, your car, your welding electrodes. Lanthanum-thoriated tungsten electrodes? That’s a rare earth element giving you arc stability.

The conversation got really interesting when we talked about China’s dominance. I thought rare earths are like oil—a coveted resource that various nations hoard. But Julie explained that rare earths are actually all over the Earth’s crust. China doesn’t have a geological monopoly; they have a processing monopoly.

Back in the ‘80s and ’90s, Western firms basically said “this stuff is too dirty and expensive to process here” and outsourced it all to China. Now China controls about 80% of global processing, and we’re worried they’ll cut us off.

But Julie says that might actually be good for us in the long game. When China announced export restrictions, she said the Financial Times called it “a gift to Western industry.” Why? Because it drives prices up, making it economically viable for companies outside China to get back in the game.

We’re Not in a Rare Earth Crisis

Julie also shared how measured China’s approach actually is. They have business interests to protect too. Chinese companies and joint ventures want to keep selling. If China plays too much hardball, those businesses might just pack up and leave. It’s not the zero-sum game the news makes it out to be.

We don’t need to panic about rare earth supply chains. The materials keep flowing because everyone wants them to. Also, we likely already have a decent amount in reserve, we just don’t know exactly how much.

Any real restriction would actually accelerate innovation in substitutes and domestic processing, things we’ve already figured out but haven’t scaled because Chinese supply has been so reliable.

What I found really interesting that many people aren’t talking about is that technology is already moving beyond rare earths. Julie told me that scientists have been developing rare-earth-free batteries and magnets for years. The solutions exist. They’ve just been sitting on the shelf because it’s easier to keep buying from China. If that supply ever truly gets cut off, we’d see these alternatives deployed almost overnight. It could be like when we restricted AI chips to China. Instead of crippling them, it pushed them to develop their own technology faster and more cheaply.

Question: What materials in your shop do you worry about sourcing?