Discover the significance of rare-earth elements, their applications in technology, and the global race for their resources.

China’s control over rare earth elements did not happen overnight. It is the result of decades of investment across every stage of the chain — from mining and reserves to processing and technology — ...

Can the rest of the world challenge Beijing’s dominance of high-performance magnets by developing new mining projects?

Venezuela holds the worlds largest oil reserves, totaling 303 billion barrels. However, a more critical resource is emerging: ...

The United States imports nearly 80% of the rare earth elements it uses in the production of critical electronics. That has made securing mining rights and import agreements a hot political topic. NBC ...

Rare earth elements are becoming increasingly critical to the development and deployment of next-generation technologies. Limited refining capacity and concentrated supply chains threaten innovation ...

The waste left over from spent fossil fuel may contain a treasure trove of rare-earth elements worth billions of dollars. In a 2024 paper, geologists calculated that the waste ash from coal burnt in ...

Cradled in the nose of a high-altitude research airplane, a new NASA sensor has taken to the skies to help geoscientists map rocks hosting lithium and other critical minerals on Earth's surface some ...

Rare earth elements are vital to new technologies and industry but hard to obtain. A new project led by UC Davis and funded by a grant from ARPA-E aims to develop acid-tolerant bacteria that can ...

A bunch of materials called rare earth elements (REE) that are crucial for producing a vast range of tech products – from electric cars to smartphones to wind turbines – typically require destructive ...