Rare earth elements (REE from now on) aren't a particulaly new concept to anyone who has done a bit of chemistry or geology, they're the elements that sit on their own at the bottom of the periodic table with 'funny' names. What might surprise you is A) how rare they are and B) just how much we use them for.
Rather than write a lengthy explaination I'll let Molycorp, the company that essentialy discovered their uses describe what REE do:
If you can ignore the corporate tone and overemphasis on 'green' uses of REE then you should realise just how useful these elements are. This is one of the reasons they are so precious. The other is that, as the name suggests, they are rare, very rare in fact. Until the mid-1980s the USA (the Mountain Pass mine, California specifically) was the only place that they were mined. Now China is the world's leading exploiter and exporter of REE and aside from them there are very few other countries (Vietnam, Thailand and Estonia for example) that boast the natural deposits that harbour REE.
The mining process is, environmentaly speaking, catastrophic so you might wonder why do it? The answer is in the value of REE. As the list of things which these elemtns are integral to suggests, REE are worth staggering amounts of money. In 2011 for example Europium Oxide prices reached a peak of $1266/kg...
Being vanishingly rare there is now a danger that REE demand could outstrip supply unless new sources are found. As such the search for new REE deposits is increasingly frantic and the countries that posses them will find themselves owning not just rocks of great monetary value but also considerable influence over others. Next time you put on a pair of headphones, which contain stationary magnets made of the REE Neodymium, it is worth noting that you are, in a way, contributing to a power struggle over the most unconventional of natural resources.
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