rare earths are they actually ‘rare?’

What are rare earths, and are they actually ‘rare?’Rare earths include 17 metallic elements in the periodic table made up of scandium, yttrium and the lanthanides.
The name “rare earths” is a bit of a misnomer, as the materials are found throughout the Earth’s crust. They are more abundant than gold, but they are difficult and costly to extract and process and are also environmentally damaging.
What are rare earths used for?
Rare earths are ubiquitous in everyday technologies, from smartphones to wind turbines to LED lights and flat-screen TVs. They’re crucial for batteries in electric vehicles, as well as MRI scanners and cancer treatments. How they are extracted is less transparent and Congo and Sudan are most known source countries in Africa for #conflictminerals where #genocide is also taking place with involvement of different stakeholders reports CNN.
Rare earths are also essential for the US military. They’re used in F-35 fighter jets, submarines, lasers, satellites, Tomahawk missiles and more, according to a 2025 research note from CSIS.
Where do rare earths come from? Sixty-one percent of mined rare earth production comes from China, according to the International Energy Agency, and the country controls 92% of the global output in the processing stage.
There are two types of rare earths, categorized by their atomic weights: heavy and light. Heavy rare earths are more scarce, and the United States doesn’t have the capability to separate rare earths after extraction.
“Until the start of the year, whatever heavy rare earths we did mine in California, we still sent to China for separation,” Gracelin Baskaran, director of the Critical Minerals Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNN.

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