Rare earth minerals: A new old frontier?

On 21 Oct, I blogged about rare earth minerals and how China mines 93% of the world's supply.  I concluded the blog post by saying "Mining almost all of the world's rare earth minerals, non-renewable resources which seem to have no viable alternatives at the current point in time, makes the Chinese a force as formidable as OPEC and possibly more."

Well, the recent belligerent attitude of China towards its trading partners in the West could possibly backfire at least in the rare earth minerals trading department as I read this just now:

The rising global demand for rare earth metals - the elements needed to make items like hybrid electric cars and laptop batteries - have caused the value of rare earths mining companies to soar in just a few months.

We've told you about one company, Rare Element Resources, that saw its stock surge 1200% in the last year.

But China's outright monopoly in the industry, along with fears that it will cut down on its rare earth exports, are driving plenty of other stocks higher too.

Posted Oct 28, 2010 01:00pm EDT by Gregory White and Hannah Kim, Yahoo! Finance.

Read article here.

Related post:
Control of non-renewable resources!