![]() “It can be said that the rare earth permanent magnet industry is one of the few industries in China that has an important position in international competition and has global competitiveness,” wrote the Ping An Securities analysts.Ĭhinese rare earth magnet makers also enjoy another competitive advantage: favorable tax regulations. According to Ping An Securities, the US also never placed tariffs on Chinese imports of rare earth magnets, even as it slapped levies on items from bicycles to Bibles. Even amid the US-China trade war, US imports of rare earth magnets from China in 2019 increased 12% compared to the year prior. But as the Chinese government tightens environmental and land-use rules, production costs will go up and Mancheri expects it’ll cost the same to produce a rare earth magnet in China and Europe within 15 years.įor China, its dominance in rare earth magnets brings strategic advantages. It’s about 20% cheaper to produce a rare earth magnet in China than in Europe, according to Nabeel Mancheri, secretary-general of the Brussels-based Rare Earth Industry Association, thanks to lower labor and energy costs. ![]() For example, Hitachi Metals, the world’s leading magnet maker, in 2016 announced a joint venture (link in Chinese) with a major Chinese magnet maker Zhong Ke San Huan, explaining that the move was “necessary to achieve global growth” in its magnet business.Ĭhina also presents the benefit of lower costs. After China slapped a rare earth embargo on Japan in 2010 over a diplomatic dispute, some Japanese magnet manufacturers also considered diversifying and shifting production capacity to China as a way to mitigate unexpected supply chain risks. Over the past decade, more and more producers of rare earth permanent magnets have moved their manufacturing capacities to China, in large part drawn by the proximity to raw material supplies. The higher durability means lower maintenance costs, which can rapidly add up for offshore wind farms. ![]() NdFeB magnets containing the heavy rare earth dysprosium and sometimes terbium are particularly useful, because the presence of heavy rare earths improves the magnet’s ability to withstand high temperatures. The magnets are also used in wind turbines. Tesla, for example, has used NdFeB magnets in its motors. A big, heavy magnet would cost more energy to move around, hindering the vehicle’s range. That makes them ideal for products that require a high energy-to-weight ratio, like electric vehicle motors. Thanks to NdFeB magnets’ high magnetic strength, they are able to produce a lot of energy relative to their weight and size. As MP Materials, which operates the only active rare earths mine in the US put it, “NdPr magnets are a single point of failure for national security, the economy and the environment.” As such, NdFeB magnets are also referred to as NdPr magnets.īeijing’s dominance in the production of such a critical input has significant geopolitical implications. Some of that neodymium can be replaced by another light rare earth, praseodymium (Pr). Today, the NdFeB magnet accounts for the majority of global rare earth permanent magnet production.Ī typical NdFeB magnet contains about one-third neodymium, a light rare earth. By the 1980s, researchers at Japan and the US separately developed a cheaper and stronger rare earth magnet: the neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnet. It also sparked a revival in magnets research. Known as the samarium-cobalt (SmCo) magnet, it was developed in the 1960s in the US and was far more powerful than previous permanent magnets. The first rare earth magnet to have been developed was based on the rare earth samarium and the transition metal cobalt. Rare earths are a group of 17 metals, classified into lights and heavies depending on their atomic number, and are crucial to the manufacturing of high-tech products. There are four major types of permanent magnets: two that have no rare earths in them, and two that do.
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