With the support of the American government, the operator of MP Materials revives the Mountain Pass site, which benefits from the world appetite for the magnets of electric motors and wind turbines.
by Arnaud Leparmentier (Mountain Pass (California), Special Envoy)
On the road that leads from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, through the Mojave desert, the place goes unnoticed, between some Joshua trees, after the Borders of the State of California. Five years ago, the Mountain Pass mine, bankrupt and abandoned, had only eight employees. Now it’s a hive.
At the bottom of a 150 -meter abyss, a Caterpillar truck, which seems very small, goes up rocks: the monster weighs more than 100 tonnes. It is crushed in a grinder, then raised by water, which makes it possible to isolate a precious ore, which is then roasted and chemically treated, with salt water. At Mountain Pass, we are not in a mine, but in a factory that aims to make magnets from the famous “rare earths”.
With the electric revolution at work, intended to decarbonize the planet, it takes copper to transport electricity, lithium to make batteries and magnets to equip electric motors or wind turbine rotors. These magnets are designed from “rare lands”, a group of seventeen metals that are not uncommon, contrary to what their name indicates, but not very concentrated, expensive and polluting to exploit.
This sector has so far been the quasi-monopoly of China: the second world economy mine 60 % of the rare earths on the planet, makes 85 % of the refining of the ore and 90 % of the manufacture of magnets, explains MP Materials’ director of communication, Matt Sloustcher, showing the mine. The ambition of his business: recreate, on the soil of the United States, an integrated sector, in order to eliminate American strategic vulnerability.
“Create a completely national sector”
Mountain Pass is the only mine of rare land in the country. Discovered in 1949, the deposit had the advantage of being very rich, with a ore rate of 6 %, much higher than the average. It made it possible to supply the planet for decades. In the 1960s, the site made Europium, used for color televisions. The ace ! Production is relocated outside the United States, and the decline of the mine is accelerating due to unconscious pollution leaks in its pipelines from the 1980s. It was closed in 2002.
Property of the Chevron oil tanker, it is sold to investors, who reopens it ten years later. The funds committed are massive. They exceed $ 1.5 billion (1.4 billion euros), but the mine does not work well, and only can produce 12,000 tonnes of ore per year, four times less than today . It focuses on the cerium, a material whose value has soared from 2010, after China has declared an embargo of its exports to Japan. Problem: the Cerium course has meanwhile collapsed. The price has gone from $ 100 per kilogram to 1 dollar. Bankruptcy occurs in 2015.
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