Magic rocks ⛏️

Rare earths are not actually all that rare. The problem is they’re seldom found in concentrations rich enough to mine economically. And even when they are, turning the ore into something usable is messy and expensive. 

There’s another catch: while these materials are integral to most of the modern world’s gizmos and gadgets, China basically owns the entire supply chain, from mining and crushing, all the way up to refining and manufacturing. And the West is not exactly BFFs with the Middle Kingdom. The harder these materials are to secure on Earth, the more tempting ever more exotic forms of extraction start to look.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) puts global rare earth reserves at more than 90 million tonnes, with China holding about 44 million tonnes. In April, Trump’s Liberation Day antics were meant to be a show of strength. Instead, it exposed an awkward truth: when it comes to rare earths, China still has the West by the supply chains.

Pandamonium

The USGS estimates global rare earth mine production reached 390,000 tonnes of rare earth oxide equivalent in 2024, up from 376,000 tonnes in 2023. China alone accounted for 270,000 tonnes of that output. The US produced 45,000 tonnes. 

The International Energy Agency says demand for magnet rare earths, such as neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium, has doubled since 2015 and is set to rise by roughly another third by 2030.

The supply of magnet rare earths is among the least geographically diversified of all critical minerals. In 2024, China accounted for 60% of global mined production of magnet rare earths, 91% of refined output and 94% of permanent magnet production.

Physical attraction

And those magnets really do matter. Neodymium and praseodymium become NdFeB permanent magnets, used in both regular old internal combustion cars and EVs, and wind turbine generators, for example. They’re also key to industrial automation, as well as aerospace and defence applications. Dysprosium and terbium are added in smaller amounts to help those magnets keep their strength at high temperatures. 

Permanent magnets now account for about 96% of rare earth consumption, even though they represent only about half of consumption by volume. In other words, the most strategically important uses are also the most economically important ones.

Export trolls

Following Trump’s tariff blitz, China introduced export controls on seven heavy rare earth elements, related compounds and magnets, causing export volumes to fall sharply in April and May. Automakers in the US, Europe and elsewhere struggled to source permanent magnets, with some forced to temporarily shut production. 

Further controls announced in October 2025 expanded the scope to more elements and internationally made parts containing Chinese-sourced rare earth materials, although some measures were later suspended for a year.

Western governments got the memo. The US acknowledged it was still around 80% net import reliant for rare-earth compounds and metals in 2024, even as domestic mining and processing picked up. 

Chain reaction

The US produced an estimated $260 million worth of rare earth concentrates in 2024, mostly from Mountain Pass in California. Yet significant amounts still arrive embedded in finished goods. 

There is now a push to build refineries, metal plants, alloy capacity and magnet factories domestically, especially in the US, as governments and companies try to reduce dependence on Chinese processing. Europe, too, is scrambling to reduce dependence on Chinese magnet supply. 

Even where deposits exist outside China, building an alternative supply chain is slow. It’s estimated securing diversified supply chains for magnet rare earths outside the dominant suppliers will require around $60 billion of investment by 2035. Equipment and machinery suppliers outside China are limited, which makes kit much more expensive, and lead times can stretch to several years. There are substitutes and recycling efforts, but neither is a magic fix, with substitutes generally less effective.

Deep trouble

If land-based supply stays concentrated, the next frontier could be the seabed. Deep-sea mining is mostly pitched around polymetallic nodules containing manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper, though NOAA and the International Seabed Authority (ISA, no not that one) both note that some deposits also contain rare earth elements. The ISA has signed 22 exploration contracts for deep-sea minerals, but commercial extraction rules are still being negotiated. But deep sea mining is expensive and technically challenging, and comes with a raft of environmental concerns. 

Japan has already started having a go. In early 2026, officials said a JAMSTEC mission had successfully retrieved rare earth-bearing mud from waters off Minamitorishima, lifting material from depths of around 5,500 metres as part of a wider push to strengthen Japan’s domestic supply chain.

Asteroid pining

After the sea, space. We’ve been promised asteroid mining for years. The sales pitch is obvious. Asteroids may contain metals, water and other useful materials. Some are thought to be rich in nickel, iron and possibly platinum-group metals. 

Carbonaceous asteroids can also contain water-bearing minerals, which matters because water in space is not just for drinking. Split it into hydrogen and oxygen and you have rocket propellant. NASA explicitly treats asteroids as potential sources of water, oxygen and other exploration products under its in-situ resource utilisation work.

Many asteroid mining pitches are aimed less at rare earths than at platinum group metals, such as platinum, rhodium and related materials, because those are valuable, scarce and used in technologies from catalysts to fuel cells. Some companies also talk up helium-3 or other exotic prospects, especially in lunar-mining pitches.

Space operation

Space agencies have proved they can rendezvous with asteroids, land on them and bring material home. JAXA’s Hayabusa2 returned about 5 grams of material from the asteroid Ryugu. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx brought back 121.6 grams from Bennu in 2023, the largest asteroid sample ever returned to Earth.

Private firms are now trying to turn that proof-of-concept into something commercial. One of the best known is AstroForge, the California startup that sent its Odin spacecraft into space in February 2025. The plan was to fly by the asteroid 2022 OB5 and gather information. But communications problems got in the way, a reminder of just how nascent this sector is.

There is also NASA’s Psyche mission, which launched in October 2023 and is due to arrive at the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in 2029. It will not mine anything. It is an orbiter, designed to map the asteroid and study its composition using imaging, magnetometer and gamma-ray and neutron instruments.

In the nearer term, the more plausible first use case is in-space use. Water and other material extracted from asteroids or the Moon could support refuelling depots, life support systems and construction beyond Earth. That matters because launching stuff from Earth is stupid expensive. Mining for use in space, rather than return to Earth, removes one of the hardest parts of the business case.

Pain in the asteroid

The challenges, though, are substantial. First, finding a suitable target is hard. Second, landing and operating in microgravity is difficult. Asteroid mining means dealing with loose regolith and weak gravity, plus a whole host of known and unknown unknowns. Third, processing the material is a headache. Even on Earth, rare earth separation is technically demanding. Refining or smelting in space is sci-fi levels of complexity.

On Earth, mining is not just about digging something up. It is also about separating what you want from what you don’t, using combinations of crushing, heat, chemistry and gravity. Gravity helps solids settle, helps separation systems work and helps industrial processes behave in ways engineers expect. In space, that all goes out the window.

Hands off

Then there is the economics. A good mining project needs understandable geology, scalable extraction, transport infrastructure, buyers and a legal regime investors trust. Asteroid mining has none of those in mature form. Even if launch costs keep falling, a commercial operator would still need robotic systems that can prospect, extract, process and either use or return material with very little human intervention. 

There is also a legal grey area. The Outer Space Treaty says no country can claim outer space as its own territory, but governments are still responsible for what their companies do there. That does not make asteroid mining impossible, but it does raise questions about ownership and liability.

Rare Earth

The green transition, the AI boom, the defence build-up, the electrified economy, all of it still rests on a pile of awkward minerals which modern economies cannot get enough of. 

If space resources could reduce the need for destructive extraction here, that could work. But rockets are energy intensive and spacecraft often become space junk. And, of course, any future mining system in space would create waste there too.

Feet squarely on terra firma, we’re probably not going to solve rare earth scarcity by industrialising the asteroid belt. Not this decade, anyway. But our search for far out solutions reflects the fact our modern world is still heavily reliant on a small number of magic rocks.