BUT ENVIRONMENTAL RESTRICTIONS IN THE U.S. PREVENT THEIR EXTRACTION
Rare Earth Elements are some of the most strategically important commodities a country can possess. They are categorized within a group of seventeen chemical elements on the periodic table that have unique properties which are used to make objects that are able to operate in high-heat or low-temperature, with reduced energy-consumption, greater efficiency, higher speed, and greater durability than most other substances – such as submarines, fighter jets, missiles, mobile phones, batteries, lasers, semi-conductors, TV’s, solar panels, batteries, magnets and America’s most technologically advanced weapons of war.
The Trump Administration has been laser-focused on rare earth elements and America’s ability to acquire these precious minerals – but China currently has a monopoly on the mining, processing and the overall production of most of the rare earth elements around the world. They control about 70% of rare earth mineral mining and over 95% of the the global processing capacity, which means: most countries from around the world must acquire their most strategically important materials, for the defense of their nation – from China.
The term “rare-earth” is a misnomer because they are not rare, or scarce. They are plentiful in the earth’s crust, but they are spread thinly, as trace elements. They are considered “rare” because they are difficult to acquire – and they are only difficult to acquire due to environmental over-regulation in the United States.
There are no substitutes for rare earth elements and they cannot be created in a lab. The only way they can be produced is through large-scale excavation mining and refining.
WHERE ARE RARE EARTH ELEMENTS IN AMERICA
PHOSPHOGYPSUM: Over 250 different minerals contain rare earth elements, but phosphogypsum is probably the best source. This byproduct of phosphate rock mining contains almost all of the rare earth elements – in a single, condensed, source material, which has already been mined out of the ground and sitting in huge piles of semi-contaminated waste material, which is ready to be cleaned-up and commercialized.
Phosphate rock comes from ancient sedimentary deposits of organic matter (fish, seaweed, etc.) from shallow, dried-up oceans that have been compacted over eons. It contains a concentration of rare earth elements of about 1%, but that amount increases by 400% when it’s refined into Phosphogypsum.
Phosphogypsum is created through a procedure used to separate phosphorous from phosphate rock, through a beneficiation process that dissolves the raw material in an acidic solution to separate substances like sand and clay from phosphorous, which combines all of the waste material into a Phosphogypsum slurry, which contains high levels of rare earth elements. Approximately 75% of the rare earth elements that are trapped in phosphate rock become concentrated in the waste material, making phosphogypsum tailings an excellent source for rare earth element extraction.
Phosphogypsum contains almost all of the rare earth elements America needs. Of the 17 rare earth elements on the periodic table, 16 of them are contained within Florida’s phosphogypsum waste piles, including Lanthanum, Cerium, Praseodynmium, Neodymium, Promethium, Samarium, Europium (banned export by China), Gadolinium (banned export by China), Terbium, Dysprosium (banned export by China), Holmium (banned export by China), Yittrium (banned export by China), Erbium, Thulium, Ytterbium and Lutetium (banned export by China).
Phosphogypsum is rich with rare earth elements. Its composition is about 96% gypsum and 4% rare earth elements. The gypsum can be turned into wallboard, cement and many other products once any heavy metals, rare earth elements and hazardous minerals are removed. Phosphogypsum currently has little market value, due to the DEP and EPA’s restrictions on its usage, so it is typically transferred to massive gypsum stacks where it remains, potentially forever – costing millions each year to maintain, and protect the environment from.
Phosphogypsum contains small amounts of naturally-occurring Uranium and Radium, which are what the DEP and EPA say they are concerned about, but the Radium can be extracted safely, and then be used to treat cancer, and the Uranium can also be refined cleanly, and then used as an energy source, among many other useful consumer and national defense applications. Extracting these elements would clean-up the existing stacks of semi-contaminated phosphogypsum and make them environmentally safe for future generations.
Uranium recovery from phosphogypsum is a proven technology that was used in the United States in the 1980s until decreasing uranium prices, China’s market manipulation and the EPA’s red tape, made the practice unprofitable in the 1990s, which caused America’s only rare earth element processing plant to go out of business. The Chinese took control of the California company, until the Trump administration invested $400 million into the operation, to take controlling interest in the only company in American which can currently produce rare earth elements.
Processing the phosphogypsum into usable, environmentally safe products would be much safer than the current solution, which is to pile it in huge unsightly stacks of discarded trash and hope that it doesn’t leak into the ground or water supply.
There are over 70 Phosphogypsum stacks scattered throughout the United States. Some stacks cover hundreds of acres and are hundreds of feet high. Florida has the largest number of stacks, which all contain what the EPA considers to be hazardous waste – even though these stacks could be used to create a strategic national stockpile of rare earth elements.
WHO HAS THE MOST PHOSPHOGYPSUM
Mosaic Co. is the nations largest phosphate mining company, and therefore, they seem to have America’s largest supply of rare earth elements. Of the 30 million metric tons of phosphate mined each year, Mosaic produces almost 20 million metric tons of it, just in Florida. Rare earth elements sell for between $5,000 and $500,000 per metric ton. The potential profits are huge.
The Department of Interior’s US Geological Survey has identified about 1.9 MM tons of rare earth elements within the United States, in total. Mosaic might have 1.4 million tons if it. 1 Million metric tons have already been mined and are being stored on the surface of the ground, ready to be processed into rare earth elements.
In a May, 2025 conference in Boca Grande Florida, Professor Munir Humayun from Florida State University and the director of the Center for Rare Earths, Critical Minerals, and Industrial Byproducts, gave a presentation to Phosphate industry experts to illustrate how phosphogypsum byproducts can cover a trifecta of security concerns. He said, “It can provide U.S. Food Security (through Phosphorous), Energy Security (through Uranium) and National Security (through rare earth minerals)…The Florida based Mosaic mining company could become the largest rare earth mineral supplier in the nation.”
Dr. Humayun estimates that Mosaic already has approximately 65,000 tons of Neodymmium and 14,000 tons of Dysprosium sitting in unprocessed and unused gypsum waste stacks across the country. Another estimate indicates that the company’s current mining operations could continually produce about 4,000 tons of Neodymmium and 600 tons of Dysprosium, each year.
Dysprosium and Neodymmium can be used to create neodymium magnets that can withstand very high temperatures and have very high magnetic strength. They are used in nuclear reactors, wind turbines, electric motors and semiconductors.
Science direct recently reported that Florida’s phosphate tailings could supply approximately 50% of the global rare earth element demand, if the U.S. EPA and DEP relaxed or rescinded their over-onerous over-regulation of phosphogypsum.
CHINA’S CHOKEPOINT:
China has creatively crippled America’s ability to produce rare earth elements. Almost all of the raw material mined throughout the world, containing rare earth elements, will pass through China to be processed – which gives the Chinese government the ability to put a stranglehold on American technology companies, and the Department of Defense, whenever they want.
Over the past several decades China has taken over the global market for rare earth elements, by being the only major processor of the material. The Environmental Protection Agency has made it too difficult, and expensive, for American companies to compete with China. The Department of Defense, through the National Defense Authorization Act, could unleash America’s dependence on China, by supporting, or investing in, U.S. mining companies that are able to produce rare earth elements right here in America – to enable the U.S. government to fill America’s new strategic national stockpile of rare earth elements.
During the 1990’s, environmental activist organizations and NGO’s, possibly under Chinese influence, lobbied Congress and the EPA to shut down America’s mining operations and processing plants – and they did!
China now controls about 70% the the rare earth element global mining market and over 95% of the rare earth element processing capacity. If the Chinese government ever wanted to constrain America’s ability to produce its most important weapons, all they need to do is limit the supply of rare earth elements, titanium and a few other strategically important materials – and that has just happened. On April 4th, the Chinese Communist Party suspended shipments of several critical rare earth element to America, including Samarium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, Lutetium, Scandium, and Yttrium, which are used in the U.S. semiconductor, defense, automotive and aerospace industries.
The government in China maintains strict control over the mining and production of rare earth elements. In October 2024, the Chinese Communist Party implemented new Rare Earth Management Regulations, to set quotas that guarantee the worldwide supply remains low, and the demand remains high – so they can maintain their domination over some of the worlds most scarce substances.
America currently has very few alternative to acquire large quantities of rare earth elements, except to get the precious elements from China – and the Chinese government is keeping it for themselves, and their allies.