THE WATCH STAFF
Rare-earth elements (REEs) are 17 similar metals that are critical for many defense systems, including lasers, magnets for motors and laser-guided missiles. They are also key cogs in domestic supply chains because they are used in everything from fluorescent lighting to illuminated computer screens and cancer drugs.
Yet the People’s Republic of China (PRC) dominates the global marketplace for REEs because it can separate and purify the raw materials, which creates a supply chain vulnerability the U.S. has vowed to eliminate.
To that end, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced a project in mid-July 2021 that will chart a new path toward REE resilience. Called the Environmental Microbes as a Bioengineering Resource (EMBER) program, the project aims to use advances in microbial and biomolecular engineering to develop separation and purification strategies for REEs using domestic sources.
“The EMBER program will aim to fill a critical DOD (Department of Defense) supply chain gap,” said Dr. Linda Chrisey, EMBER program manager, according to DARPA’s website. “The program will target the development of bioengineered organisms/biomolecular approaches for REE purification, then translate these to “practical biomining modules … that can be integrated with domestic REE sources.”
The four-year program will establish a platform for binding REEs under harsh conditions and develop a workflow to purify individual REEs from source materials.
The reliance of Western countries on China to process rare-earth elements presents a critical defense challenge, four defense scholars — including former U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis — argued in a September 2020 article for Bloomberg.
“Rare earths are an extreme example of Western reliance on Chinese production,” the authors wrote. “Despite the exclusivity conveyed by the term ‘rare earths,’ American dependence on China for their extraction and processing is a straightforward and fixable problem.”
The U.S. government agreed. President Joe Biden in late February 2021 signed an executive order calling for a 100-day review of critical U.S. supply chains. The review primarily focused on issues of defense and public health and safety such as medical supplies, large capacity batteries, REEs and semiconductors.
The U.S. Department of Interior also will lead a task force to identify sites where REEs can be produced and processed inside the U.S. while meeting high environmental standards. (Pictured: Samples of rare-earth elements cerium oxide, bastnasite, neodymium oxide and lanthanum carbonate are on display at a processing facility in Mountain Pass, California.)
“We shouldn’t have to rely on a foreign country, especially one that doesn’t share our interests, our values, in order to protect and provide for our people in the middle of a national emergency,” Biden told reporters, according to a briefing distributed by the White House.
IMAGE CREDIT: REUTERS
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