Rare Earths

By the subject line you probably thought this e-mail would be about planets, but I am speaking about rare earth metals.

Rare earths are becoming very important in the latest technologies like military equipment, hybrid motors, nickel metal hydride batteries, and flat screen televisions.  The problem is China is the only country the processes these metals.  They do most of the mining and then separate the metals into uses.  They own 90% of the market share.  Furthermore, China has announced that they are cutting back exports as internal demand rises.

A number of places in the world have these metals: the US, Canada, China, Africa, and Australia.  There are a few US companies that own mines and only one Western company, NEO Material Technologies of Canada, has any expertise in processing/separating these metals (they have a facility in China).  The US companies are all privately owned, so that takes away some incentive to buy stock in one of these companies.

My thoughts are that Western companies in this area are going to make a lot of money over the next few years.  Part of mewishes I could go out and join them, make them more efficient, and then buy out competition like Rockefeller did with Southern Oil.  Part of me wants to go prospect land and buy it.  Most of me just wants to invest in these companies and let them do the hard work while I build rockets.

More of me wants to explore.  Sometimes I wish it was the 1600′s and there was still a lot of land to explore and claim for the crown (or George Washington).  Unexplored land now only resides in space – which is terribly expensive.  There are many explored lands in the world though that have not seen many people even today, like northen michigan.  A lot of this land holds many secrets to be discovered and something inside of me desires to be the one to discover those secrets.

It occurs to me that I have many many interests in life: explosives, rockets, space, politics, exploration, running a business, music, triathlons, investing, theology, writing, teaching/coaching, geology, military, and probably some more.  I have organized my life around many of those things, tried my hand at all of them, did poorly in some, and have succeeded in others.  Do I stay where I am or venture out into something else?  What is next for me?

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