Mineral Resources, Energy, Chemical & Electronics - Business Overview
The use of rare earths enables an environment- as well as community-friendly way to supply electricity.
Hybrid cars, electric cars, wind power electricity generation, organic EL displays, and so on—"rare earths" are essential to manufacture these products, which play an important role in advanced high-tech industries in Japan, particularly in environmentally friendly industries. Sumitomo Corporation is taking the initiative in seeking ways to ensure the stable supply of these precious resources or so-called "vitamins for industries," with emphasis on the use of environment-friendly resource development methods above all.
Rare earths, a subset of rare metals, consist of 17 elements, including scandium, which improves the effectiveness of fuel cells, neodymium, which is used to make magnets for hybrid and electric car drive motors, and terbium, which is essential to manufacturing luminescent materials. Dysprosium, for instance, can be added to neodymium magnets to obtain high heat resistance. The use of this alloy in a wind power generator improves the generating efficiency and makes the generator less prone to failure. With an increasing trend to install wind-power plants off shore for various reasons, wind power generators with rare-earth magnets have attracted much attention as suitable for off-shore installation.
Uranium tailings. Uranium reserves in tailings in Kazakhstan, which are under investigation, are estimated to be as much as 150 million tons.
According to a report, countries with large reserves of rare earths are China (31%), Commonwealth of Independent States or the CIS (22%), the United States (15%), Australia (6%) and India (1%). With regard to rare-earth production, however, China now accounts for 97% of the world’s production of rare-earth elements (124,000 ton in 2007). There are two major reasons that prevent the production in other countries. First, despite the presence of these resources, it is difficult to establish a management system for radioactive wastes from processing uranium, thorium and other radioactive elements. Second, because all the 17 rare-earth elements are recovered altogether at the same time, it is difficult to make profits unless all these 17 elements can be marketed evenly, which makes it difficult for newcomers to enter the industry. Mainly for these reasons, the world has been dependent on China’s production for more than a decade. However, with the increasing development and growth of high-tech industries in China, the Chinese government has started restricting the export of rare earths. It has therefore become necessary for us to find new suppliers.
Next＞＞＞ A system that ensures stable supply to customers
