[FOCUS] Energy Transition and A Rare Earth Mine’s Journey To Net Zero

Speaker: 00:00:00

Yeah, sure.

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Um, I will, I'll jump in at that point.

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Leaky, um, and that will be a nice

way to explain how I found out

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what rare elsewhere and how they

fit into the energy transition.

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Um, the net there Network is a,

a group here in Perth, in Western

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Australia, which was founded by me and

a couple of others, about two years.

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Because we were reading about the

importance of climate change and

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the potential changes that were

going to be required in society and

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within the economy, but we weren't

really sure how as individuals

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we could get involved to do more.

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We knew that there were small scale

things that we could do, like saving

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energy around our own homes, but we

didn't feel like that was enough.

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We wanted to use our professional

skills to have more impact.

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Um, and I didn't know who

to talk to about that.

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So a small group of us got together and we

decided to form a group which would help

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each other to identify opportunities for,

get involved, to get involved and do more.

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Um, that led to us meeting regularly,

uh, hearing from inspiring speakers who

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had made that transition themselves.

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And ultimately for me, it led me to

move from the job which I was in,

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which was designing ship, uh, which was

pretty interesting, but not directly

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related to decarbonization, to working

with a large engineering company, kbr

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r helping companies like Aira, who

will hear from in a minute, uh, with

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their decarbonization strategies.

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Um, And, um, the net network has

been fantastic for connecting

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to all sorts of people.

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Have helped me understand what

that, what, what the options are

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for industry and society as a whole.

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Pretty decarbonize.

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So you came to the product without

milli anything about Ra Eber almost.

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It was, there was definitely

a learning curve for me.

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That's right.

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Yeah.

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So, um, I, I'm an engineer by

background and I bought experience

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in decarbonization technologies.

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Uh, but uh, I didn't understand

the rare Earth domain and, and I'd

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heard about them I think like most

of us have in, in a passing sense.

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But I wasn't really sure exactly what

role they played in the energy transition.

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Uh, which is I think something that

few who've got a much longer background

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than me in Rare Earth can probably

describe to you in much more detail.

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Sure.

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Max.

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You know, and, and I think the, the,

the funny thing about this is most

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people dunno what rare earths are.

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They're, they're those things that sit

down at the bottom of the periodic table.

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Just above uranium and

thorium, those fun ones.

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Um, and, and nobody covers them in high

school chemistry, you know, and, and,

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and the funny part about rare earths

is they're not actually that rare.

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Um mm-hmm.

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They're rare in as much as they

don't often come in a lot of

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concentration in the earth, but

they're, they're kind of all around us.

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They're all over the place.

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Um, now rare earths are also not used

all that much, but where they are used,

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they are adding a massive, massive value.

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Um, the ones that, that, uh, you

know, Aira, the company that I work

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for and joined about five years

ago, is really interested in, uh,

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Emon, neodymium, and Permium, and

yeah, everybody stumbles over it.

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So for that, we call it N D P R because

those ones are the ones that go into

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ultra high strength permanent magnets.

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We've all sort of played around with,

um, you know, those really strong

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little magnets that stick like, uh,

like you can't believe, and then there

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doesn't seem to be anything to them.

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Well, those are rare earth magnets, and

it's the rare earths that go in there that

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do all that funky physics stuff and make

a, a, a magnet that is so, so super strong

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that, that you, you wouldn't believe them.

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Wow.

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Does that make sense?

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So it does make sense.

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Um, you say it's not that rare, but,

so why do we call it rare Earth then?

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Oh, I'm gonna blame

some old chemistry guy.

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You know?

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Uh, they're also known as the amides,

if you wanna, if you wanna get all

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chemical, but, um, yeah, they're,

they're called rare earths and,

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and it's a lot easier to explain.

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I guess they're rare around

the earth in as much as.

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At the moment, it something like

about 85% of the rare earth produced

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in this world are refined, mined, and

refined under the control of China.

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Um, and, and that makes

it a very interesting

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geopolitical situation as well.

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Mm-hmm.

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The, the other explanation that

I had heard about why they were

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colloquially called rare earths

originally, it's because although

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there's a lot of them in the aircraft,

they're challenging to extract.

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And so for a long time it was, it was,

it was difficult to create a lot of prof,

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rare earth metal, which made them rare.

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Mm-hmm.

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I'll, I'll take that one Max.

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Um, and you there, Stuart, you touched

upon, uh, the incredible properties

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of Rare Earth, very, very strong

magnet Earlier, uh, you guys were

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talking about how rare earth are

involved in, in all sorts of end use

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uses within the energy transition.

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Things like electric

vehicles, for example.

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Maybe Stuart, you could just

explain how strong magnet.

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Make things like electric

vehicles a better product.

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Yeah, sure.

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Um, you know, and, and, and the

reason why, uh, get digging into

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that, you know, when, when you have

an electric motor, basically you

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have two rotating, or one stationary

and one rotating magnetic field.

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So you know that that's

how these things work.

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We'll pick the engineering

nerd over here in this corner.

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So when, when you, when you have a

motor and, and particularly an electric

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vehicle or a, or a wind turbine or, or

something like that, really what, what

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you're trying try, kind of looking for

is the lightest weight and the lowest en

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energy consumption to get you from A to B.

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It's like in your petrol car, you, you,

you wanna be able to drive around using

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the least amount of petrol in electric

vehicle and I've got one on order.

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Um, you know, you want to be able to drive

around plugging it in the least amount

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and use the least amount of electrons.

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So if you've got one of those

magnetic fields, um, being generated

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from a permanent magnet, Rather

than from an electromagnet, then

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you are using less energy to get

the wheels turning if you like.

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Now, um, the, the research that we did

here when we were doing some marketing

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work was that a rare earth permanent

magnet motor is about 15% more efficient

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than an induction motor where you've

got two, two electromagnet coils.

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Um, so in that respect, imagine

you've got a 15% more efficient,

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fuel efficient vehicle.

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So that's why they're super important.

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And then when you think about, say, a

wind turbine, you know, we've got only a

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certain amount of wind blowing past it.

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So if you've got 15% more, um, efficiency

in your generation, you get 15% more

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bang for your buck for the capital

cost of putting up a wind turbine.

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Now, I guarantee you guys have

actually got a rare earth magnet

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motor at home right now, or if you

haven't, a lot of, a lot of people

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who listen to this will have.

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Anybody got a brushless cordless

drill, that's what they sell 'em as.

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Now they've got a permanent magnet motor

in it that will generally use rare Earth.

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So, so they are kind of all around

us, but with the energy transition

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that's going on, the demand for rare

earths has really jumped, jumped

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through the roof in recent days.

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Add to that, the whole covid situation and

wanting to have diversification of supply

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chains outside of one particular country

and, and all of a sudden the, the world

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is sort of thinking critical minerals.

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We've all heard about lithium and

graphite and so on and so forth, but

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they're starting to think about rare

earths in reality and, and saying,

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we need different sources of these to

actually achieve the goals that we have

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for decarbonizing our, our society.

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It, it's interesting, Stuart,

that you mentioned the supply

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chain for railroad there.

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I was reminded of the other day when

I was in Bunnings, which is the chain

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of hardware doors here in Australia.

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And I could these, some neodinium

magnets, which were on sale, I think

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they were for hanging pictures.

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So just these tiny magnets, which you

stick to the back of a picture frame.

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And because of the work that I'm doing

with Afuera, it immediately made me

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think of where that magnet has come from.

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So where the, where the original iron or,

oh, sorry, original, um, nd or would've

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come from where it would've been processed

probably in China, and then it had

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made its way all the way to Australia.

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Wow.

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There's a lot of science going

around and I'm enjoying it.

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Um, but so what you're saying is that

rare earth makes, um, our use of energy

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more efficient when, when it comes to

electric motors, which you need for an

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electric vehicle or a wind turbine, those

rare earth permanent magnet that go into

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those, um, motors are more efficient.

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I mean, rare earths are used

in a lot of other things.

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I mean, yo know, uh, we other rare

earths, those are neodymium and

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Presidium, other rare earths like, um,

serum and lanum are used and they're

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a lot more abundant than N D P R.

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They're used in catalysts

for, um, refining.

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Um, if you do have a petrol car,

you stinky heathen, you know, really

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the, the catalyst that converts,

uh, in the, um, in, in the catalytic

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converter would have lan in a, in it.

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So rare earths are all around us, if

you like, they're the 11, part of the

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11, her special herbs and spices that

go into making ordinary everyday things.

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Amazing.

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. So it's not just rare,

it's like rare earth.

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There's like a lot of them.

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It's not just one specific

thing we're talking about.

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Yeah.

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There, there's, there's about, oh, and

my, this is where I find the, the chemical

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engineer doesn't have much chemistry.

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I think there's about 11 rare

earths that are 11 elements that

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are classified as rare earths.

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, it's also probably important to

differentiate between critical

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minerals and rare earth, cuz

they're two similar founding things.

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But actually rare earth is a

subset of critical minerals.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, criticality, uh, when we talk

about critical minerals, is really

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referring to the importance of

these whole range of different

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minerals in the energy transition.

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Uh, and the fact that supply for

a lot of them is gonna have to

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increase in scale dramatically.

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Um, but they're not interchangeable terms.

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Rare earth is one subset of

a larger, larger definition.

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Wow.

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And that includes things

like copper, for example.

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So, so traditional metal, but

which we're gonna need a lot more

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of as we electrify everything.

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Hmm.

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I've read somewhere.

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Um, they, , we have found, um, some

rare earth in Sweden, but , it will

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take some time, it will take probably

it's 15 years for, the rare herbs

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from Sweden to be used in our, , to

get into our, phones or electrical.

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So, and in 15 years we'll even do it.

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, we would need this kind of

a cnce in our, um, vein.

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So why does it take so long?

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Look, and, and I think, I think Max

touched on it earlier, you know, it,

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it really comes down to the processing.

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Um, the, the mining of

these things is fairly easy.

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I mean, you know, dig it up as a whole.

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It's, it's the same as mining anything.

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But the processing, because what

you're trying to do is take something

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that's one or 2% of all rare earths.

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So of our OR body, for example, at

Nolan's, um, you know, we're, our

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head grade is, is around that sort

of, you know, about 0.7, 0.8% N D P R.

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And we take that 0.7 or 0.8%.

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We refine that to 99.9% N D P R.

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So, you know, there, there's a massive

amount of processing that goes on

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and, and these things are really, um,

there, there's a, uh, there's a lot

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of chemistry that goes into it to both

get it into a form that you can play

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with it, get it in solution, purify

it, separate it from those, from the

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other rare earths as well at the end.

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So it's the processing

that takes the time.

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And, and to give you some perspective,

you know, Nolans was discovered.

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That's the project that I'm running,

s was discovered in, in about: 2001

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You know, they're out

there looking for uranium.

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Um, luckily the, the, the, the deposit

was largely outcropping, so it was,

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uh, expressing through the surface.

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And so a plane with a, a radiometer,

um, very sensitive radiometer flew

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over the top of it and it went spining.

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There you go.

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And so they went and looked at the

rocks and went, oh, there's not enough

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uranium there to be, uh, interesting.

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But, uh, another geologist came

along and went, ah, there's

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some rare earths in that.

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And, but it took us, we've been going

for, uh, you know, twen 20 plus years to

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work out and crack the Rosetta stone of

how to process this particular or body

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and how much it is there and where it

is, and all those fun, other fun things

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you do in mining, um, to actually work

out how to get the rare earth out of it

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in a, in a, in a cost effective manner.

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Wow.

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Reminds me of Black Panther,

you know, looking for vibranium.

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Oh, look, no, this stuff is

way more fun than vibranium.

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And you know, I, you, you, you do

have the advantage of seeing me.

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You can imagine me in a, in

a, in a tight leather suit.

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Oh, there's a reason I'm an engineer.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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Better move the conversation

more quickly from that.

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I, I think that, go ahead.

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Sorry.

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No, I was just gonna say, if this is

more interesting than vibranium, then

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this just got like 1000% more core.

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