Redundancy· Rare Earths · Link

MP Materials, Mountain Pass

Californie, United States35.48°N 115.53°W

computed criticality14/100

reading

Leading rare-earth mine outside China

2024

Fault line

Extracted on US soil, but for years had to ship its concentrate back to China for refining. Mining redundancy is worthless without chemical redundancy.

↘Easing2028

MP Materials began NdFeB magnet production in early 2025 at its Texas 'Independence' plant (targeting ~1,000 t/yr, scalable to 10,000 t via the Apple and Pentagon deals), starting a partial loosening of US dependence that is still marginal at the global scale.MP Materials, 2025 ↗

Actors

MP Materials (Mountain Pass)

Feeds 3

Bayan Obo & Chinese refiningRare Earths↗Chinese separation, Ganzhou & BaotouRare Earths↗EV motors & wind turbines, global industryRare Earths↗

Sources

MP Materials, 2024 ↗

Wikipedia, 2024 ↗estimate

Open in the observatory →⚠ Simulate the disruption