At the table of the world powers there is a chair that everyone tries to pull towards themselves: that of rare lands. In spite of the name, they are not so rare: they have a presence considered “medium” in the earth’s crust, with concentrations of some grams for each ton of rock.
To make the group of 15 elements rare, the Lantanids, to which are also added Iterio and Scardio, are the geological processes that have concentrated them in some deposits. For this reason they are becoming a commodity of exchange for peace, in the uphill negotiations between the United States and Ukraine, three years after the beginning of the Russian aggression. In the agreement, Washington aims at a joint development of mining, oil and gas present in the Ukrainian territory.
In spite of the choral name, it is not a homogeneous group: “The rare lands are not all the same, there are those who have the most value and those who have less”, explains Simone Vezzoni, coordinator of the mining deposits of the Italian Geological Society and researcher of the Institute of Geosciences and Georisorse of the CNR. “The light ones have a lower value, the heavier heavy because they are used to create magnets.”
Their use is not uncommon, crucial in computers components, electrical engines, in the development of green energy, defense and erospace. The map of this new treasure hunt starts from China where 65 percent of the mineral deposits used to extract them is concentrated.
Their presence derives from geological reasons. “An abnormal volume is needed in the earth’s crust, for chemistry and mineralogy, of some elements”, explains Vezzoni. The deposits can be made up of magmatic rocks “a little particular names that are called carbonatids, or alkaline magmatic, rich in carbonate” or by the clays that absorb the rare lands. For the same geological conformation, Europe has no large deposits of rare lands. For this reason, the Brussels commission monitors them with the updated list of critical raw materials (CRM). There are two parameters to enter this list: the economic importance and the risk of supply, given that the EU depends on foreign markets with China, which provides 100 percent of heavy rare lands, Turkey 99 percent of Boro and South Africa 71 percent of Platinus.
And the nearby Ukraine? There is currently no news on extraction projects and only one mining district is known near the sea of Azov, under Russian control. “There are prospects that are interesting, but most in the southern and eastern part is currently under Russian control” explains Vezzoni.
Before the war, in 2022, the Ukrainian deputy minister for environmental protection and natural resources Svetlana Grinchuk, in a meeting of the Economic Commission for Europe of the United Nations (Unece), had spoken of Ukraine as a lithium mine, essential to produce batteries for electric vehicles (EV), with the concentration of “five percent of all criticism of the world, in a country that occupies 0.4. percent of the earth’s surface ».
According to the Ukrainian Geological Survey, there are also 6 percent of the global graphite reserves, present in lithium -ion batteries and used in nuclear reactors, 1 percent of the titanium reserves and between 2 and 4 of Uranium used in nuclear energy generators.
In conclusion, while Ukraine has significant mineral resources, the presence and accessibility of rare lands in the country remain uncertain and limited.
On the plate of peace rather than rare lands there would be the other elements, however crucial for Europe that without it: “Lithium, titanium, uranium, all elements that could fall into that agreement” underlines Vezzoni. Not only peace: these elements will be increasingly required to create the green transition. “An increase in the volumes of these elements and copper is estimated, a fairly common but defined strategic element instead of critical. The use in the next twenty years will increase by three times; Therefore, the production will have to triple », concludes Vezzoni.
