Rapid Rare Earth Reshoring

Rapid Rare Earth Reshoring Much of the problem around rare earth processing is entirely fictional, China’s dominance in RE is not technological, it is merely environmental legislation arbitrage. The West can almost immediately rebuild China’s reprocessing capacity in a multitude of nearby locations. This is not the Manhattan Program. What needs to be built? Hydrometallurgical lines • Acid leaching (HCl, HNO3, H2SO4 you can buy these over the counter, I have them all at home) • Solvent extraction trains (50-100 stages), this is the only semi-challenging bit but we already make TBP, D2EHPA, PC88A and Cyanex. • Precipitation and Calcination Furnaces Where? Gulf Coast, Western Australia, Poland. Establish geographic diversity. Any shortcuts? Sure. Phosphate fertiliser plants already do acid leaching and can be retrofitted to crack monazite (rare earth ore) and extract rare earth elements. With coordinated effort the West could get to 30% replacement of China’s Rare Earth industry within 3-4 months and 70% replacement in 6-9 months. We don’t have to build what China built from scratch, a lot of the fear around rare earths is catastrophising doom porn. We don’t need China.

Oct 10, 2025 · 7:07 PM UTC