The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Metal Tech News - January 8, 2025
USA Rare Earth Director of Magnet Operations Bob Fredette with a rare earth magnet produced at the company's Innovations Lab in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Crossing a major milestone on the path to breaking America's reliance on China for an essential component of electric vehicles, wind turbines, robotics and military technologies, USA Rare Earth LLC (USARE) has produced its first batch of rare earth magnets at its Innovations Lab in Oklahoma.
"Our new Innovations Lab, which we will finish building out in the coming months, is already flexing its muscles, helping us achieve a key step in our company's evolution," said USA Rare Earth CEO Joshua Ballard.
The cutting-edge lab is being built in a 311,0000-square-foot building USA Rare Earth acquired in 2022 to house a processing and magnets plant that is a vital link in an all-American mine-to-magnets rare earth element (REE) supply chain envisioned by the company.
The first link of this chain is the Round Top rare earths and critical minerals mine project in the neighboring state of Texas.
Being advanced toward production under a joint venture between USA Rare Earth (80%) and Texas Mineral Resources Corp. (20%), the Round Top project southeast of El Paso hosts an enormous deposit of rare earths, lithium, gallium, and five other minerals critical to America's economy, security, and clean energy ambitions.
The Round Top deposit rising out of the West Texas desert could provide a domestic supply of the rare earths, lithium, gallium, and other minerals critical to the U.S. for a century.
While Round Top still has several years of permitting and development before it will be able to deliver a domestic supply of the rare earths needed for high-performance permanent magnets, USA Rare Earth cut a deal to buy ultra-pure REEs produced at ReElement Technologies Corp.'s state-of-the-art refining facility in Indiana.
Now, USA Rare Earth has upgraded American-made REEs supplied by ReElement into the powerful magnets needed for a growing number of high-tech applications.
"We will soon begin producing customer prototypes in support of future sales as we work towards starting commercial production at our manufacturing facility in 2026," said Ballard.
The commercial facility that USA Rare Earth is developing in Stillwater, an Oklahoma city that boasts a growing high-tech economy, will provide American manufacturers with an alternative to China for the powerful rare earth magnets that efficiently convert energy into motion and vice versa.
Last September, Adamas Intelligence published a report forecasting that the demand for neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) rare earth magnets will increase at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.7% out to 2040.
According to the rare earths and battery materials market analyst, robotics will drive much of this enormous growth over the next 15 years, overtaking EV motors, wind power generators, automotive micromotors, sensors, and speakers as the largest demand drivers for rare earth magnets.
While rare earth magnet facilities are being developed outside of China, as of early 2024, the communist nation accounted for 90% of the global production of these increasingly important components in modern technologies.
Adamas Intelligence forecasts that robotics will be the largest driver of demand for rare earth magnets by 2040.
USA Rare Earth's plant in Oklahoma is one of two rare earth magnet production facilities being developed in the United States. MP Materials, owner of the Mountain Pass rare earths mine in California, is currently scaling up a rare earth metals and magnets plant in Texas toward commercial production.
The Oklahoma and Texas plants will provide an alternative to China for rare earth magnets and the supply risks that come with that reliance.
"Global geopolitical tensions continue to increase, and there is a clear and strategic imperative to re-establish the U.S. rare earth supply chain that was abandoned in recent decades," Ballard said upon being named USA Rare Earth CEO in December. "USARE not only has the potential to become the premier U.S. rare earth magnet producer, but we believe its mining rights over a world-class heavy rare earth and critical minerals deposit in Texas (which includes gallium) uniquely positions the company to play a key role in supplying these minerals to the United States and its partners globally in support of critical technologies."
To help accelerate its growth, the company is in the midst of a deal to become a publicly traded company through a merger with Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. II, a Nasdaq-listed company established for the purpose of merging with an enterprise in a disruptive growth sector.
"USARE's strategic vision, experienced team and integrated supply chain are approaching scale at an inflection point for the critically important domestic industry," Inflection Point CEO Michael Blitzer said upon the August merger announcement. "We believe that by becoming the first large scale integrated magnet producer in North America, the company is poised to be a strategic national asset that mines rare earth material for integrated magnet production serving the technological, industrial, and defense end markets."
The business merger and Nasdaq listing are expected to be finalized early this year.
With more than 16 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration and technology metals.
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