Rare Earth Exchanges

Rhodium fetches $9,500 to $12,000 an ounce, the highest price of any element on the periodic table. Taylor Ford says his Colorado claim assays at six to seven ounces of it per ton.

Taylor Ford has spent nearly fifty years in exploration. He worked in Exxon's refineries, built and ran his own refinery in South Texas, and built one of the first horizontal drills. Thirty years ago a book about a platinum producer pulled him toward the ...

Rare Earths Americas CEO Don Swartz says there hasn't been a novel rare earth discovery in the US in about 40 years — and his company thinks it just found one, in the coastal sands of Georgia.

Four months after taking Rare Earths Americas (NYSE American: REA) public in the first traditional-listing US rare earths IPO since 2010, Don Swartz joins Dustin and Daniel to walk through the Shiloh and Liberty Peak discoveries in Georg...

Brian Busse has hand-dug what may be the largest single mine in 80 years of American history — and the biggest lesson from three decades underground has nothing to do with luck.

Brian Busse is a 30-year veteran miner, jewelry designer, and star of the Weather Channel's reality series Prospectors. He owns the Thank You Lord Mine on Colorado's Mount Antero — one of the largest aquamarine deposits ever discovered — an...

Brazilian Rare Earths (ASX: BRE) says its Monte Alto deposit just posted grades more than twice MP Materials' and almost three times Lynas's — making it one of the highest-grade rare earth deposits ever measured.

Founder, Managing Director & CEO Bernardo da Veiga returns to the show (his first appearance was Episode 17, back in the exploration days) to walk through BRE's new scoping study: a deliberately split strategy tha...

Europe imports nickel from Indonesia, refines it, uses it - and then throws half of it into a landfill without it ever doing a single day of work. Marco Bersani's company gets paid to take that metal back out of the water.

Marco Bersani is CEO and Co-Founder of Circular Materials, an Italian company recovering critical metals from industrial wastewater using SWaP (Supercritical Water Precipitation), a metal-agnostic process that pre...

In 1973, the oil embargo hit the West like a car crash — sudden, loud, impossible to miss. China's control of critical minerals is the opposite: it's cancer. It grew for thirty years, and most of the West only noticed once it started to hurt.

Tomasz Nadrowski is a portfolio manager at Amvest Terraden, where he runs an equity strategy that starts with geopolitics, and the author of "Mineral War: China's Quest for Weapons of Min...

For years the rule in rare earths was simple: nobody cracks allanite. American Rare Earths says it just did — at Halleck Creek, Wyoming, the largest known rare earth deposit in North America.

Melissa Sanderson, director at American Rare Earths and co-chair of the Critical Minerals Institute, returns to Rare Earth Exchanges to catch Dustin Olsen and Daniel O'Connor up on a fast six months: a pilot plant with the Saskatchewan Re...

Malaysia is sitting on an estimated 16.1 million tons of rare earths, but roughly 70% of it lies inside permanent forest reserves — and the country's own fragmented governance may keep it from capitalizing on the rest.

Dr. Tricia Yeoh, Director of the Asian Institute for Policy and Engagement at the University of Nottingham Malaysia, joins Dustin Olsen and Daniel O'Connor to unpack her ISEAS paper, Ambition Without Alignment. ...

The conversation about America's rare earth ambitions usually centers on ore, mines, and processing capacity. Professor Aaron Noble — department head of Mining & Minerals Engineering at Virginia Tech — argues the real ceiling is people.

Aaron joins Dustin and Daniel to explain why talent is the most overlooked link in the critical minerals supply chain, why tiny markets stall investment, and how a $10M Department of ...

Less than 1% of the world's rare earths are recycled — and a Cornell spinout thinks engineered bacteria can change that. In this episode, Dustin Olsen talks with Alexa Schmitz, CEO and co-founder of REEgen, about using bioleaching to recover rare earth elements from catalytic-converter slag, the waste left behind after recyclers harvest platinum and palladium.

Alexa explains how REEgen's biological leaching solution pulls up t...

When China restricts gallium exports, U.S. defense contractors can't rebuild the radar systems protecting thousands of miles of airspace. Harvey Kaye, Executive Chairman of US Critical Materials Corporation, explains why Sheep Creek in Montana changes that calculus.

Independently validated as North America's richest rare earth deposit — 9% total rare earth elements, gallium at 300 ppm versus the 50 ppm the U.S. was importing f...

By January 1, 2027, every magnet, tantalum, and tungsten component in a U.S. defense system must be traced back to its mine — with proof it never touched China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. According to our guest, right now 0% of supply chains can meet that standard.

Jacob Clayton is the CEO and co-founder of Sagint and a former Marine Corps reserve lieutenant colonel with 18 years of service, including security compliance pr...

China's conventional rare earth separation process relies on solvent extraction — a technique requiring hundreds of passes, toxic organic solvents, and decades of know-how that China has spent generations perfecting. A team at Idaho National Laboratory has a different approach.

Chloe Tolbert, a researcher at INL specializing in electrophoretic separations, joins hosts Dustin Olsen and Daniel O'Connor to explain how ligand-assi...

Ever wondered what the future of magnets looks like? It’s time to rethink everything we know about rare earth alternatives!

Today, we dive into the groundbreaking work being done at Niron Magnetics, where iron nitride is changing the game. This isn’t just another material; it’s the first credible, scalable alternative to rare earth magnets in decades, addressing a critical supply chain risk for industries relying o...

Ever wondered how the rare earth element supply chain is like the space race? 🚀 Here’s why it matters now!

China currently dominates the rare earth supply chain, controlling 90% of refining and 95% of magnets. It’s crucial to realize that the standards they set are affecting industries worldwide.

But don’t panic! We have the opportunity to create our own standards through collaboration. Just like the Apollo progra...

We’re diving deep into the world of rare earth elements, and it’s more than just a buzzword. These minerals are essential for our tech, from smartphones to electric vehicles.

Clem Chambers, co-founder of Silex World, shares insights on the shift from acid-based to alkali processes in micro-refining. This change isn’t just about efficiency; it’s a strategic move to reclaim our independence from over-reliance ...

Ever wondered how we can extract lithium from wastewater? 🌊💡

Gradient, co-founded by Anurag Bajpayee, is leading the charge in sustainable lithium extraction. By transforming produced water from oil fields into battery-grade lithium, they’re not just innovating; they’re solving a critical resource challenge.

Why does this matter? Because lithium is a key component of batteries, this approach not only minimizes waste bu...

Ever wondered why battery recycling is more than just a trend? Let's dive into the reality behind the numbers!

The battery industry is booming, but did you know that 90% of battery recycling material ends up in China?

This means that while we're collecting and recycling batteries, the raw materials are still being shipped overseas.

It's time to rethink how we handle our resources and invest in refining capabilities here in the Wes...

Ever thought about how metals for your tech are made? Let’s dive into the midstream process and why it matters! Did you know that the midstream process of metalization is where the real magic happens? It's not just about mining; it’s about transforming raw materials into essential components for everyday tech—like your phone and car! Our guest, Nitesh Shah from Metalisys, explains how they’re revolutionizin...