Rare earths

In the high tech world of today something called rare earth metals are in great demand for things like solar panels and cell phones. Up until the 1990’s the US produced most of these metals but because of environmental concerns this industry was shut down and today China produces 97% of all the world’s rare earth metals. I bring this up because I recently discovered a legitimate use for solar panels. I say legitimate, because in the past solar companies in the US were merely conduits to send government money to certain individuals who intern made campaign contributions to the senders. There is something called energy poverty which describes the situation faced by almost 2 billion people around the world and it means that they have no source of electric power. The building of an electric grid like western countries is not feasible because of cost but individual solar panels for each home are possible. Throughout Africa there are people living in small huts that could use a solar panel to provide power in the day to charge up their appliances and use the new types of lighting in the night. China has boasted that the west has oil but they have rare earths and they control the price so that new industries that use rare earths are moving to China. The west could encourage China to produce solar panels for the people in Africa but China is not about to do this unless there is a profit in it. Western business people could find ways for Africa to pay but there is no incentive for them to do so. Research is underway to find substitutes for rare earths but since there is not much incentive to help the people suffering from energy poverty it may be a while before anything is done in this area. There is a large supply of rare earth metals in western United States but they will not be mined because of environmental concerns. If these metals were made available a huge industry would come on line that could compete with China and many of the companies that now move to China would stay in the US.