Honda Recycles Rare Earth. Most Miners Will Be Wiped Out

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Honda is mining for rare earth in unusual places: In cars.

Honda has been extracting rare earth metals from used nickel-metal hydride batteries since April. Today, the company announced it will begin reusing the extracted metals before the end of 2012.

Rare earth made headlines when China started limiting exports. China is the world’s largest supplier of the minerals that find heavy use in magnets, electric motors, alternators, even hard disk drives. Prices spiked up in response to the intervention, only to plunge later on weak demand and the unwinding of speculative positions.

Honda will mine rare earth metals not just from nickel-metal hydride batteries, but also from parts such as electric motors. Honda is even looking into recovering any residual voltage from the used nickel-metal hydride batteries, to be used as regenerative voltage for the disassembly process.

In the meantime, rare earth miners are going through a serious shakeout process. A report says that 90 to 95 percent of small rare earth miners in China “will be wiped out.”

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Wstarvingteacher Wstarvingteacher on Jun 20, 2012

    The only thing new here is the size of the project and the material to be recycled. During that period of my life when I owned a small air conditioning company, it was amazing how many people wanted my trash. The last time I thought about it metal of any type was $8/100 lbs and I can't imagine what aluminum or copper were. Why wouldn't every company be involved if they deal with something where they could reclaim value. 4

  • Kendahl Kendahl on Jun 20, 2012

    This what happens whenever a commodity gets scarce or expensive. Users find another way to get what the need or they find a substitute. The only time it doesn't work is when government tries to (mis)manage the problem. Something to remember when the Chicken Little types wail that we are running out of resources and we have to "do something".

  • Mygeddygoesyaaahhh Mygeddygoesyaaahhh on Jun 20, 2012

    Well, a utopian world (that would make a great model name wouldn't it? Utopia. You're welcome, Toyota) would be dependent on recycled material (I'm thinking of Futurama). If you think about it, it's not a bad way to go. I'm no tree-hugger but wouldn't it make sense to extract as much life out of whatever the hell it is you can be best for the future?

  • Redav Redav on Jun 20, 2012

    I've heard more than once that landfills will be the next great mines. Makes sense - the stuff in there is made of stuff that you would use to make stuff, so why not go there to get it?

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