Time to start mining

Within a decade, American companies could run out of rare earth metals - essential materials for hybrid cars, wind turbines, computers, etc. - if China follows through on plans to stop rare earth exports according to experts.

Yet, one of the biggest rare earth metal deposits probably exists right here in America, but no one is mining these metals seriously because of the upfront costs needed to develop a separation plant to process these metals. According to experts, such a plant would cost about $1 billion dollars and require about 8 years to implement.

Even worse, since China is keeping the price of rare earths artificially low, competition is difficult to justify without direct government help.