Rare earth metals are forcing the global efforts to switch to cleaner energy, be it batteries in hybrid cars or magnets in wind turbines. Mining and processing of the metals causes environmental damage. China, the largest producer, does not want to bear it any longer.

Every year the rare earth industry of China produces more than five times the amount of waste gas, than the total produced annually by all miners and oil refiners in America including deadly fluorine and sulfur dioxide. Alongside that, thirteen billion cubic meters of gas is twenty five million tons of wastewater mixed with cancer-causing heavy metals like cadmium, Xu Xu. These facts were provided by the chairman of the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals & Chemicals Importers & Exporters, at a Beijing conference on Dec. 28.

China has given this world very cheap and good-quality rare earths for more than ten years In the process China depleted its resources and damaged its environment, stated Wang Caifeng, who leads the government-affiliated China Association for Rare Earths, at the conference. China deserved to be applauded by the world.

China is now shutting down its unregulated rare earth mines and reducing exports. As a result the users, starting from Toyota Motor Corp. to Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world's largest manufacturer of wind turbines, are worried about supplies getting constrained. China gives this world more than ninety five percent of global shipments of the seventeen rare earth metals, also used in mobile phones, catalysts for reducing automobile exhaust emissions and energy-saving electronics.

The government reduced export quotas for the first six months of 2011 by thirty five percent in the last month. That follows a seventy two percent reduction in the last six months of 2010, causing the price of some of the metals to more than double.