Secret Weapon | How Rare Earth Metals Run The World

A twenty first century war between world superpowers might look a lot different than we would expect.

There is a resource that runs the entire modern technological world and one nation is developing a monopoly. Rare earth minerals can’t be created, faked or substituted and these materials are in just about every critical new technology you can think of.

Everything from electric car batteries and motors, to electronics, to computers, to lasers, to space technology, it all requires rare earth minerals and a lot of the stuff.

China has been slowly taking control of the world’s supply of these critical materials. They’ve been making it clear that those who don’t cooperate could lose all access to rare earth metals, miss out on developing all the most important technologies and become even more dependent on the nations that do. This kind of power could be like an atom bomb. This kind of economic bomb could effectively send a nation back to the third world.

Vanadium features video explorations of the many fascinations of materials scientist, Christopher Rankin PhD.

See more at: www.christopherrankin.net

All music by Christopher Rankin