Sweden discovers biggest rare earth elements (ree) deposit in europe.

• Sweden’s state-owned mining company says it has identified more than 1 million tonnes of rare earth minerals in the northern area of Kiruna. The REE deposits were discovered in Arctic region of Kiruna, Sweden (home to world’s largest underground iron-ore mine).
• Rare earth minerals are vital to making many high-tech goods. They are used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, portable electronics, microphones and speakers.
• REE are a set of seventeen metallic elements – fifteen lanthanides on periodic table and scandium and yttrium. The 17 Rare Earthsare cerium (Ce), dysprosium (Dy), erbium (Er), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), holmium (Ho), lanthanum (La), lutetium (Lu), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), scandium (Sc), terbium (Tb), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), and yttrium (Y).
• REE shares some common properties such as high luster, high electrical conductivity as well as some distinguishing properties, present in few REE, such as luminescence, magnetism etc.
  • Also, Heavy REE (higher atomic weights) are less common as compared to Light REE.
• Although REE are fairly distributed across different geographies, the extraction of REE is most challenging part, because of complex processing and intensive environmental effects.
  • At present more than 80% of the world’s rare earths processing capacity is in China.

REE production in India

• India produces only 1% of global output despite having around 6% of world’s reserves.
• Steps taken by India
  • Set up Khanij Bidesh India Ltd. (KABIL),
  • Bilateral agreements like Australia-India Critical Minerals Investment Partnership.