The future of wind farms and hybrid cars may well hinge on what happens to a 55-acre (22.3-hectare) hole in the ground at the edge of California's high desert.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The future of wind farms and hybrid cars may well hinge on what happens to a 55-acre (22.3-hectare) hole in the ground at the edge of California's high desert.
The open-pit mine at Mountain Pass, California, holds the world's richest proven reserve of "rare earth" metals, a family of minerals vital to producing the powerful, lightweight magnets used in the engines of Toyota Motor Corp's Prius and other hybrid vehicles as well as generators in wind turbines.
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Seeking to replace China as the leading supplier of these scarce materials, Colorado-based Molycorp Minerals LLC plans to reopen its long-idled quarry to resume extracting and refining thousands of tons of rare earth ore in the next few years.
Last month, Molycorp reached a joint venture deal with Arnold Magnetic Technologies Corp. of Rochester, New York, to make "permanent" magnets from rare metals at Mountain Pass.
