NPR: Magnet fishing got people hooked, but China and green tech are threatening its future

[China]

Magnet fishing got people hooked, but China and green tech are threatening its future

 

A World War I-era warhead and a dead blacktip shark attached to a metal hook are just some of the things magnet fishers have retrieved around the U.S. since the hobby spiked in popularity following the advent of the coronavirus pandemic.

 

The hobby, which involves people throwing powerful magnets into waterways in search of treasure and trash, became an excuse for some to get fresh air and for others to start businesses catering to these hobbyists.

 

But the growth of these small businesses and the popularity of magnet fishing have become murky lately. They're running up against two problems: China's stranglehold on the rare-earth element used to make these magnets and the high demand these materials garner from electric vehicle makers and other green technology companies.

 

The element attracting all this attention is neodymium, a difficult-to-produce rare-earth metal mostly mined in China, said David Merriman, a research director who leads the rare earth market research at Wood Mackenzie, an energy research consultancy.

 

"The main growth areas for the use of the [magnets] is within the motors for electric vehicles. So any electric motor, which uses a permanent magnet, and also the generators for, say, wind turbines, as well," Merriman told NPR over the phone from the United Kingdom.

 

"So as these markets have been really growing quite significantly, there's a huge kind of transition towards green technologies, electric vehicles, renewable energy generation. The demand for these products is increasing quite significantly," he added.

 

To understand why China has come to dominate the global production of neodymium you have to travel back to the 1980s and 1990s, Merriman said.

 

At the time, the U.S. and Australia were major producers of these rare-earth elements due to scientists from both countries developing the technology needed to mine these materials, he said. Unlike gold, which can be found in nature as pieces, neodymium is found within different minerals and thus requires a chemical process to "leech out the rare-earths from the mineral structures," Merriman said.

 

China soon realized that it had substantial rare-earth deposits "that were a byproduct of iron mining," Merriman said.

 

"China now dominates the entire supply chain for rare earths and through to the production of rare-earth permanent magnets and high-quality permanent magnet materials," Merriman said.

 

As of November 2021, China controlled 87% of the global neodymium market, according to a report from MacroPolo, a Paulson Institute think tank based in Chicago.

 

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Cue The Evil Genius to post the "Magnets, how do they work?" meme