National Security

It has helped make airline travel affordable. It helps keep us safe. And it may just be sexier than Salma Hayek – at least in the eyes of one observer. 

We’re talking about Rhenium, yet another metal brought to us largely courtesy of Copper refinement.  A silvery white, metallic element, Rhenium, according to USGS, has “an extremely high melting point (3,180 degrees Celsius), and a heat-stable crystalline structure, making it exceptionally resistant to heat and wear.”  Thanks to these properties, it has been an indispensible component for superalloys used in turbine blades for jet aircraft engines.  As the BBC put it, “[t]he ability of superalloys to operate at such extreme temperatures is what makes your holiday to the Algarve or Florida affordable.”

At an average abundance of less than one part per billion in the continental crust, Rhenium, like its fellow Copper Co-Product is also an extremely rare metal.  Global production is pegged at a total  of a mere 46 metric tons, with more than 80 percent of that amount going into superalloys.

Its rare metal status is one of the key reasons why recycling rates for Rhenium are increasing.  While in the past, scrapped blades used to be sold and recycled in the stainless steel industry, today most of the rare metals contained in the superalloys used in turbine blades are recovered for reuse in manufacturing.

End users have also worked hard on substitution. As the Economist reported a few years ago,

“General Electric, one of the world’s biggest makers of jet engines, has spent years developing nickel-based superalloys to replace rhenium. But the best GE’s boffins could manage was to reduce the amount of metal required, not eliminate it altogether. Moreover, few manufacturers possess the resources to achieve even such limited progress.”

The United States currently imports 79 percent of the Rhenium we use. Because the recovery process is complicated and requires special facilities, we are unlikely to fully meet our demand with domestic resources.

However, a strong demand for Rhenium is likely here to stay. That, coupled with the fact that we have proven Rhenium reserves in the U.S. (the development of one of which has been projected to generate more than 20 tons of Rhenium per year as a Copper Co-Product, thus significantly reducing our reliance on foreign imports), should suffice to get policy makers’ attention — regardless of their stance on Salma Hayek.

In a new piece for Investor Intel, our very own Dan McGroarty sounds the alarm on a little-noticed but troubling passage in the U.S. House-passed Defense Authorization Act for 2014.  Said section in Title III acknowledges the importance of Tungsten and Molybdenum powders, including Tungsten Rhenium (WRe) wire to a variety of Department of Defense (DoD) applications. Noting that there is no suitable substitute for WRe wire, the bill directs the Secretary of Defense to determine whether there is sufficient supply of WRE wire to meet DoD requirements, and to submit a mitigation plan in case of a negative determination.

As McGroarty argues, “in the case of Tungsten, the U.S. currently produces more than half of the metal it uses each year. Which makes Rhenium the weak link in the WRe chain.”

The reason?  In spite of the fact that Rhenium is critical for high-temperature superalloys used in the turbines of the Joint Strike Fighter-35 and other fighter aircraft, there is no Rhenium in the U.S. National Defense Stockpile and the U.S. currently imports 78% of the Rhenium it uses.

With Rhenium being a byproduct of Copper production, the non-specified military applications could be met if the proposed Resolution Copper mine project in Arizona – expected to increase U.S. Rhenium production by more than 200% – was realized.

However, that project remains in limbo with a necessary land swap bill having met ferocious (and largely baseless) opposition by mining opponents.

Concludes McGroarty:

“U.S. policymakers have a choice to make. They can put in place a strategic resource development policy that would help produce more U.S. supply of critical metals like Rhenium – and, while they’re at it, the 18 other metals for which the U.S. is currently 100% import-dependent – or they can stick with our current faith-based resource policy on the theory that other countries will happily sell us the metals and minerals we fail to mine in the U.S.

Until then, Rhenium will remain an example of the leverage the U.S. places in other country’s hands to provide – or withhold – metals critical to U.S. national security.”

Click here to read the full piece. 

American Resources Policy Network is thrilled to announce that we are co-sponsoring the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) conference: “Rare Earths, Critical Metals, Energy and National Security” on November 2, 2011 in Washington, D.C. The conference will discuss the link between rare earths, critical metals, energy, and national security. Although rare earths and critical [...]