Where can you mine lanthanum?

Answer 1

Mines of rare earths (including lanthanum) exist in China, India, USA, Australia, Canada, Brazil, South Africa, Tanzania, Greenland, Vietnam, etc.
The most important minerals are monazite

and bastnasite.

Answer 2

The demand for neodymium has increased the supply of lanthanum, because neodymium is almost always found associated with lanthanum, as well as cerium and praseodymium.

Neodymium demand for permanent high strength magnets has caused its price to skyrocket during the last year reaching a level currently of four times the price it had just a year ago. The revenues from neodymium today constitute 25% of the total revenues generated from the production and sale of rare earth metals; it has been predicted that this percentage could be 50% by 2014.

There are today just two producing sources of neodymium; the Chinese mining complex ay Bayan Obo in western China and the aboveground tailings (residues from previous ore concentration) at Mountain Pass, Inyo County, California, site of America's most extensively worked rare earth mine until it shut down in 1994. Mountain Pass is being reworked by Chevron Mining, the successor in interest to Molycorp. Chevron is producing, I believe, only didymium, the trade name for undifferentiated mostly neodymium and praseodymium, which is also used to make didymium-iron-boron permanent magnets, at this time, but if neodymium prices hold up then I suspect that Chevron will restart the process to separate didymium into its pure constituents.

Dozens, perhaps a hundred Chinese companies, manufacture nickel metal hydride batteries for use in electric motorbikes. This manufacturing may well constitute the largest use for rare earth metals of any application on earth. Honda builds IC engines for vehicles and stationary applications in China for the Chinese market, and, unlike every other non-Chinese car maker, except GM, maintains a steady purchase, to maintain its allocations, of both rare earth metals and fabricated components for rechargeable nickel metal hydride batteries from Chinese manufacturers.

It has been confidently predicted that the Chinese production of rare earth metals will equal the domestic Chinese demand for rare earth metals by 2014. At that point in time only those car makers with in-place and functioning long term strategic sourcing plans or cradle to grave recycling will be able to obtain the raw materials to make nickel metal hydride batteries.

It is looking more and more likely that hybrids and battery powered cars using lithium ion technology may be only a small portion of the product mix even by 2014. If Honda's vision of the hybrid and battery powered car of the future is correct then it may only be Honda and its licensees who can obtain the raw materials to make nickel metal hydride batteries in 2014. I will not be surprised to find out that Honda is stockpiling lanthanum, and I would be very surprised if GM had even thought of doing it.

China today produces essentially 100% of the world's rare earth metals, and China's only concern is the development of its domestic market. Millions of electric motorbikes are built and sold in China each year, and increasingly such vehicles utilize nickel metal hydride batteries rather than lead-acid types.

Unless and until North American rare earth mining ventures are funded and up and running, we can only watch as China literally controls the rare earth metals market. This may in fact be the main driver for the lithium ion mania among all of the world's car makers except Honda.