Gasoline, TVs, Cars: The Surprising Things Rare Earths Help Make
- Rare earth minerals used predominantly for magnets, gasoline
- Also in cars, batteries, televisions, cell phones, dishwashers
Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
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Washing machines. Cars. Disk drives -- if those are still a thing. The rare-earth minerals that China is threatening to withhold from the U.S. as a trade war escalates are more present in consumer products and manufacturing than people might think. Here are some of the surprisingly common things they’re used to make:
Oil refineries depend on rare-earth elements as catalysts in units called fluid catalytic crackers. In fact, they’re some of the biggest consumers of the stuff. These FCC units basically “crack” apart oil molecules to make gasoline and diesel.