Interesting Nature news blog post yesterday on science policy discussions in the US on rare earth metals and their availabilty. This has been a fairly regular topic in the last five years with concerns on where the metals are and how markets operate.
In the US, there have been reports such as the 2008 Minerals, Critical Minerals, and the U.S. Economy from the National Research Council, aimed at Congress. Richard H has pointed to European developments: the EU Raw Materials Initiative resulted in the publication of Critical Raw Materials in June 2010, the report and an annex of an Ad Hoc Task Force on Defining Critical Raw Materials. I believe that a Communication from the Commission is due on this in January - although it has leaked a little to the press.
In the UK, there is a current inquiry of the House of Commons Committee on Science and Technology on Strategically Important Metals, which is asking questions about the UK position - written evidence due by 17 December 2010.
The lists of metals in the different reports shift slightly, owing to methodologies for assessment and the economic or strategic interests defined. Politically, there is increasing noise about working with China - such as from a conference last week in Germany that was reported in Der Spigel. The German government raised this in mid October with the release of a national strategy and there have been exchanges since, with proposals for G8 and G20 discussions.
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