Huge rare earth mine discovered in Japan

The study, published in the journal Nature, said the mine contains around 16 million tonnes of the valuable metal. Rare earth minerals are used in everything from smartphone batteries to electric cars today.

Researchers have discovered a huge deposit of rare earths off the coast of Japan.

Currently, there are only a few economically viable areas to exploit because they are often very expensive.

China has tightly controlled much of the world’s mineral supply for decades, forcing Japan, the world’s largest electronics maker, to rely on its neighbor to dictate prices.

However, this new discovery could change the global economy. Specifically, the new rare earth deposit has enough yttrium to meet global demand for 780 years, europium for 620 years and terbium for 420 years.

The rare earth deposit was identified off the coast of Minamitori Island, about 1,850 km southeast of Tokyo. It lies within Japan's exclusive economic zone, so the island nation has sole rights to the new resource.

“This is a game changer for Japan going forward,” Jack Lifton, founder of a market research firm called Technology Metals Research, told The Wall Street Journal.

Right now, the only thing that Japan has to think carefully about is the challenge related to exploitation.

The process is expensive, so more research is needed to determine the cheapest methods, said Yutaro Takaya, lead author of the study.