> Not in the article: iron and urea are commonly available without geopolitical worries
Article actually says (well implies) that
> It’s not that rare earth elements like neodymium are all that rare geologically; rather, deposits are unevenly distributed, making it easy for the metals to become pawns in a neverending geopolitical chess game.
I inferred that what they meant was that the price and supply of iron and urea are unlikely to be greatly impacted by political or capitalistic issues, since they are so abundant.
Admittedly, price swings of several percent are easily imaginable, but for now we're making 280-300 kilotons of rare earth magnets every year.
A ton of urea is $300-$500, a ton of iron is $100-$150.
I don't know what the ratios are or processing fees or anything else, but if it took 1 ton of each to offset 1 ton of rare earth magnets then raw materials cost of replacement for the entire world's rare earth magnet supply would be less than $200 million dollars each year.
Not a lot that that can sway in any direction, especially when compared to Neodymiums' ~$2/oz price (or ~$77,000/ton)
Considering that Neodymium is 29% – 32% of a rare earth magnet, that means we spend $2.7-$6.9 billion/year on raw neodymium, so if this were the end of things we could expect a significant decrease in the cost of electric motors and other magnets at this level.
Article actually says (well implies) that
> It’s not that rare earth elements like neodymium are all that rare geologically; rather, deposits are unevenly distributed, making it easy for the metals to become pawns in a neverending geopolitical chess game.