Rare earths are expensive. And are likely to become more expensive as the following article records - "China holds a global monopoly on the production of rare earth minerals, which are used across the civilian and defence technology ecosystems,"
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/au...25-p55p8s.html
Recently our friends to the north approached our government to buy into our main rare earth company. Offer declined.
Graphene is the other monopolised material mentioned in the article.
I thought two professors at your Manchester University discovered the process of converting graphite to graphene, and yet the article states “only China has the technology and scale to purify graphite into graphene. Seems to have been a missed opportunity as China has declared graphite a strategic mineral.
Hope this is not too political,