We are pleased to bring to market, for the first time we know of, investor grade one troy ounce ingots of yttrium and erbium. These are our first two of the 17 member series of rare earth metals. The rare earths as a group are at the very top of the British Geological Survey's Risk List which ranks commercially important metals relative to their risk of supply disruptions. As a group the vast majority (about 95%) come from China and have a wide array of industrial uses that are essential to the modern lifestyle we enjoy including computers, smart phones and other high end electronics; light weight aerospace alloys; infrared lasers; motors for electric vehicles; nuclear batteries and in nuclear control rods; night vision goggles, cruise missiles and other military applications; fiber optics; high refractive index glass; superconductors; state of the art medical imaging equipment and promising new chemotherapy regimens; among many others. We plan to offer many more of them with our next rare earth release planned for September. Scandium and a couple other interesting metals that are not rare earths (bismuth and tellurium) are on deck.
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/statistics/riskList.html
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/423730/the-rare-earth-crisis/
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/rare-earth-elements/folger-text
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element