| Bob Wolf explains why some rare earth metals are irreplaceable and recounts the difficulties faced by miners wishing to produce them. If you look at total supply of all REEs, magnets make up about 5% of the total usage by weight. If you mine 100,000 pounds (lbs) of REEs, 5% might be used in magnets.
REE usage in magnets is a very small, but essential percentage of the total REE supply. For example, without lanthanum, there would be no flat-screen TVs. However, without the REEs in neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) magnets, your laptop would become the size of a small room, because REE magnets are required for small disk drives...............................................Full Article: Source
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