Rare Earth Exchanges

We're taking you to the heart of one of the most critical and underappreciated battles shaping our modern world: the rare earth element supply chain. Discover the high-stakes dynamics that are fueling international competition, from China’s commanding grip on processing, refining, and value-added production of rare earth elements to the industries and innovations that depend on these indispensable resources. Each week, we expose the geoscience, geopolitics, and economic forces behind the West's growing reliance on China—forces that are hidden in plain sight but impossible to ignore.

Rare Earth Exchanges is a business podcast hosted by Dustin Olsen, with 88 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Dustin Olsen hosts Rare Earth Exchanges, a business show with 88 episodes published.

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  Episode #87

  S2 E87 - Rhodium Sells for Up to $12,000 an Ounce. He Says He Has It. | Taylor Ford

  Sep 24, 202636 minS2

  Rhodium fetches $9,500 to $12,000 an ounce, the highest price of any element on the periodic table. Taylor Ford says his Colorado claim assays at six to seven ounces of it per ton. Taylor Ford has spent nearly fifty years in exploration. He worked in Exxon's refineries, built and ran his own refinery in South Texas, and built one of the first horizontal drills. Thirty years ago a book about a platinum producer pulled him toward the mining side, and he has been testing rock ever since. He joins Dustin Olsen and Daniel O'Connor to talk about what he has found, why he believes the United States is two decades behind on critical minerals, and why the people most likely to find the next domestic deposit are the least likely to get funded. In this episode: • Why rhodium, not gold or platinum, is the metal he is chasing • The alumina find that appeared on his last test after nine years of testing • What prospecting actually costs: labs, a 150-element spectrum, thousands of dollars before you know anything • Why he says the industry is scared — administration versus administration, with no consistent minerals policy • Where he would start today if he were new: silver, uranium, aluminum Guest: Taylor Ford, Explorationist, Ark Energy Grades, assay results and production claims in this episode are the guest's own and have not been independently verified by Rare Earth Exchanges. Rare Earth Exchanges is accelerating transparency in the rare earth and critical minerals supply chain. New episodes weekly. https://rareearthexchanges.com Also on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts Disclaimer: Educational and informational content only. Nothing here is financial, investment, legal, or tax advice.

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  Episode #86

  S2 E86: A New US Rare Earth Discovery? First in 40 Years | Don Swartz, Rare Earths Americas

  Sep 17, 202635 minS2

  Rare Earths Americas CEO Don Swartz says there hasn't been a novel rare earth discovery in the US in about 40 years — and his company thinks it just found one, in the coastal sands of Georgia. Four months after taking Rare Earths Americas (NYSE American: REA) public in the first traditional-listing US rare earths IPO since 2010, Don Swartz joins Dustin and Daniel to walk through the Shiloh and Liberty Peak discoveries in Georgia, the Alpha ionic clay project in Brazil, and how the company is running eight drill rigs across two continents at once. In this episode: - How a decades-old uranium survey led to a possible new US rare earth district - Why heavy rare earths trade at roughly a 5x premium in Europe compared to China - Inside Rare Earths Americas' balance sheet and parallel Georgia/Brazil drill programs - Why the US graduates roughly 200 mining engineers a year versus 10,000+ in China - Don's advice for anyone considering a career in critical minerals Guest: Don Swartz, President & CEO, Rare Earths Americas, Inc. Rare Earth Exchanges is accelerating transparency in the rare earth and critical minerals supply chain. New episodes weekly. https://rareearthexchanges.com Also on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts Investor Deck: https://ir.rareearthsamericas.com/news-events/presentations Disclaimer: Educational and informational content only. Nothing here is financial, investment, legal, or tax advice.

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  Episode #85

  S2 E85: We Import $100M in Gemstones America Could Mine Itself | Brian Busse

  Sep 10, 202644 minS2

  Brian Busse has hand-dug what may be the largest single mine in 80 years of American history — and the biggest lesson from three decades underground has nothing to do with luck. Brian Busse is a 30-year veteran miner, jewelry designer, and star of the Weather Channel's reality series Prospectors. He owns the Thank You Lord Mine on Colorado's Mount Antero — one of the largest aquamarine deposits ever discovered — and runs American Gem Trackers. He joins hosts Dustin Olsen and Daniel O'Connor to talk about what three decades of hand-digging taught him about rare earth elements, gold, and gemstones, why American mining culture collapsed after World War II, and what it will take to bring natural-resource development back home. In this episode: - Why rare earth elements aren't actually rare — and what "saturation" really means for finding a mineable deposit - How the Weather Channel's Prospectors doubled the U.S. rock, mineral, and jewelry industries in four years - The beryllium test results behind Busse's Thank You Lord Mine on Mount Antero - Why America imports up to $100 million a year in aquamarine alone — and could mine 20% of it at home - What it's like to hand-dig at 12,000+ feet, raise a family on the mountain, and deal with claim jumpers Guest: Brian Busse, Miner, Jewelry Designer & Founder, American Gem Trackers Rare Earth Exchanges is accelerating transparency in the rare earth and critical minerals supply chain. New episodes weekly. https://rareearthexchanges.com Also on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts Disclaimer: Educational and informational content only. Nothing here is financial, investment, legal, or tax advice.

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  Rare Earth Exchanges

  S2 Bonus: The World's Highest-Grade Rare Earth Deposit Is Almost 3x Lynas's | Brazilian Rare Earths

  Sep 7, 202638 minS2

  Brazilian Rare Earths (ASX: BRE) says its Monte Alto deposit just posted grades more than twice MP Materials' and almost three times Lynas's — making it one of the highest-grade rare earth deposits ever measured. Founder, Managing Director & CEO Bernardo da Veiga returns to the show (his first appearance was Episode 17, back in the exploration days) to walk through BRE's new scoping study: a deliberately split strategy that keeps mining simple and low-impact at Monte Alto while routing concentrate 200km to a downstream separation plant inside the Camaçari petrochemical complex, backed by a 10-year offtake and partnership with French rare earth separator Carester. In this episode: - Why Monte Alto's grade is nearly 3x Lynas's published grade — and what that means for cost - The geology: chevkinite, apatite-britholite, and billions of years of uranium radiation that did the leaching for them - Why processing happens 200km away at Camaçari, not at the mine site - The upside the scoping study didn't price in: ~1 million lbs/year of uranium byproduct - Concentrate sales targeted as early as 2030, full downstream by 2031 - Why Bernardo thinks business people — not geologists — should run mining companies Guest: Bernardo da Veiga, Founder, Managing Director & CEO, Brazilian Rare Earths Limited Rare Earth Exchanges is accelerating transparency in the rare earth and critical minerals supply chain. New episodes weekly. https://rareearthexchanges.com Also on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts Disclaimer: Educational and informational content only. Nothing here is financial, investment, legal, or tax advice.

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  Episode #84

  S2 E84: Europe Throws Away Half the Nickel It Imports | Marco Bersani, Circular Materials

  Sep 3, 202639 minS2

  Europe imports nickel from Indonesia, refines it, uses it - and then throws half of it into a landfill without it ever doing a single day of work. Marco Bersani's company gets paid to take that metal back out of the water. Marco Bersani is CEO and Co-Founder of Circular Materials, an Italian company recovering critical metals from industrial wastewater using SWaP (Supercritical Water Precipitation), a metal-agnostic process that precipitates better than 99.9% of dissolved metals into a fine powder. The European Commission named it a Strategic Project under the Critical Raw Materials Act. Hosts Dustin Olsen and Daniel O'Connor dig into the grade of the resource, why nobody else has gone after it, the dual-revenue model that makes metal prices almost irrelevant, and the plan to bring three or four sites to the United States. In this episode: - Why industrial wastewater carries 1-10% metal content (10,000-100,000 ppm) when miners dream of a fraction of a percent - How Circular Materials gets paid hundreds of euros to take 100 kg of dissolved nickel, instead of buying feedstock like every other recycler - Europe loses an estimated 12,000-15,000 tonnes of mixed critical metals a year this way, and the US market looks three to four times larger - Recovery rates today: roughly 70% for non-gold precious metals, and well below 5% for non-precious metals - Copper, nickel and chromium are the triad, plus a large position in the very small ruthenium market - Why the major wastewater engineering firms reclaim water but not metal, and why customers asked for this as a service rather than a licensed technology - What it actually took to earn EU Strategic Project status under the Critical Raw Materials Act Guest: Marco Bersani, CEO & Co-Founder, Circular Materials s.r.l. Rare Earth Exchanges is accelerating transparency in the rare earth and critical minerals supply chain. New episodes weekly. https://rareearthexchanges.com Also on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts Disclaimer: Educational and informational content only. Nothing here is financial, investment, legal, or tax advice.

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