Greenland’s harsh environment and lack of infrastructure have prevented rare earth mining

Greenland’s harsh environment, lack of key infrastructure and difficult geology have until now prevented anyone from building a mine to extract the sought-after rare earth elements that many high-tech products need. Even if President Donald Trump prevails in his effort to take control of the Arctic island, these challenges will not go away.

Trump has prioritized breaking China’s grip on the global supply of rare earths since the world’s second-largest economy sharply restricted who could buy them after the United States imposed widespread tariffs last spring. The Trump administration has invested hundreds of millions of dollars and even taken stakes in several companies. Today, the president is again floating the idea that wresting control of Greenland from Denmark could solve the problem.

“We’re going to do something to Greenland whether they like it or not,” Trump said Friday.

But Greenland may not be able to produce rare earths for years, if ever. Some companies are trying anyway, but their efforts to discover some of the 1.5 million tons of rare earths locked in Greenland’s rock have generally not progressed beyond the exploration stage. Trump’s fascination with the island nation may be more about countering Russian and Chinese influence in the Arctic than securing hard-to-pronounce elements like neodymium and terbium, used to produce the high-power magnets needed for electric vehicles, wind turbines, robots and fighter jets, among other products.

“The Greenland obsession has always been more about geopolitical posturing – a strategic military interest and advocacy narrative – than a realistic sourcing solution for the technology sector,” said Tracy Hughes, founder and executive director of the Critical Minerals Institute. “The hype far outweighs the science and economics behind these essential minerals.”

Trump confirmed these geopolitical concerns Friday at the White House.

“We don’t want Russia or China to go to Greenland, because if we don’t take Greenland, you could have Russia or China as neighbors. That’s not going to happen,” Trump said.

The main challenge of mining in Greenland is “of course the remoteness. Even in the south, where it is populated, there are few roads and no railways, so any mining company would have to create these accessibilities,” said Diogo Rosa, an economic geology researcher at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. It would also be necessary to produce electricity locally and call on an expert workforce.

Another concern is the prospect of rare earth mining in the fragile Arctic environment, just as Greenland is trying to build a thriving tourism industry, said Patrick Schröder, a senior fellow at the Environment and Society program at think tank Chatham House in London.

“Toxic chemicals are needed to separate the minerals from the rock, which can be very polluting and the processing also takes place further downstream,” Shröder said. In addition, rare earths are often found alongside radioactive uranium.

Besides the unforgiving climate that encases much of Greenland under layers of ice and freezes the northern fjords for much of the year, the rare earths found there tend to be locked in a complex type of rock called eudialyte, and no one has ever developed a cost-effective process for extracting rare earths from this type of rock. Elsewhere, these elements are normally found in different rock formations called carbonatites, and there are proven methods for working with this.

“If we are in a race for resources — for critical minerals — then we should focus on the resources that are most readily available on the market,” said David Abraham, a rare earth expert who has followed the industry for decades and wrote the book “The Elements of Power.”

This week, Critical Metals’ share price more than doubled after the company announced plans to build a pilot plant in Greenland this year. But that company and more than a dozen others exploring for deposits on the island are still far from building a mine and are still expected to raise at least hundreds of millions of dollars.

Even the most promising projects can struggle to turn a profit, especially when China resorts to dumping additional materials into the market to drive down prices and drive competitors out of business, as it has done repeatedly in the past. And currently, the most critical minerals must be processed in China.

The United States is working to expand its supply of rare earths outside China during a one-year reprieve from even tighter restrictions that Trump said Xi Jinping agreed to in October. A number of companies around the world already produce rare earths or magnets and can deliver faster than anything to Greenland, which Trump has threatened to seize military power if Denmark does not agree to sell them.

“Everyone was racing to get to that end point. And if you go to Greenland, it’s like going back to the beginning,” said Ian Lange, an economics professor specializing in rare earths at the Colorado School of Mines.

Many in the industry also believe America should focus on helping proven companies instead of trying to build new rare earth mines in Greenland, Ukraine, Africa or elsewhere. A number of other mining projects in the United States and friendly countries like Australia are more advanced and located in much more accessible locations.

The U.S. government has invested directly in the company that operates the only rare earth mine in the United States, MP Materials, as well as a lithium miner and a company that recycles batteries and other products containing rare earths.

Scott Dunn, CEO of Noveon Magnetics, said these investments should do more to reduce China’s debt, but it’s difficult to quickly change the math when more than 90% of the world’s rare earths come from China.

“Very few people can rely on experience to deliver anything in each of these cases, and that obviously should be where we start, and especially in my opinion if you’re the U.S. government,” said Dunn, whose company already produces more than 2,000 tons of magnets each year at a factory in Texas from elements it obtains outside China.

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Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska and Naishadham reported from Madrid.