JOHANNESBURG – London-listed Galileo Resources on Friday said it had completed due diligence at the Nkombwa Hill rare-earth project, in Zambia, after confirming tenure.

The emerging rare-earth exploration and development company intended issuing 5.25-million shares at 5p or $0.08 a share to Rare Earth International (REI) following the findings that the large-scale prospecting licence was the sole existing exploration right over the Nkombwa Hill deposit.

Last year, Galileo entered into a heads of agreement with joint venture partner REI to earn an interest in the rare-earth project, but delays in the completion of due diligence ensued when the Zambian Mines Development Department’s administration centre declined to release key licensing documentation, owing to a moratorium on licences held.

A Zambia-based legal practise, contracted by Galileo, also found that the licence was in “good standing” with, and recognised by, the Zambian Ministry of Mines and Mineral Development.

"We are extremely pleased that the due diligence report is now finalised and that it confirms that the Nkombwa prospecting licence is in good standing and unencumbered,” said Galileo executive chairperson Colin Bird.

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Its reports that a new research institute for rare earths is to be built in Ames, Iowa. The US Department of Energy will provide $120m for the Critical Material Institute.

The US wants to reduce its dependency on China, which produces more than 95% of the world's rare earth elements, and address local shortages.

According to the US Geological Survey, there may be deposits of rare earths in 14 US states.

"The Critical Materials Institute will bring together the best and brightest research minds from universities, national laboratories and the private sector to find innovative technology solutions that will help us avoid a supply shortage that would threaten our clean energy industry as well as our security interests," he said in a statement.

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has launched a research hub that focuses on solutions to the domestic shortages of rare earth metals and other materials critical for U.S. energy security.

Housed at Ames Laboratory in Iowa, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has been involved in establishing this Energy Innovation Hub since its conception more than two years ago. In 2010, on behalf of DOE, LLNL hosted the first U.S.-Japan workshop on rare earths elements. Ed Jones and Adam Schwartz have been closely tied to the initiative.

The initial team, made up of Ames, LLNL, Colorado School of Mines, and Molycorp Inc., established a 'national network' that eventually resulted in the proposal team; helped DOE on its critical materials strategy; and continued interactions on behalf of DOE at the international level.

The rare earths comprise 17 elements in the periodic table—scandium, yttrium, and the 15 lanthanides (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium). Despite their name, the rare earths (with the exception of promethium) are not all that rare, but are actually found in relatively high concentrations across the globe. However, because of their geochemical properties, they seldom occur in easily exploitable deposits.

Rare earth elements are essential for American competitiveness in the clean energy industry because they are used in many devices important to a high-tech economy and national security, including computer components, high-power magnets, wind turbines, mobile phones, solar panels, superconductors, hybrid/electric vehicle batteries, LCD screens, night vision goggles, tunable microwave resonators—and, at the Laboratory, NIF's neodymium-glass laser amplifiers.

A DOE report said in 2011 that supply problems associated with five rare earth elements (dysprosium, terbium, europium, neodymium, and yttrium) may affect clean energy development in coming years.

The new research center, which will be named the Critical Materials Institute (CMI), will bring together leading researchers from academia, four DOE national laboratories, as well as the private sector.

"Rare earth metals and other critical materials are essential to manufacturing wind turbines, electric vehicles, advanced batteries and a host of other products that are essential to America's energy and national security, " says David Danielson, assistant secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. "The Critical Materials Institute will bring together the best and brightest research minds from universities, national laboratories and the private sector to find innovative technology solutions that will help us avoid a supply shortage that would threaten our clean energy industry as well as our security interests."

The hub will address challenges across the entire life cycle of these materials. This ranges from enabling new sources; improving the economics of existing sources; accelerating material development and deployment; more efficient use in manufacturing; recycling and reuse; and developing strategies to assess and address the life cycles of new materials.

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In an age where cell phones, car radios and fluorescent lighting reign supreme, the world starts to look a bit bare without the aid of rare earth materials to build many modern technologies.

“You wouldn’t have very much of anything,” said Alex King, director of U.S. Department of Energy Ames Laboratory.

King received a phone call on Tuesday informing him that Ames Laboratory had received part of a $120 million grant over a period of five years to fund the hiring of 60 personnel and purchasing of equipment to advance research in the area of rare earth materials.

The grant is part of the U.S. Department of Energy Hubs, or a large series of projects to ensure sustainable energy in the future, announced to the public on Wednesday.

The funding will add an additional 20 percent to U.S. Department of Energy Ames Laboratory’s $40 million annual budget, with King estimating receiving about $8 million a year over the five-year period. With the funding of the Critical Materials Institute, a virtual institute collaborating between several national labs and universities, King is hoping to have an impact on the rare earths industry, saying the institute will be “ready to hit the ground running on day one.”

“We’ve always done rare earth research at Ames Lab; we’re kind of rare earths central for the [United States] if not the world,” King said. “All the best rare earth specimens come from the Ames Lab; we purify them better than anybody else.”

The opportunity to gain federal money for rare earth research had been on King’s radar for two years. When the U.S. Department of Energy formally gave the funding opportunity announcement last spring, Ames Laboratory staff pulled together a 1,600-page proposal within a period of 90 days.

Bill McCallum, senior material scientist at U.S. Department of Energy Ames Laboratory and co-principal investigator of the grant, anticipated the funding announcement in a few more months.

“I didn’t expect to hear the announcement for quite some time yet,” McCallum said. “It was very pleasing and very surprising when we got the announcement.”

After the paperwork is filed, Ames Laboratory will begin the arduous task of what King describes as “starting up a $25 million dollar a year business from scratch.”

Nearly as important as hiring personnel is the purchasing and upgrading of research equipment. Brandt Jensen, assistant scientist at Ames Laboratory, stresses the importance of finding the right balance of materials to create rare earth products.

“The basic form of the magnet is three metals, so we have to carefully weigh them in the right ratio,” Jensen said. “It’s a long process. To get a magnet you first have to melt them all together ... but it’s not complete yet, the atoms aren’t in the right location on the atomic level.”

In order to create a rare earth magnet to fit in a simple earphone, the magnet needs to go through several processes and characterizations to make sure it is just right.

Producing alternatives to and conservative use of rare earth materials is just one side of Ames Laboratory’s research. A new field called the economic forecasting and life cycle management of materials will give a holistic view of how different materials are being used and when scientists can start expecting those materials to be scarce.

“What we’re looking for is trying to understand the supply and demand dynamics of the rare earths ... but also using the economic analysis to try and predict what other materials are going to go critical suddenly without our being ready for it,” King said. “Today we’re dealing with the rare earths; tomorrow we’ll be dealing with something else.”

The economic analysis will take into account the political atmosphere in which materials are being produced in addition to predicting which areas are more at risk for large scale natural disasters.

Although he hasn’t had much time to himself since the announcement, King is enjoying the atmosphere of excitement that has overtaken the Ames Laboratory staff.

“We were all very excited,” Jensen said. “There’s going to be a lot more research opportunity, there’s going to be staff we train with, it’s going to open up a lot of doors.”

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