The minerals known as rare earths are likely the most important, but least understood factor in our transition to a low-carbon, clean-energy future. They’re essential ingredients to just about every source of renewable energy and nearly every consumer electronic device we use today.

But China dominates worldwide rare earth supplies and production, and their monopoly could corner the world economy. energyNOW! chief correspondent Tyler Suiters explores how U.S. dependence on China’s rare earths could affect our energy future and high-tech lifestyles. The full video is available below:

Americans are used to seeing the words “Made in China” on most things we buy, but could they soon also read “Mined in China?” The nation controls 97 percent of global production of the elements we rely upon in every aspect of modern life. Consider the technologies requiring rare earths: computers, smart phones, military jets, rocket systems, electric cars, wind turbines, energy-efficient light bulbs, and flat-screen televisions, to name a few.

China’s claim on the rare earths market began in the 1980’s. Premier Deng Xioping famously quipped “the Middle East has oil, but China has rare earths,” and the country ramped up mining efforts. This drove production costs down so sharply that rare earth mining became unprofitable in other countries, including the U.S., which had led global production since the 1960s. It also boosted China’s economy.

“They were very effectively using their control over the rare earth industry to force high-tech manufacturing into China,” said John Burba, CTO of Molycorp, operator of the only active rare earths mine in America. “I could look and see how fast it was leaving the United States.”

Molycorp hopes to counter China’s rare earths monopoly through its Mountain Pass mine in California. Until the 1980s, Mountain Pass was the single top producing rare earths mine in the world. Plunging commodity prices and a series of environmental accidents forced it to close.

Through a revamped approach that favors computer control and automation, Molycorp says it can safely produce 40,000 tons of rare earths a year by 2013 – equal to all U.S. demand. “A facility of this size in China would probably require 3,000 to 4,000 people,” said Mark Smith, Molycorp CEO. “We’ll have 300 or 400.”

Meeting that demand is critical to the burgeoning clean tech economy, which consumes 20 percent of the world’s rare earths. They coat the inside of compact fluorescent light bulbs, go into the magnets that turn electric vehicle batteries, and power the electrical generators inside wind turbines. For context, some of the biggest turbines can each use two tons of rare earths.

If production can’t be increased, another solution may be to find replacements. Companies with a big stake in renewables are actively looking for rare earth substitutes. General Electric says it has developed a higher-performance wind turbine magnetizer coil, completely free of rare earths, and Toyota is working on an EV motor that doesn’t need rare earths at all. But, both are still in the experimental phase and not yet market-ready.

So while breaking up the rare earths monopoly has environmental consequences, it also represents an economic imperative – and the window is closing. “The big danger is that China totally controls the production of all devices containing rare earths,” said Jack Lifton, of Technology Metals Research. “If we haven’t made any significant moves by 2015, we will simply no longer be a nation with any hope of doing so.”

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Nearing grid parity, wind industry wants to "finish the job"

As much as they wished otherwise, the seemingly annual rite whereby the wind industry trots out all those nifty pie charts and bar graphs explaining why extending the Production Tax Credit for renewable energy (PTC) makes good sense is once again upon us.

But this year is different because the wind industry is in the middle of a period of scaling up that is making wind power cost competitive with conventional sources of electricity. And it's different because the industry is not asking for permanent support, according to American Wind Energy Association CEO Denise Bode.

"We just want to finish the job," Bode said today on a call with reporters. Bode and other wind industry representatives echoed the key findings of a report published today by Navigant Consulting.

In the absence of a PTC extension ["Scenario 1" in graph below], the Navigant study predicted another period of stagnation in new wind power capacity—with total wind investment falling by nearly two-thirds, from $15.6 billion in 2012 to $5.5 billion in 2013—echoing the "boom and bust" pattern of wind industry development that has characterized the American case over the last 15+ years. In the years following PTC expiration, installations dropped by between 73 and 93 percent, resulting in nearly catastrophic job losses for the wind industry and its suppliers.

"If this doesn't [get extended] we really do face some tough times," said John Purcell vice president of wind energy at Leeco Steel.

According to Purcell, the steel industry has added 3,000 steel manufacturing jobs tied to the wind sector since 2005.

"This has truly been a success story for the steel industry and the fabricators we supply steel to," Purcell said.

Leeco Steel will sell 150,000 tons of steel plate to the wind industry in 2012 alone.

While the industry would obviously prefer the stable investment climate provided by a four-year extension, the lack of productivity in the current Congress thus far may mean the industry would have to settle for a shorter one-year extension of the PTC like the one passed at the end of 2010.

Major findings of the Navigant study include:

With no PTC extension...

• The U.S. wind market will shrink by 75% in 2013, down to 2 GW from the projected 8 GW in 2012.
• Total wind supported jobs will drop by nearly half, from 78,000 in 2012 to 41,000 in 2013.
• Total wind investment will drop by nearly two-thirds, from $15.6 billion in 2012 to $5.5 billion in 2013.

With a 4-year extension of the PTC...

• Total wind supported jobs will grow to 95,000 by 2016.
• Total wind investment will grow to $16.3 billion in 2016.
• The U.S. would avoid 170 million tons of CO2 emissions through 2016 (and beyond)

Photo: Some rights reserved by Loozrboy

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ForageSF's Underground Market has brought together hundreds of passionate players in the flavor game--the supportive community of creators, makers, eaters, and enjoyers sees 50 new vendor applications each month.  Now, with more members than the health department can snap a latex glove at, officials are saying "cease and desist".

Access to the farmers market with a social, night-life twist was gained by a (free) membership, RSVP, and five dollar entrance fee. While the membership form makes it clear that SF Underground Market goodies aren't health-code certified, the venue is so popular that health officials are stepping in to review the business model.

"This was not an unexpected event" forageSF founder, Iso Rabins told his supporters in an email. "We’ve known that it was only a matter of time until someone became upset about the popularity of the event.  Because we’ve been expecting it doesn’t mean that we accept it."

A trip to April's market could have included 23 Monkey Tree microbrew kombucha, SFQ's duck confit w/ BBQ sauce and Nanny's Mustard, a Loven Kitchen savory muffin, Marshmallow Mischief or Aarons almost better than sex cake; top that palette-pleasing tour off with a mug of Wrecking Ball coffee and you've just supported a dozen of your fellow foodie-friendly entrepreneurs (vendors set their prices).

Shutting down the popular monthly event means local kitchens will suffer and talented chefs who mix and pour the garden herb and oil-infused batters won't have a way to feed this alternative economy, but this alert should be taken as an opportunity to carve out a larger, legal space where indie endeavors can gain momentum.

Other forageSF programming includes Edible Food Walks and elaborate 8-course foraged feasts.

If you want to voice your support contact your local city supervisor or Mission District supervisor, David Campos at David.Campos@sfgov.org (415) 554-5144.

Image Credit: Andrea_Pokrzywinski

Follow Allison Leahy on twitter or reach her by email.

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PepsiCo, Inc. has set itself up for a bright future with Mexican sunflower growers.  The global snack leader made a commitment to purchase 100% of sustainably grown sunflower crops in a deal cosponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the largest multilateral lender in Latin America.

The partnership promises to provide technical support and training to 850 farmers who will be using sustainable agricultural practices to meet PepsiCo's contract, estimated at $52 million over the next seven years.  The investment is indicative of the new trend and growing demand from the snack food industry for higher quality vegetable oils and will provide income and security to the farmers and their families.

The world's number two seller of nuts and seeds will be processing a majority of the sunflowers into a high-oleic, heart healthy oil to be incorporated into product lines from regional brands including Sabritas and Gamesa-Quaker.

The IDB designs projects and partners with clients to eliminate poverty and inequality while promoting sustainable economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean.  They provide financing, knowledge services and technical assistance to national, state, and municipal governments as well as civil society organizations.

The collaboration between PepsiCo and IDB marks the first time a private-sector organization has participated in the IDB's innovative regional trust funds for development activities, which are set up to address a variety of issues critical to the successful development including water and sanitation, sustainable agriculture, nutrition and food security, and sharing knowledge and best practices about sustainability.

"Our initiative to develop the Mexican sunflower market is a powerful example of how we can bring together the resources of public and private sectors to work together to deliver real value for local communities, for our consumers and for our business.  We look forward to collaborating with the IDB on a wide range of sustainable development projects across the region." PepsiCo Chairwoman and CEO, Indra Nooyi, said in a statement.

Reach Allison Leahy on twitter and through email.

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While there may be inefficiencies in the recycling loop of some materials, that doesn't mean companies can't innovate. In fact, can't eliminating inefficiencies be a key ingredient to growth and success in business? A paper company in Chicago thinks so...

FutureMark Paper, the only company in North America producing recycled coated mechanical printing paper with up to 100% recycled content, built its plant just 12 miles from downtown Chicago, one of the top centers of magazine printing in the country. Instead of allowing recycled waste paper to be sent off to faraway mills, FutureMark harvests their raw material right there, in an "urban forest," of sorts.

And we're not talking a boutique recycling operation FutureMark has diverted 1.5 billion pounds of waste paper away from landfills since it began. By using waste paper to produce instead of virgin raw materials to make its high grade mechanical paper, FutureMark says it "saves 2 million trees annually."

What FutureMark is doing is no doubt good for their triple bottom line. But taken in a larger context, the model of moving the plants that recycle and repurpose source material closer to the source itself is one that could be adapted to fit other recycling loops, not just paper. However, doing so is not as easy as it sounds. Economies of scale in recycling usually require that materials be transported long distances from the source to the plants that clean, sort, recondition and purpose the materials.

And until it becomes more expensive to transport post-consumer recycled material away from the "urban forests" — because of rising fuel costs or tougher emissions standards — the practice of shipping it across the country and around the world will still be commonplace.

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Now that would be a troubling headline for Yum! Brands PR. It's not a "real" headline but it might as well be.

If the era of social media and web 2.0 taught us anything, it is that corporations and organizations no longer have full control of their brands and how consumers interact with them. Their best hope is that they will be able to "manage" brand perception.

So when KFC rolled out reusable containers for their side dishes and implemented certain other changes in their food packaging to make it more sustainable, they weren't acting in a vacuum of corporate social responsibility. They were acting, at least in some part, to manage brand perception.

The Dogwood Alliance, an environmental group dedicated to holding corporations accountable for their industrial forestry practices in the South, has been pressuring the fried chicken chain to stop the practice of using pulpwood from endangered forests in the south, and in particular, the Green Swamp of North Carolina.

The campaign, called "Kentucky Fried Forests," identifies KFC's biggest paper-wasting culprit as the ubiquitous KFC bucket. And does so by deftly superimposing a chainsaw on the illustrated image of Colonel Sanders, the patriarch of the KFC brand.

“[W]hen you look at Kentucky Fried Chicken, it stands out as an iconic southern brand," says Dogwood Alliance campaign director Scott Quaranda. "So the most recognizable piece of the campaign is the KFC bucket of chicken.”

The Dogwood Alliance, which according to Brandweek, staged a summer protest outside KFC's Louisville, Ky.-based headquarters, has adopted public-sphere strategies to push companies like Staples and Sony to adopt more sustainable practices. They pushed Staples so hard that the office supply retailer is now a Dogwood ally.

Despite the timing of KFC's announcements in 2010 about their implementation of more sustainable packaging processes into their product lines, company officials say Kentucky Fried Forests campaign had nothing to do with the decision.

"The activities of special interest groups have no impact on the work KFC is doing to reduce the brand's environmental footprint," KFC said in a statement.

Not only does KFC not recognize Dogwood's role in any of this, apparently KFC and fellow Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM) sister restaurants Taco Bell, Long John Silvers and Pizza Hut have been reluctant to engage with Dogwood altogether. I'm not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the chainsaw.

While the Dogwood Alliance has recognized some of KFC's packaging improvements, including introduction of reusable containers, as steps in the right direction, they aren't backing down from their main concern: paper products.

"I really appreciate the reusable container," wrote Dogwood's Scot Quaranda in reply our recent post, "but a bulk of KFC packaging is made from paper, in fact their iconic buckets come from endangered forests in the Southern US."

So is the chainsaw-wielding Colonel Sanders going away any time soon? Until KFC can do better with the bucket than making the lid from 30% recycled material, I'm guessing no.

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“More than 1 billion people around the world rely on farming and hundreds of millions of them live on less than $2 a day,” said Mike Duke, Walmart president and CEO. “Globally, with a booming population, food production must increase roughly 70 percent to feed 9 billion people in 2050.”

Working with a number of suppliers, universities and non-government organizations including World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, Rainforest Alliance, The Nature Conservancy, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Field to Market Alliance and Environmental Defense Fund, Walmart established a sustainable agriculture strategy in three broad areas, each containing specific supporting goals to help the company track and report its progress:

Supporting farmers and communities

By the end of 2015 in emerging markets, Walmart says it will help small and mid-sized farmers gain access to markets by:

• Selling $1 billion in food sourced from 1 million small and medium farmers;
• Providing training to 1 million farmers and farm workers in crop selection and sustainable farming practices;
• Increasing the income of the small and medium farmers it sources from by 10 to 15 percent;
• In the U.S., Walmart will double its sale of locally sourced produce and increase its purchase of select U.S. crops.

Produce more food with fewer resources, less waste

Walmart will, for the first time, ask suppliers about the water, energy, fertilizer and pesticide they use per unit of food produced. The goals include:

• Accelerate the agricultural focus of the Sustainability Index, beginning with a Sustainable Produce Assessment;
• Invest more than $1 billion in its global fresh supply chain in the next five years; and,
• Reduce food waste in emerging market stores by 15 percent and by 10 percent in stores in other markets by 2015.

Sustainable sourcing

Walmart will focus on two of the major contributors to global deforestation, palm oil and beef production.

• Require sustainably sourced palm oil for all Walmart private brand products globally by the end of 2015.
• Expand the already existing practice of Walmart Brazil of only sourcing beef that does not contribute to the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest to all of our companies worldwide by the end of 2015.

In addition to the sustainable agriculture strategy announced today, in the last year or so, Walmart has unveiled several strategic sustainability initiatives, including the launch of a sustainability index to measure the sustainability of every product it sells and a plan to cut greenhouse gases throughout its supply chains.

“Through sustainable agriculture, Walmart is uniquely positioned to make a positive difference in food production -- for farmers, communities and customers," said Walmart CEO Duke.

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