Here we'll discuss a few actual rare metals, present in the earth in miniscule amounts but which have important applications nonetheless. The rarest stable metal is tantalum. The rarest metal on earth is actually francium, but because this unstable element has a half life of a mere 22 minutes, it has no practical use.
Osmium, rhodium and iridium are probably the rarest metals found in the Earth's crust with average concentrations of 0.0001, 0.0002 and 0.0003 parts per million by weight respectively.
The resources that will be most scarce in the future, according to the report, are water, biodiversity and air, rare earth and metals, agriculture, waste disposal, processing power, youth, health and wellness, skills and education, and time.
Looking farther into the future, other sources claim that things like aluminum might run dry in about 80 years. indicate that rhodium, followed by gold, platinum and tellurium, are some of the rarest elements in terms of their percentage in the planet's crust and their importance to society.
Hence, Lithium is not a rare earth mineral.
In terms of abundance in the Earth's crust, the rarest metals are: gold, platinum, osmium, iridium, palladium, ruthenium, rhodium, tellurium and rhenium. These metals are different from Rare Earth Elements, which aren't actually rare in terms of abundance, but are rarely found in concentrated ore deposits.
Global snapshot of rare earth reserves
According to estimates, the total worldwide reserves of rare earths amount to approximately 130 million metric tons. Most of these reserves are located within China, estimated at some 44 million metric tons.
As the earth's crust is estimated to mass around 2.6 * 1022 kg, it means that there is around 400 billion kg of gold throughout the entire crust. Much of it will never really be accessible, of course, but there really is quite a bit out there.
The first rare-earth mineral discovered (1787) was gadolinite, a black mineral composed of cerium, yttrium, iron, silicon, and other elements.
Ununennium, or element 119, is a predicted chemical element. Its symbol is Uue. Ununennium and Uue are substitute names made by the IUPAC, (meaning "one-one-nine-ium" in Latin) until permanent names are made. Ununennium is the element with the smallest atomic number that has not been created yet.
Scientific element: Francium
The most expensive and second rarest natural element.
REEs are used in a variety of industrial applications, including electronics, clean energy, aerospace, automotive and defence. Manufacturing permanent magnets is the single largest and most important end use for REEs, accounting for 43% of demand in 2021.
A group of experts have concluded that the current increased production rate will lead to the depletion of some finite resources, including gold. Just how scarce are our gold reserves? Well, a group of scientists have set a date for the disappearance of the rare metal, and that is just 27 years away, in 2050.
There is an estimated 1 million tons of gold sitting in the topmost kilometer of the Earth's surface; the amount in the mantle and core is unknown. Of all the gold ever mined, approximately 80% of it is still in circulation today thanks to it's value and durability!
So we've estimated that within 4000m of the surface of Earth's crust there is 35 billion tons of gold. With a remaining 87 billion under the ocean. Only a small portion of that is concentrated enough to mine. Its a big world out there and we've only properly explored small pockets of it.
U.S. geological survey the world is getting better at mining battery metals including lithium. As of 2021, it was estimated that the world had 88 million tonnes of lithium resources.
Earth has approximately 88 million tonnes of lithium, but only one-quarter is economically viable to mine as reserves. The average lithium mine takes at least a few years to get up and running, which presents problems.
A typical EV battery has about 8 kilograms of lithium, 14 kilograms of cobalt, and 20 kilograms of manganese, although this can often be much more depending on the battery size – a Tesla Model S' battery, for example, contains around 62.6 kg (138 pounds) of lithium.
Solar energy and wind power are considered renewable natural resources, meaning as long as there's a sun in the sky (the sun fuels wind, too), we won't run out of them.
So it's unlikely that Earth will ever run out of minerals.
We have estimated that the ultimately recoverable reserves of silver are in the range 2.7–3.1 million tonne silver at present, of which approximately 1.35–1.46 million tonne have already been mined. The timing estimate range for peak silver production is narrow, in the range 2027–2038, with the best estimate in 2034.