China Controls 90% of Rare Earths. This Startup Has a Fix.

Last year, China choked off rare Earth metal exports to the US. Within weeks, Ford had to idle an SUV plant because it couldn’t get magnets.

China processes over 90% of the world’s rare Earths, which go into everything from your iPhone to Tesla’s Optimus robot. And China’s method is pure brute force: hundreds of tanks of toxic solvent and “sacrifice zones” of poisoned air, soil and water around the plants.

Curtis Wu found a better, cleaner way to process rare Earths. Maglut Heavy Industries is his way to bring production back stateside and cut off China.

I recently caught up with Curis to find out how close his “ARC-1” machine is to scale … and why he thinks America can beat China on cost within a few years:

Click the image to watch my interview with Curtis Wu.

In our interview you’ll hear:

• Why your phone would be a brick without rare Earths (7:10)

• What you’d see driving up to a Chinese rare Earth plant (13:08)

• 3 turning points that handed China the real world (21:22)

• The one thing unlimited money still can’t build fast (31:06)

• What VCs don’t understand about making hardware (32:17)

Please click here to watch my conversation with Curtis Wu now.

—Stephen McBride

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Stephen McBride is a co-founder of the Rational Optimist Society.

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