Critical Defense Uses Rare earth elements play an essential role in our national defense. The military uses night-vision goggles, precision-guided weapons, communications equipment, GPS equipment, batteries, and other defense electronics. These give the United States military an enormous advantage. Rare earth metals are key ingredients for making the very hard alloys used in armored vehicles and projectiles that shatter upon impact.
Substitutes can be used for rare earth elements in some defense applications; however, those substitutes are usually not as effective and that diminishes military superiority. Several uses of rare earth elements are summarized in the accompanying table [6].
Did You Know? Most of the scandium used in the United States goes into aluminum-alloy baseball bats and other sports equipment [4]. Scandium is also used in semiconductors and specialty lighting. Image copyright iStockphoto / Dori OConnell.
