Prospective Aspects Regarding the Geopolitics of Special Resources

Abstract

Identification of Special Resources Special resources represent a special category of natural resources that have uses in sophisticated technologies differing from other resources in that on the one hand they are found in small quantities so they are rare, or are found in large quantities, but have a large area globally, which makes them difficult to exploit. Globally, the demand for these resources is growing, the interest for their exploitation being directly proportional to the need for technological development. IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) defines a special set of chemical elements also called Rare Earth Elements (REE) or rare earth metals as a set of 15 chemical elements from the periodic table of elements, from the class of lanthanides to which scandium and yttrium are added. Despite the name, many of these elements are relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust, but due to their geochemical properties they are usually dispersed, being difficult to exploit as they are not found in a concentrated form. Analyzing Mendeleev’s table, we can present the list of the 15 elements in the class of lanthanides: