A couple of years back, when rare earth prices were high and China restricted exports, the media was full of scaremongering stories about how we gonna see our industry shut down, etc.

Turns out that prices are a strong signal to start mining. While rare earth sound like a scarce resources, they are essentially prevalent across the globe in very low concentration. The existing mines are usually places where the concentration is a tad higher. But once prices are high enough, a lot of marginal deposits all over sudden become commercially viable.