US drones scouring for rare earths to end reliance on China

A quadcopter drone in New York on August 2016. — AFP Relaxnews

The United States is deploying drones and other technology as it scours for potential rare-earths reserves at home and abroad to wean the nation off its dependence on Chinese imports.

"We’ve been almost 100% dependent on foreign sources of rare earth elements for industrial applications, ” Jim Reilly, director of the U.S. Geological Survey, said. "It’s not only the domestic sources of the resource that we concentrate on. We look for those resources literally across the globe, and then we build collaboration with our partners.”