Establishing a Domestic, Rare-Earth Metal Manufacturing Supply Chain to Support Critical Department of Air Force Needs

The last several months have shown China's economic and strategic dominance in the rare earth magnet industry. According to the Wall Street Journal, on 4 June, Ford Motor company was preparing to shut down production lines due to an inability to get a license from the CCP to procure rare earth magnets. Today, China accounts for 85% of “light” rare earth metal production and effectively 99% of “heavy” rare earth metal production – both materials are required to manufacture high performance magnets. This reliance on Chinese exports and lack of domestic metal refining capacity has created a crippling chokepoint in the DAF supply chain. A chokepoint which was carefully engineered by China, and one that has been effectively exploited during recent geopolitical strife. Vulcan Elements proposes to build novel rare earth refining capabilities that can be rapidly scaled to meet the demand required in downstream DAF systems and platforms. Vulcan Elements has a 21,000 sqft facility in Raleigh, NC focused on manufacturing rare earth magnets for DoD and commercial applications. Our team is comprised of metal powder experts, a former U.S. Military Officer with experience financing and purchasing rare earth magnets for DoD Technology Platforms deployed worldwide, a professor who opened the first rare earth magnetic lab in the U.S. in two decades and has been a PI on several DARPA projects, a former SpaceX engineer, a manufacturing scale-up expert, and a talented manufacturing team focused on improving national security and economic resilience.