{"id":242803,"date":"2026-08-17T13:05:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T18:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/this-metal-from-outer-space-could-radically-transform-everythingfrom-electric-vehicles-to-nuclear-submarines"},"modified":"2026-08-17T13:05:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T18:05:29","slug":"this-metal-from-outer-space-could-radically-transform-everythingfrom-electric-vehicles-to-nuclear-submarines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/this-metal-from-outer-space-could-radically-transform-everythingfrom-electric-vehicles-to-nuclear-submarines","title":{"rendered":"This Metal From Outer Space Could Radically Transform EverythingFrom Electric Vehicles to Nuclear Submarines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/this-metal-from-outer-space-could-radically-transform-everythingfrom-electric-vehicles-to-nuclear-submarines.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you\u2019re faced with a critical material problem, you can do one of two things: You can find more, or you can use less,\u201d says Tom Lograsso, director of the Critical Materials Institute, a mineral research laboratory within the U.S. Department of Energy.<\/p>\n<p>The sheer quantity of rare earths required for magnet production is staggering when put into raw numbers. For example, a Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine requires 9,200 pounds of permanent magnets made with rare earths. (Permanent magnets are always magnetic, unlike electrical magnets that require an electrical charge to work.) And a proposal by the U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior to generate 86 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2050 would require more than 17,000 tons of neodymium.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe biggest worry for the magnet industry is supply risk,\u201d says Greer. That makes his breakthrough\u2014a powerful magnet that doesn\u2019t rely on rare earths\u2014a potential game changer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWhen you\u2019re faced with a critical material problem, you can do one of two things: You can find more, or you can use less,\u201d says Tom Lograsso, director of the Critical Materials Institute, a mineral research laboratory within the U.S. Department of Energy. The sheer quantity of rare earths required for magnet production is staggering [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,873,8,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military","category-nuclear-energy","category-space","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}