Henk,
At the present time all of the COMMERCIALLY PRODUCED dysprosium is coming from deposits in Southwest China called ionic clays from which the higher atomic numbered rare earths now in wide use, europium (atomic number 63), terbium (65), AND DYSPROSIUM (66) are recovered by a version of a heap leaching process using acids to solubilize and extract the REEs. The total production of dysprosium has been estimated by Mr. David Kennedy, the CEO of the UK’s Less Common Metals, Ltd, who is the non Chinese world’s foremost authority on the production of neodymium iron boron and samarium cobalt magnet alloys, at 1200 metric tons in 2008. I think it is clear just from your own “reverse engineering” that if Toyota needs 40 grams of dysprosium per Prius for the two electric “drive” motors then for the aggregate million vehicles to be made by Toyota, Honda, and Ford in calendar year 2009 there will be a use of 40,000,000 grams of dysprosium, which is 40 metric tons. By your calulations the full hybrid vehicles using dysprosium enhanced nd-fe-b magnets will also use 240 metric tons of neodymium in the drive motor magnets. Note that the nickel metal hydride batteries for the same one million vehciles will require 8,000 tons of lanthanum and, perhaps-Toyota does not release the figures-, an additional 1000 tons of neodymium.

The real “problem” for dysprosium consumption (demand) is the fact that even in 2008 there were 26,500 tons of REE magnet alloys produced. If, hypothetically, these were all of the same type as that used in the Prius drive motors then the need (demand) for dysprosium would be more than three times the supply. Thus clearly if this were the case then dysprosium would already be in very short supply. Mr. Kennedy told me yesterday that at the moment there does not seem to be such a problem, but that he would predict that if the magnet industry continues to grow at it current 10-15% a year rate then there will indeed be a dysprosium (and terbium) supply problem in the near future.

You can see why the Chinese are considering the elimination of the export of dysprosium, terbium, and europium, and when you add to the increasing demand the fact that China sees its current heavy REE production levels as good for at most 20-30 years more you can see that unless there are new and additional sources of the heavy rare earths in the near future a dysprosium supply gap will open and grow beginning shortly. The result of this gap would surely be the end of the availability of dysprosium outside of China. I will address this and related issues in my talk at the San Francisco Hard Assets Conference on November 22. I will also publish an article on this topic and what the Japanese are doing to prevent it for themselves in a near future article for The Jack Lifton Report.