Partly  excerpt from Undiscovered Scandium Market Set to Boom published Sun, Apr 12, 2015 | Tim Maverick

Scandium exists as an oxide, known as scandia, naturally. This makes it very rare to find it in pure form. It also has a low affinity for other minerals, making finding a high-grade, commercially viable deposit practically impossible. Recent exciting discoveries in Australia may be about to change all of that, though, and could start a boom for this metal.

This metal’s two main uses are in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) and in scandium-aluminum alloys.

But scandium’s scarcity has limited its use. Estimates are that if enough scandium were found, the solid oxide fuel cell market would consume up to five times the scandium it currently does. The huge backlog of Airbus aircraft should be an ideal situation for the scandium market. But, again, the problem is the availability of the metal.

The scandium market is at an exciting point, to say the least. Latent demand for the metal far exceeds the current supply. And these developments in Australia are well worth keeping an eye on.

According to HTL’s JORC Report 2004 by independent geologist David Semple, the volume & grade of scandium present at Wateranga may well be the largest in the world. This gives great poential for the project to expand.