… “China, which accounts for 97 percent of global rare earth supplies, has been tightening trade in the strategic metals, sparking an explosion in prices.”
Here is a little graph for you.
Also from the article: "Extracting the deposits requires pumping up material from the ocean floor. Sea mud can be brought up to ships and we can extract rare earths right there using simple acid leaching,” he said. “Using diluted acid, the process is fast, and within a few hours we can extract 80 to 90 percent of rare earths from the mud.”
China has been using its huge reserves to control the price and strangle the market. A finding of alternative reserves is welcome news.
Do you know how much nasty shit is used to get the rare earth metals out of whatever else they’re encased in?
That stuff could cause a serious natural disaster if it was to leak out in the ocean, but hey, who likes seafood anyhow?
China is does not account for 97 percent of supplies. China accounts for maybe 97% of production.
The US and Russia have plenty of supplies but do not extract because of the social, economic, and environmental cost. Sure, China keeps prices high cause they think nah nah nah nah nahhhh, we own this shit but the rest of the world goes “Good. Destroy your own goddamned countryside.”
Looking at it from a Japanese perspective, i see nothing but a bright future:
There are no social costs in the middle of the ocean, economic costs have become less of an issue since prices have gone up, and environmental costs are easy to ignore in the middle of the ocean, as well.
And we won’t want to eat ocean fish in the future anyway, since we’ve got a head start on making it radioactive and thus inedible.
:eh:
Looking at it from a Japanese perspective, i see nothing but a bright future:
There are no social costs in the middle of the ocean, economic costs have become less of an issue since prices have gone up, and environmental costs are easy to ignore in the middle of the ocean, as well.
And we won’t want to eat ocean fish in the future anyway, since we’ve got a head start on making it radioactive and thus inedible.
:eh:[/quote]
I don’t know… since the BP Gulf Coast spill people are more aware of the dangers to fiddling with the ocean. Couple that with the awareness people also have of rare earth mining and fracking. I think there will be backlash.
Although I can understand the allure that rare earths in the PAcific is from the Japanese perspective. I followed every day of the “embargo” on Japanese imports from China last year.
But the Japanese managed to pull through with some pretty creative methods- like digging through their electronic waste and melting down the rare earths inside.
[quote=“Lili”]Although I can understand the allure that rare earths in the PAcific is from the Japanese perspective. I followed every day of the “embargo” on Japanese imports from China last year.
But the Japanese managed to pull through with some pretty creative methods- like digging through their electronic waste and melting down the rare earths inside.[/quote]
Yes, and in addition some new technologies are under active development that use much more common elements - i am reminded of the breakthrough in semiconductors that came about when people managed to switch from Germanium to the (maybe 5-10 times) cheaper and more abundant Silicon. And i think on the long run it will be better if everybody uses stuff they can dig up at home.
No need to go radioactive, Yuli, just plastic, plain plastic. I was reading about micro-plastic not in our environment, but in our bloodstream. The sea has a death by 2050 or earlier date. Pity next generation will not know the wonderful creatures that dwell there.
There used to be research in chlorophyll batteries, if I am not mistaken. Follow nature’s plans, follow nature’s system: no waste, no want.
Oh, if it was that simple - humans have their own ideas about how to do things. There are quite obviously many people around in the current age who use their belief that it is impossible to change the “modern” way of life as a premise on which they build an astounding argument of th kind, “since it can’t be done it’s OK to not do it”.
Nature, on the other hand, seems unwilling to bend itself to such misconceptions, so i guess we have a case of here - on a grand scale.
PS: I remember one of my philosophy classses, where someone advanced an argument of that sort, and someone else responded with “Bwahahaha” - it was the only time i’ve seen the prof just smile and not ask the person who laughed to give a logical refutation of the argument that had been advanced. Hm… philosophical humour is of its own kind…
Well, that is actually just the tip of teh iceberg. Plastic is turning out to be something we do not know much of. Aside from those dead zones in the Pacific that you mention, there is also a fairly recent discovery that it does not dissappear or dissipatem, but turns into smaller and smaller molecules that we ingest through the fish and water and stuff. So it is not a farway problem, but something happening now, everywhere, in various amounts.
Actually, there was a very nice program recently on Discovery channel about how designers and inventors were taking inspiration from Nature for their works. Yes, it is not simple, but we cannot just keep on throwing out the garbage and pretending it won’t boomerang back. Just as radiation takes so many years to decay, and each spill raises hell, we should not look down on these minute poisonings, whether plastic or acid in nature. They will come back to bite us in the end.
As to who laughs at the end, I am afraid Mother Nature is on a rampage and humans will not come upside if we keep on, as we say in Spanish, “pulling her tail”. Ironic isn’t it that in order to “save” the planet, we need rare earths whose extraction can poison the planet, too.
I think it’ll be a good thing in the long run. It about time the human race reverted to a more manageable state. Back to the days of high infant mortality, 40-something year lifespans, etc.
Of course, that leaves me curious: which parts of the world and which age are you referring to?
I mean there are plenty of places where that is the reality right now - while, on the other hand, there have been cultures thousands of years ago where the conditions were better than that.
And why should a return to a more natural lifestuyle mean that people have to through away everything that could be learned from the current mad era?
[quote]Of course, that leaves me curious: which parts of the world and which age are you referring to?
I mean there are plenty of places where that is the reality right now [/quote]
Course there are. But they’re little brown people in faraway lands. I’m talking about your SUV-driving fat bastards who shop at Sainsbury’s and go to Pilates classes.
The rare earths will extract from the ocean floor sentiment using a simple dilute acid. The 10% that will not extract will be written off as ‘too difficult to recover’ and sent back for redeposit on the ocean floor. I don’t understand why this conversation has turned towards some sort of oceanic doomsday?
It is true that there are more complicated extraction and isolation steps, but those would be performed on dry land.
Finding rare earths in such a recoverable state like this is incredible. I’d be surprised if it is as true as first reports suggest.
I’m still unclear why anyone is excited about it?
And where does the acid go? If you’re using the acid, it must react with something in some way to produce something else. Do you think there are no harmful products of this process? Do you think they will be carefully managed by people far away from the prying eyes of any national government, with no local population to bitch about the pollution?
There are quite obviously many people around in the current age who use their belief that it is impossible to change the “modern” way of life as a premise on which they build an astounding argument of th kind, “since it can’t be done it’s OK to not do it”.
here - on a grand scale.
