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I'm sure this is wildly naive, but I'm a little surprised we haven't figured out how to synthesize these minerals. Maybe it's just not economically worthwhile.

• zamfi 7y ago
  Indeed. Rare earths are specific elements in the periodic table. The only way we could "synthesize" these elements is atomically -- by bombarding other elements with nucleons and hope they stick or split. "Not economically worthwhile" is a massive understatement. :) A similar process is required to turn lead into gold!
  • burfog 7y ago
    We're doing it already, in every nuclear power plant. We might as well harvest the results. Many won't be radioactive, with the problematic isotopes disappearing quickly, and anyway we know how to separate isotopes. Particularly common: yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, and samarium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_products_(by_element) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_products_(by_element) For political reasons, the USA is one of the few nuclear countries that does not reprocess fuel. Besides missing out on rare earths, we're discarding about 95% of the uranium as waste. (discarding about 90% of the energy, with overhead taking a bit) Russia, China, France, India, and Pakistan all have reprocessing plants.
    • zamfi 7y ago
      Is this actually a significant source of rare earth elements? My understanding is that they’re rare compared with things like carbon, nitrogen, etc. Cerium, one of the rare earths, is apparently more common than copper, even. Seems like extracting them from spent nuclear fuel would be much less economic than just grinding them out of rocks, but IANANE.
• tesseract 7y ago
  The main value of the minerals is in the rare-earth elements they contain. If you already had access to those elements in a different form, synthesizing the minerals is of little value. (And of course nuclear synthesis of the rare-earth elements, to the extent it's possible, is very very far from being economically viable.)
  • fhars 7y ago
    Though it is a bit disappointing that a purported science journalism outlet contributed to the OPs confusion by calling the minerals and the elements both „minerals“ by e.g. claiming that the minerals are formed in supernovas.
• cbanek 7y ago
  Well rare earth elements are heavy metals, and so it's about their atoms that is important. It's not something you can make via chemical processes, you'd need some kind of nuclear process, like how new atoms are made (kind of like how scientists make synthetic elements with more than 92 protons). Either that or split a heavier larger atom into the metals you want, although this means it would in either case be unstable. The amount of energy to do these is so incomparably huge to just digging them out of the ground.
• dwaltrip 7y ago
  The necessary transmutation simply requires the philosopher's stone. Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced mine...
• edejong 7y ago
  Rare-earth elements are formed in supernovae, so if you happen to have a supernova in your backyard, you’re golden! Otherwise, it’s a rather expensive ordeal, battling those subnuclear forces.
  • msds 7y ago
    If you're lucky enough to have a supernova, it's also probably a good idea to be very very patient while you wait for the various radioisotopes to calm down before you use your nice shiny new REEs.
• AYBABTME 7y ago
  More of a meta comment, but it's not appropriate to downvote someone for asking a question in honesty, even if "everybody should know that ___". (parent: this isn't meant for you, more at whomever downvoted you)