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> with more than enough minerals to go around I think we actually agree on most things except for this. China is hoarding rare Earth minerals, mostly the kind

> with more than enough minerals to go around I think we actually agree on most things except for this. China is hoarding rare Earth minerals, mostly the kind you need to develop batteries to transition away from our dependency on oil. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2019/07/10/china-has-a-powerful-trade-weapon-rare-earths-used-in-green-energy-products/#808b2034e4c1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2019/07/10/china... So no, we absolutely do not have enough minerals to go around, at least if you want to transition to alternative energy resources.

arcticbull 6y ago
Rare earth minerals aren't exactly what you think. They're pretty evenly distributed across the entire earth's crust. The amount in China is equal to the amount in the Brazil and Russia combined. There's a lot in Australia, the US, Greenland and a whole ton in Vietnam [1]. Yes, China produces a lot right now, and yes they're considering it a strategic issue, but it's not because China is the only place that has it -- far from -- many countries have similar quantities. China only has 1/3 of the world's known rare earth supply. The name is misleading, because they're anything but rare. The reason China produces so much is because they're willing to pay the environmental cost of extracting them, nothing more. There's plenty of those to go around, too. [1] https://geology.com/articles/rare-earth-elements/ https://geology.com/articles/rare-earth-elements/
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  Sure, but you're implying China sources most of its minerals locally, when in fact they do most of their mining in Africa. So they are hoarding a larger than proportional amount of rare minerals in order to benefit themselves. > The reason China produces so much is because they're willing to pay the environmental cost of extracting them, nothing more. They're offloading it onto Africa, so they aren't really paying it themselves.
  - chrischen 6y ago
    They're also hoarding a lot of the world's population—keep that in mind.
arcticbull 6y ago
"The major cities in which rare earths were mined are Shandong, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, Hunan, and Guangxi." [1] Africa has relatively little in the way of discovered rare earth deposits. There are 50X as many known rare earth deposits in China as in South Africa, and that's the largest source in Africa. They are very much mining it at home. If they're getting them from abroad they're not "hoarding" them, there's a market, and other countries could just as easily buy. Lots of articles can back me up here, it's blighted the land. [2, 3, 4] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_industry_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_industry_in_China [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-ra... [3] https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-wrestles-with-the-toxic-aftermath-of-rare-earth-mining https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-wrestles-with-the-toxic... [4] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-...
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  You seem to be right - I overestimated the mining efforts of China in Africa and assumed it was related to specific Earth minerals incorrectly.
harimau777 6y ago
This is a little off topic, but are rare earth minerals something that could be mined from asteroids? While the idea of humanity becoming an interstellar species as depicted in sci-fi seems pretty far off to me, it seems like asteroid mining via drone could be viable in the near future if the incentives were right.

arcticbull 6y ago

Rare earth minerals aren't exactly what you think. They're pretty evenly distributed across the entire earth's crust. The amount in China is equal to the amount in the Brazil and Russia combined. There's a lot in Australia, the US, Greenland and a whole ton in Vietnam [1]. Yes, China produces a lot right now, and yes they're considering it a strategic issue, but it's not because China is the only place that has it -- far from -- many countries have similar quantities. China only has 1/3 of the world's known rare earth supply. The name is misleading, because they're anything but rare. The reason China produces so much is because they're willing to pay the environmental cost of extracting them, nothing more. There's plenty of those to go around, too. [1] https://geology.com/articles/rare-earth-elements/ https://geology.com/articles/rare-earth-elements/

Judgmentality 6y ago
Sure, but you're implying China sources most of its minerals locally, when in fact they do most of their mining in Africa. So they are hoarding a larger than proportional amount of rare minerals in order to benefit themselves. > The reason China produces so much is because they're willing to pay the environmental cost of extracting them, nothing more. They're offloading it onto Africa, so they aren't really paying it themselves.
- chrischen 6y ago
  They're also hoarding a lot of the world's population—keep that in mind.

arcticbull 6y ago

"The major cities in which rare earths were mined are Shandong, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, Hunan, and Guangxi." [1] Africa has relatively little in the way of discovered rare earth deposits. There are 50X as many known rare earth deposits in China as in South Africa, and that's the largest source in Africa. They are very much mining it at home. If they're getting them from abroad they're not "hoarding" them, there's a market, and other countries could just as easily buy. Lots of articles can back me up here, it's blighted the land. [2, 3, 4] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_industry_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_industry_in_China [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-ra... [3] https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-wrestles-with-the-toxic-aftermath-of-rare-earth-mining https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-wrestles-with-the-toxic... [4] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-...

Judgmentality 6y ago
You seem to be right - I overestimated the mining efforts of China in Africa and assumed it was related to specific Earth minerals incorrectly.

harimau777 6y ago

This is a little off topic, but are rare earth minerals something that could be mined from asteroids? While the idea of humanity becoming an interstellar species as depicted in sci-fi seems pretty far off to me, it seems like asteroid mining via drone could be viable in the near future if the incentives were right.