5 ms·

I'm not too sure one this one - we need rare earths to make things like lithium cells. Moves like this one could cripple our production capacity or price compet

by arsome 6y ago

I'm not too sure one this one - we need rare earths to make things like lithium cells. Moves like this one could cripple our production capacity or price competitiveness for moving away from fossil fuels - I'd argue far more environmentally pressing than rare earth mining.

bryanlarsen 6y ago
Rare earths are not used in the popular lithium battery chemistries. They are needed for high performance electric motors though.
- eloff 6y ago
  And in wind turbines (for the same reason). What about solar panels? Maybe not the cheaper ones?
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Conventional monocrystalline or polycrystalline panels do not use rare elements. Slightly fuzzy diagram: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Structure-of-monocrystalline-solar-cell_fig1_320345931 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Structure-of-monocrystal... Cadmium-telluride and CIGS cells use more rare elements, but they have been overtaken by the ongoing fall in cost of conventional silicon wafer cells, so you won't see too many of them being installed at the moment. (The failure of CdTe is probably for the best given how spectacularly poisonous both of those metals are)
- pjc50 6y ago
  There's a question over cobalt, although that's not usually counted as "rare".
  - moistbar 6y ago
    Low-cobalt batteries are also becoming increasingly common.
    - barney54 6y ago
      True, but the quantity of batteries they are used in is rapidly increasing leading to more demand overall.
  - _Microft 6y ago
    "Rare-earth elements" is a name for a set of particular elements. Cobalt is not among them. Despite their name rare-earth elements are not that rare either. They occur in rather low concentrations though and never pure either (i.e. always as compounds) which makes mining and processing them complex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element
  - baybal2 6y ago
    Cobalt is also not that rare just as Nickel is. It's just the price is set by people who can mine it for nearly free from the most rich deposits in the world.
- dbuder 6y ago
  Yes they are. There are trace amounts and they are used in the production of lithium batteries. They are also used in semiconductors and the production of them.
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    Which earths in which chemistries? Or are you saying they're used during production, but but don't end up in the batteries?
nicklecompte 6y ago
While I don’t disagree with the sentiment, you are making an abstract argument with zero consideration for the facts at hand. The environmental need for rare earth metals does not mean that every rare earth metals mining project is a net positive for the environment. In particular, this specific mine in Greenland is also a uranium deposit, and could be especially devastating to the environment, at relatively little yield[1]. Greenlanders are correct to be skeptical and concerned (especially given that Greenland Minerals is actually an Australian-Chinese company). [1] https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/2021/01/08/canadian-geologist-raises-questions-about-controversial-greenland-mining-project/ https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/2021/01/08/canadian-...
- makomk 6y ago
  So basically, it's a fairly typical rare earth mine. As far as I can tell pretty much all of them involve relatively low yields and result in the concentration of radioactive elements like thorium. The article you link to mentions a mine in Malaysia which was (I think) the only major rare earth mine outside China for a while until it closed over radiation fears - and it's not that China doesn't have these problems, it's that no-one can convince the government to shut down mines over it. So the end result of this thinking is that critical stuff like electric cars, wind turbines, etc is completely dependent on a totalitarian country making sabre-rattling threats towards its neighbours, carrying out increasingly aggressive ethnic cleansing campaigns, which has a history of using its control over the supply of rare earth minerals for political ends.
  - nicklecompte 6y ago
    I mean... Greenland Minerals question is an Australian-Chinese enterprise, so I am not sure what the point of your comment is! Agreeing to develop the mine in Greenland doesn’t even meaningfully address your (myopic) worldview about stopping Chinese domination of rare earth supplies. Unless you think the intervention of unscrupulous Australian capitalists is a meaningful check on the Chinese government. A major reason why the mine is being opposed is that a lackadaisical approach to toxic / radioactive waste is not in fact endemic to rare earth mining. It is seemingly endemic in multinational state-corporate enterprises (on which Greenlanders will have very little influence, cf the Malaysian government’s experience with that mine, which was also owned/administered by an Australian company).
neilshevlin 6y ago
It's definitely a tricky issue. While we do need natural resources to support a transition to renewables, the mining industry is comically slow to move on anything. Fortran might still be considered cutting edge to some companies. This has real impacts. Because if your resource models are inaccurate, then your environmental impact is magnified. What's worse is that mine lifecycles are very long. Long enough to mean the decision makers when opening a mine, might not be around when the mine closes. Which can cause carelessness, especially if they don't live in the area. Stricter environmental impact assessment rules might work. But geo-scientific research is underfunded. So making it harder to open a mine, might cause the overall funding for research to reduce. Causing our models, especially in the mineral exploration stage, to not really advance much. So nothing really gets done until some country deregulates the industry, and so the problem persists. So moves like this can work, but the research has to be there to support the new age of mining. There's some trade off here, between mining and burning fossil fuels. But this seems to be an example of where the negative effects of mining more REM are local, where as the negative effects of burning more Fossil fuels are global. But it's not a binary decision in most cases.
pjc50 6y ago
> our production capacity Who do you mean by "our"? I believe the Greenlanders' point is that it's their minerals and their local environment that may be wrecked, so they wish to either prevent this or set terms on which it is done. There are other sources of rare earths - they can even be found in the tailings of other mines.
JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-... Rare earth mining seems pretty bad.
- barney54 6y ago
  It’s not the mining that is bad, it is the processing that is terrible.

by arsome 6y ago

bryanlarsen 6y ago

Rare earths are not used in the popular lithium battery chemistries. They are needed for high performance electric motors though.

eloff 6y ago
And in wind turbines (for the same reason). What about solar panels? Maybe not the cheaper ones?
- pjc50 6y ago
  Conventional monocrystalline or polycrystalline panels do not use rare elements. Slightly fuzzy diagram: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Structure-of-monocrystalline-solar-cell_fig1_320345931 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Structure-of-monocrystal... Cadmium-telluride and CIGS cells use more rare elements, but they have been overtaken by the ongoing fall in cost of conventional silicon wafer cells, so you won't see too many of them being installed at the moment. (The failure of CdTe is probably for the best given how spectacularly poisonous both of those metals are)
pjc50 6y ago
There's a question over cobalt, although that's not usually counted as "rare".
- moistbar 6y ago
  Low-cobalt batteries are also becoming increasingly common.
  - barney54 6y ago
    True, but the quantity of batteries they are used in is rapidly increasing leading to more demand overall.
- _Microft 6y ago
  "Rare-earth elements" is a name for a set of particular elements. Cobalt is not among them. Despite their name rare-earth elements are not that rare either. They occur in rather low concentrations though and never pure either (i.e. always as compounds) which makes mining and processing them complex. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element
- baybal2 6y ago
  Cobalt is also not that rare just as Nickel is. It's just the price is set by people who can mine it for nearly free from the most rich deposits in the world.
dbuder 6y ago
Yes they are. There are trace amounts and they are used in the production of lithium batteries. They are also used in semiconductors and the production of them.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  Which earths in which chemistries? Or are you saying they're used during production, but but don't end up in the batteries?

nicklecompte 6y ago

While I don’t disagree with the sentiment, you are making an abstract argument with zero consideration for the facts at hand. The environmental need for rare earth metals does not mean that every rare earth metals mining project is a net positive for the environment. In particular, this specific mine in Greenland is also a uranium deposit, and could be especially devastating to the environment, at relatively little yield[1]. Greenlanders are correct to be skeptical and concerned (especially given that Greenland Minerals is actually an Australian-Chinese company). [1] https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/2021/01/08/canadian-geologist-raises-questions-about-controversial-greenland-mining-project/ https://www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/2021/01/08/canadian-...

makomk 6y ago
So basically, it's a fairly typical rare earth mine. As far as I can tell pretty much all of them involve relatively low yields and result in the concentration of radioactive elements like thorium. The article you link to mentions a mine in Malaysia which was (I think) the only major rare earth mine outside China for a while until it closed over radiation fears - and it's not that China doesn't have these problems, it's that no-one can convince the government to shut down mines over it. So the end result of this thinking is that critical stuff like electric cars, wind turbines, etc is completely dependent on a totalitarian country making sabre-rattling threats towards its neighbours, carrying out increasingly aggressive ethnic cleansing campaigns, which has a history of using its control over the supply of rare earth minerals for political ends.
- nicklecompte 6y ago
  I mean... Greenland Minerals question is an Australian-Chinese enterprise, so I am not sure what the point of your comment is! Agreeing to develop the mine in Greenland doesn’t even meaningfully address your (myopic) worldview about stopping Chinese domination of rare earth supplies. Unless you think the intervention of unscrupulous Australian capitalists is a meaningful check on the Chinese government. A major reason why the mine is being opposed is that a lackadaisical approach to toxic / radioactive waste is not in fact endemic to rare earth mining. It is seemingly endemic in multinational state-corporate enterprises (on which Greenlanders will have very little influence, cf the Malaysian government’s experience with that mine, which was also owned/administered by an Australian company).

neilshevlin 6y ago

It's definitely a tricky issue. While we do need natural resources to support a transition to renewables, the mining industry is comically slow to move on anything. Fortran might still be considered cutting edge to some companies. This has real impacts. Because if your resource models are inaccurate, then your environmental impact is magnified. What's worse is that mine lifecycles are very long. Long enough to mean the decision makers when opening a mine, might not be around when the mine closes. Which can cause carelessness, especially if they don't live in the area. Stricter environmental impact assessment rules might work. But geo-scientific research is underfunded. So making it harder to open a mine, might cause the overall funding for research to reduce. Causing our models, especially in the mineral exploration stage, to not really advance much. So nothing really gets done until some country deregulates the industry, and so the problem persists. So moves like this can work, but the research has to be there to support the new age of mining. There's some trade off here, between mining and burning fossil fuels. But this seems to be an example of where the negative effects of mining more REM are local, where as the negative effects of burning more Fossil fuels are global. But it's not a binary decision in most cases.

pjc50 6y ago

> our production capacity Who do you mean by "our"? I believe the Greenlanders' point is that it's their minerals and their local environment that may be wrecked, so they wish to either prevent this or set terms on which it is done. There are other sources of rare earths - they can even be found in the tailings of other mines.

JohnJamesRambo 6y ago

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-... Rare earth mining seems pretty bad.

barney54 6y ago
It’s not the mining that is bad, it is the processing that is terrible.