4 ms·

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 ea

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).
  - zepto 6y ago
    > Agreeing to develop the mine in Greenland doesn’t even meaningfully address your (myopic) worldview about stopping Chinese domination of rare earth supplies. I agree with everything in your comment, except for where you say that the parent’s idea is myopic. Why do you think that?
    - nicklecompte 6y ago
      I meant that it’s a serious geopolitical problem but that the parent was suggesting it is a paramount concern, and that stopping said domination is worth any cost. The parent says this: > the end result of this thinking is that critical stuff like electric cars, wind turbines, etc is completely dependent on a totalitarian country while ignoring that the end result of their thinking is a race-to-the-bottom of nations poisoning their own people to combat China. It’s why I think they are being myopic - they are taking environmental devastation as a given and arguing that China must be stopped at all costs. (Not to mention the conflation of “resources not physically in China” with “non-Chinese resources” which, as stated above, is not actually true here).
slowhand09 6y ago
Thorium is also considered to be the fuel candidate for the safest form of nuclear reactor. From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power "Weinberg realized that you could use thorium in an entirely new kind of reactor, one that would have zero risk of meltdown. ... his team built a working reactor .... and he spent the rest of his 18-year tenure trying to make thorium the heart of the nation’s atomic power effort. He failed. Uranium reactors had already been established, and Hyman Rickover, de facto head of the US nuclear program, wanted the plutonium from uranium-powered nuclear plants to make bombs. Increasingly shunted aside, Weinberg was finally forced out in 1973."
- nicklecompte 6y ago
  The issue in the article I linked isn’t that thorium is being produced but rather that Greenland Minerals doesn’t seem to have a plan for storing or processing it. So the fact that it could one day be used in a reactor isn’t very meaningful if the thorium in question is badly contaminated with other waste products and buried in a landfill somewhere.

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).
- zepto 6y ago
  > Agreeing to develop the mine in Greenland doesn’t even meaningfully address your (myopic) worldview about stopping Chinese domination of rare earth supplies. I agree with everything in your comment, except for where you say that the parent’s idea is myopic. Why do you think that?
  - nicklecompte 6y ago
    I meant that it’s a serious geopolitical problem but that the parent was suggesting it is a paramount concern, and that stopping said domination is worth any cost. The parent says this: > the end result of this thinking is that critical stuff like electric cars, wind turbines, etc is completely dependent on a totalitarian country while ignoring that the end result of their thinking is a race-to-the-bottom of nations poisoning their own people to combat China. It’s why I think they are being myopic - they are taking environmental devastation as a given and arguing that China must be stopped at all costs. (Not to mention the conflation of “resources not physically in China” with “non-Chinese resources” which, as stated above, is not actually true here).

slowhand09 6y ago

Thorium is also considered to be the fuel candidate for the safest form of nuclear reactor. From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power "Weinberg realized that you could use thorium in an entirely new kind of reactor, one that would have zero risk of meltdown. ... his team built a working reactor .... and he spent the rest of his 18-year tenure trying to make thorium the heart of the nation’s atomic power effort. He failed. Uranium reactors had already been established, and Hyman Rickover, de facto head of the US nuclear program, wanted the plutonium from uranium-powered nuclear plants to make bombs. Increasingly shunted aside, Weinberg was finally forced out in 1973."

nicklecompte 6y ago
The issue in the article I linked isn’t that thorium is being produced but rather that Greenland Minerals doesn’t seem to have a plan for storing or processing it. So the fact that it could one day be used in a reactor isn’t very meaningful if the thorium in question is badly contaminated with other waste products and buried in a landfill somewhere.