4 ms·

The article is vague about the identities of the elements. They tend to occur together, but some are way more valuable than others. Cerium, for example, is cons

The article is vague about the identities of the elements. They tend to occur together, but some are way more valuable than others. Cerium, for example, is considered a "rare earth" but is not that rare at all: > Cerium is the most abundant of all the lanthanides, making up 66 ppm of the Earth's crust; this value is just behind that of copper (68 ppm), and cerium is even more abundant than common metals such as lead (13 ppm) and tin (2.1 ppm). Thus, despite its position as one of the so-called rare-earth metals, cerium is actually not rare at all. ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerium

vanattab 4y ago
Honest question. What is the distribution throughout the crust though? If something that is 66 ppm but near uniformily distributed could be much harder to extract then something that is 2.2 ppm but occurs I distinct viens.
- oportunityastro 4y ago
  It is nothing to do with anything. Copper is relatively abundant by this measure, but almost everyone who I know who has a view on copper see the future supply situation as terrible. There is politics, financial cycles, actual site economics...I mean the US right now is the perfect example of this, centuries of discovered natural gas reserves that is proven economic to take out of the ground, and natural gas is skyrocketing...it isn't that simple.
- philipkglass 4y ago
  That's exactly what makes most of the rare earth elements "rare": they are common in the Earth's crust but rarely concentrated into easily mined deposits. Neodymium and praseodymium are also more common than tin but significantly more costly than tin because they don't form ore bodies like tin does under geochemical influences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
divbzero 4y ago
A sibling comment [1] cited additional details that the find is indeed mostly cerium, followed by lanthanum which also has limited economic value. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31993668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31993668

vanattab 4y ago

Honest question. What is the distribution throughout the crust though? If something that is 66 ppm but near uniformily distributed could be much harder to extract then something that is 2.2 ppm but occurs I distinct viens.

oportunityastro 4y ago
It is nothing to do with anything. Copper is relatively abundant by this measure, but almost everyone who I know who has a view on copper see the future supply situation as terrible. There is politics, financial cycles, actual site economics...I mean the US right now is the perfect example of this, centuries of discovered natural gas reserves that is proven economic to take out of the ground, and natural gas is skyrocketing...it isn't that simple.
philipkglass 4y ago
That's exactly what makes most of the rare earth elements "rare": they are common in the Earth's crust but rarely concentrated into easily mined deposits. Neodymium and praseodymium are also more common than tin but significantly more costly than tin because they don't form ore bodies like tin does under geochemical influences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

divbzero 4y ago

A sibling comment [1] cited additional details that the find is indeed mostly cerium, followed by lanthanum which also has limited economic value. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31993668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31993668