9 ms·

The global fight for critical minerals is costly and damaging

41 points by headalgorithm 3y ago

charbull 3y ago
isn't that the quest of every galaxy wars movie...
blondie9x 3y ago
That’s the worst part of the AI race and “clean” electric cars. Behind the scenes the destruction they cause is more than you can imagine. We think electric cars and GPUs are pushing us ahead. But in reality we are driving the wedge in deeper. I’m afraid where we end up is like James Hansen said about fossil fuels, but relevant in general, with a "different, practically uninhabitable planet" by triggering a "low-end runaway greenhouse effect." The only way to actually stop the destruction is if we slow down mining and learn to do more with what we have already mined. To make what we already consumed reusable and stop mining altogether if possible. For fossil fuels, and the rare earth minerals destroying fresh water and food supplies and air quality.
- squarepizza 3y ago
  EVs, while undeniably more efficient, seem very good at abstracting the costs away from the end user. Pair this with autonomy that reduces friction but has its own associated costs and I'm afraid that the increase in use will eclipse the gains in efficiency, leading to a Jevon's Paradox where the overall consumption increases.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    The costs of cars and oil are already thoroughly abstracted away.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    > abstracting the costs away from the end user. The vast majority of costs are already abstracted away. When you drive to work, do you think about the massive environmental cost of all the concrete and steel that went into building the roads and bridges that you drive over? Yet those costs, which nobody talks about, are of similar scale to the environmental costs of all cars.
    - jazzyjackson 3y ago
      I think that goes to the parent's point: making the individual cars more efficient is not going to make a difference in the big picture. For one, the increase in efficiency has really already been met by an increase in power and performance - even the humble Prius has made an effort at faster 0-60, not to mention the sub-3-second super-SUVs. But if driving a car is cheaper (and more fun) then we are doomed to dedicate more land to asphalt, and all the hidden costs thereof.
  - dublinben 3y ago
    This is why every serious plan for reducing transportation emissions also includes a significant decrease in Vehicle Miles Traveled. It’s not enough to keep driving everywhere, but in electric cars instead.
  - RhodesianHunter 3y ago
    Jevons paradox doesn't make sense in the context of purely competitive products. If it were, the effect would be expected to be the same for gas powered cars unless they were somehow prohibitively more expensive, which they are not.
- slashdev 3y ago
  Is this satire? With the username, I’m unsure. I don’t know why anyone would mention GPUs and AI in the same context as electric vehicles. Mining isn’t a huge source of greenhouse emissions. It’s not good for the local environment, but it’s necessary. Recycling and reuse is also a grand idea, you’re right about that. Except for plastics, which never made sense. Electric cars are unequivocally a good thing. Every electric car takes a fossil fuel guzzling car off the road. Once a family has an electric car they tend to use it whenever possible, making the effect even more pronounced. Some people float the ridiculous argument that they emit more greenhouse gases in manufacturing and mining than they save over their lifetime. Firstly, gasoline cars also cost energy to manufacture and gasoline also takes energy to extract and refine and transport. Secondly, electric cars break even within the first few years of use. Even in todays world where the electric grid still has a lot of fossil fuel generation.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    Not sure they are unequivocally good — maybe if we had the option between electric cars, and no cars, no cars might be preferable. But that is not the world we live in. Among the options we actually have, electric cars seem to be one of the least bad picks.
    - slashdev 3y ago
      Exactly.
    - aziaziazi 3y ago
      That’s not the world you used or chose to live.
  - walleeee 3y ago
    In 30 years we are going to look back at all the "unequivocally good" electric family cars and wish we'd used the materials and energy on civilizational resilience, not to temporarily extend the unsustainable habits of the planet's richest minority Electric vehicles can be a good thing if we also dramatically reduce our consumption of transportation and bring our political systems, lifestyles and economies in harmony with planetary boundaries. Without a corresponding sea change in expectations and way of life, they just dig us deeper into the energy trap.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Electric cars are helping, but maybe not as much one can be lead to believe. The biggest danger about them is possibly that people may believe they are a big step forward. They are an important but rather small step forward. Electric cars will reduce demand for gasoline. Some people say this won't affect how much oil is pumped out of the ground, because we still need the other fractions. That's not exactly the case though - gasoline is effectively now subsidizing the heavier fractions. When that changes, heavier fractions will also be more expensive. How that will affect demand for crude, I'm not equipped to tell. The most interesting things about electric cars may be if they transform how our grid works, from baseload to (much more) spot-market.
  - jjoonathan 3y ago
    I thought the fractions were relatively straightforward to convert to balance demand? I don't really have good intuition for the economics of it though.
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      Technology wise, sure. But I can imagine it could take a lot of effort to convert all refineries. And I think it’s much easier to crack heavier fractions than to combine lighter hydrocarbons to heavier?
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      If I understand correctly, we want more gasoline than the natural fraction in petroleum. So refineries "crack" longer molecules to create shorter ones, increasing the amount of gasoline. I'm not sure if that's the gasoline subsidizing the heavier fractions. It might be the other way around. There would be more heavier fractions available if we didn't crack them, and therefore they'd be cheaper.
      - actionfromafar 3y ago
        That still requires changes to the refineries, but even so, when the cracking is eventually turned off, the same mechanism remains.
Mistletoe 3y ago
If you’ve never seen this you really should to understand how bad this can go. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-...
- londons_explore 3y ago
  I've been to some of these 'toxic lakes'. Usually they consist of a few things in large quantities that are easy to neutralize - eg. sulphuric or nitric acid. And thats mixed in with small amounts of something that is natural yet toxic - eg. Mercury, lead, arsenic, etc. The whole lot is typically in the form of a slurry with solids and lots of water. It has to be kept wet, or the toxic solids will turn into dust and blow everywhere. It can't be allowed to get too wet, or it will overflow the containment pond. As far as I can see, there is no real solution - while the acids can be neutralized, the heavy metals can't be locked back into solid rock form - at least not at the scale of these ponds. I suspect the best thing to do (apart from not mining at all) is to just make ponds as big as possible and let them settle for as many decades as possible, and eventually they'll turn back into mudstone-like rock.
  - danaris 3y ago
    Now, this may be naïve or uninformed, but... Shouldn't it be possible to take that slurry and deliberately dry it out much faster, possibly even including a step that separates the products to some extent for separate processing or storage? If it were being dried out in a sealed processing facility, rather than a pond open to the air (and wildlife), the toxic dust wouldn't be a problem—indeed, it would be the end goal. Turn it to dust, compress the dust into something you can seal in a jar or whatever and then store the sealed jar. Or potentially even sell it; I bet some of these toxic byproducts would actually be something someone else wants for their own industrial processes. Obviously even if it's possible, this isn't done because it would be more expensive—but if we, say, were more concerned with health and safety than profits, couldn't this be much less time-consuming and risky to the local water table than just letting it sit for decades or centuries?
costanzaDynasty 3y ago
And the wars haven't started yet. Soon though. Driving your electric car straight to hell on a road paved with feelings.
- CalRobert 3y ago
  If only we knew how to build things so you didn't need a 2000kg metal box to go buy a packet of crisps.
  - isoprophlex 3y ago
    Sorry, VanMoof folded, now the only other option for me to travel like a citizen of the 21st century is gone. Back into my electrified F150 I guess...
- wsc981 3y ago
  Ukraine certainly is rich in minerals (and food production): https://ukraineinvest.gov.ua/en/industries/mining/#:~:text=Ukraine%20has%20extremely%20rich%20and,magnesium%2C%20timber%2C%20and%20mercury https://ukraineinvest.gov.ua/en/industries/mining/#:~:text=U....
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Several counter points: - singling out electrical vehicles is a bit disingenuous; there are lots of other consumers of rare earths. E.g. combustion engines have lots of exotic things on board and cobalt is used in oil refining. Lots of other industries use exotic minerals. - A lot of this stuff can be recycled and already is. Especially valuable commodities used in batteries. - There are alternate battery chemistries already being used in electric cars that have a lot less exotic materials. LFP batteries use no cobalt. Sodium ion batteries use no cobalt or lithium. Likewise, Tesla announced new engines that don't depend on rare earths a few montsh ago.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    - Minerals aside, petrochemicals seem to have caused/enabled an awful lot of bad behavior
defrost 3y ago
It's good news if you're in Maine: Gem Hunters Found the Lithium America Needs. Maine Won’t Let Them Dig It Up https://time.com/6294818/lithium-mining-us-maine/ https://time.com/6294818/lithium-mining-us-maine/ not so good news if you're indigenous: Tribes object. But a federal ruling approves construction of the largest lithium mine https://www.npr.org/2023/07/17/1188204958/tribes-object-federal-ruling-approves-lithium-mine https://www.npr.org/2023/07/17/1188204958/tribes-object-fede... A mining company is hunting for lithium, right on the edge of wildlife refuge https://phys.org/news/2023-07-company-lithium-edge-wildlife-refuge.html https://phys.org/news/2023-07-company-lithium-edge-wildlife-... and, of course, it's not just Lithium - Copper trumps sacred land: Battle for Oak Flat: How Apache opposition to a copper mine became a religious liberty test https://phys.org/news/2023-06-oak-flat-apache-opposition-copper.html https://phys.org/news/2023-06-oak-flat-apache-opposition-cop...
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  The grand canyon was originally prospected for mining, they didn't build a railroad to the middle of nowhere for tourists after all. I won't be surprised if I live to see the day that national security trumps scenic detours. I feel like most people who want to see it have seen it, if we can put together a way to distribute the profits evenly to citizens like Alaska and Norway I think you'd win a lot of votes.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    I wouldn’t dare bet against you but I find it a bit short sighted to say that those who want to see it have seen it.
    - aziaziazi 3y ago
      Dear future kids, here was a wonderful and poetic place. Daddy and friends needed those rocks slot to support the level of comfort they accustomed to. Here’s a 4D .metavers file so you can enjoy it too as I did! Kiss, your loving grandpa.
AbrahamParangi 3y ago
I’m interested in how this editorial got written. It’s not attributed to anyone and the language and perspective seem to me to be CCP talking points. “Sustainability, equity and security are all at risk in the rush to break China’s dominance over their production.” - I can think of one entity which wouldn’t want China’s dominance of rare earth production broken and it’s not the DRC. “China’s ascendancy is the result of forward thinking by the country’s leadership” - Seems strangely flattering since it doesn’t seem like it adds anything to the arguments or the context. “it is not in the interests of any nation to partner with just one other country or group of countries” - I believe this is explicitly a CCP talking point (link below for reference). Obviously, other people might say it but it seems sort of… suspect? Like the article purports to make a moralistic claim about exploitation and then goes into pure realpolitik. In my opinion that’s the sort of thing you’d only say if you were wearing social justice as a mask and didn’t actually believe in it yourself. https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjbxw/202302/t20230220_11027664.html https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjbxw/202302/t20230220_1102...
- tough 3y ago
  I guess like you can buy -articles- on my local newspaper for your local business, now you can buy -papers- on nature or whatever, must be a case of how much money you paying for the ad Submarines are pretty easy to detect once you've been here for a while tho http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- 0xDEF 3y ago
  Is there any open data about how big a market China is for Nature, Elsevier etc.?
- metacritic12 3y ago
  I think it just happens in this case that the pie-maximizing-in-cooperative-state behaviour == not duplicating mining efforts == China favoring. An opposite argument could be make for semiconductors. In that case, the environmental approach is to NOT make multiple fabs, keep them in Taiwan / the Netherlands, and discourage China from making new fabs. This would be against China. Generally, the environmental position favors not duplicating effort, which favors the current incumbent.
lizknope 3y ago
Asianometry made a couple of recent videos on rare earth elements. They aren't that rare but the concentration is so low and they are always mixed in with other elements so it takes a lot of processing. China‘s Iron Grip on the Rare Earth Magnet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxpKcbg30e4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxpKcbg30e4 A Semiconductor Rare Earths Problem? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caEsW5h3dhA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caEsW5h3dhA
- guerrilla 3y ago
  > They aren't that rare but the concentration is so low and they are always mixed in with other elements so it takes a lot of processing. I think the original meaning of "rare" may have been in opposition to dense, rather than meaning scarce. They are not densely concentrated in the substrate they're taken from as you say. From M-W rare, "3. marked by wide separation of component particles."
mrangle 3y ago
This article should be used in standardized testing for how much bullshit someone can ingest in thirty seconds. Kudos to the author and anyone who can get through all of it as written.

41 points by headalgorithm 3y ago

isn't that the quest of every galaxy wars movie...

That’s the worst part of the AI race and “clean” electric cars. Behind the scenes the destruction they cause is more than you can imagine. We think electric cars and GPUs are pushing us ahead. But in reality we are driving the wedge in deeper. I’m afraid where we end up is like James Hansen said about fossil fuels, but relevant in general, with a "different, practically uninhabitable planet" by triggering a "low-end runaway greenhouse effect." The only way to actually stop the destruction is if we slow down mining and learn to do more with what we have already mined. To make what we already consumed reusable and stop mining altogether if possible. For fossil fuels, and the rare earth minerals destroying fresh water and food supplies and air quality.

squarepizza 3y ago
EVs, while undeniably more efficient, seem very good at abstracting the costs away from the end user. Pair this with autonomy that reduces friction but has its own associated costs and I'm afraid that the increase in use will eclipse the gains in efficiency, leading to a Jevon's Paradox where the overall consumption increases.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  The costs of cars and oil are already thoroughly abstracted away.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  > abstracting the costs away from the end user. The vast majority of costs are already abstracted away. When you drive to work, do you think about the massive environmental cost of all the concrete and steel that went into building the roads and bridges that you drive over? Yet those costs, which nobody talks about, are of similar scale to the environmental costs of all cars.
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    I think that goes to the parent's point: making the individual cars more efficient is not going to make a difference in the big picture. For one, the increase in efficiency has really already been met by an increase in power and performance - even the humble Prius has made an effort at faster 0-60, not to mention the sub-3-second super-SUVs. But if driving a car is cheaper (and more fun) then we are doomed to dedicate more land to asphalt, and all the hidden costs thereof.
- dublinben 3y ago
  This is why every serious plan for reducing transportation emissions also includes a significant decrease in Vehicle Miles Traveled. It’s not enough to keep driving everywhere, but in electric cars instead.
- RhodesianHunter 3y ago
  Jevons paradox doesn't make sense in the context of purely competitive products. If it were, the effect would be expected to be the same for gas powered cars unless they were somehow prohibitively more expensive, which they are not.
slashdev 3y ago
Is this satire? With the username, I’m unsure. I don’t know why anyone would mention GPUs and AI in the same context as electric vehicles. Mining isn’t a huge source of greenhouse emissions. It’s not good for the local environment, but it’s necessary. Recycling and reuse is also a grand idea, you’re right about that. Except for plastics, which never made sense. Electric cars are unequivocally a good thing. Every electric car takes a fossil fuel guzzling car off the road. Once a family has an electric car they tend to use it whenever possible, making the effect even more pronounced. Some people float the ridiculous argument that they emit more greenhouse gases in manufacturing and mining than they save over their lifetime. Firstly, gasoline cars also cost energy to manufacture and gasoline also takes energy to extract and refine and transport. Secondly, electric cars break even within the first few years of use. Even in todays world where the electric grid still has a lot of fossil fuel generation.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Not sure they are unequivocally good — maybe if we had the option between electric cars, and no cars, no cars might be preferable. But that is not the world we live in. Among the options we actually have, electric cars seem to be one of the least bad picks.
  - slashdev 3y ago
    Exactly.
  - aziaziazi 3y ago
    That’s not the world you used or chose to live.
- walleeee 3y ago
  In 30 years we are going to look back at all the "unequivocally good" electric family cars and wish we'd used the materials and energy on civilizational resilience, not to temporarily extend the unsustainable habits of the planet's richest minority Electric vehicles can be a good thing if we also dramatically reduce our consumption of transportation and bring our political systems, lifestyles and economies in harmony with planetary boundaries. Without a corresponding sea change in expectations and way of life, they just dig us deeper into the energy trap.
actionfromafar 3y ago
Electric cars are helping, but maybe not as much one can be lead to believe. The biggest danger about them is possibly that people may believe they are a big step forward. They are an important but rather small step forward. Electric cars will reduce demand for gasoline. Some people say this won't affect how much oil is pumped out of the ground, because we still need the other fractions. That's not exactly the case though - gasoline is effectively now subsidizing the heavier fractions. When that changes, heavier fractions will also be more expensive. How that will affect demand for crude, I'm not equipped to tell. The most interesting things about electric cars may be if they transform how our grid works, from baseload to (much more) spot-market.
- jjoonathan 3y ago
  I thought the fractions were relatively straightforward to convert to balance demand? I don't really have good intuition for the economics of it though.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    Technology wise, sure. But I can imagine it could take a lot of effort to convert all refineries. And I think it’s much easier to crack heavier fractions than to combine lighter hydrocarbons to heavier?
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    If I understand correctly, we want more gasoline than the natural fraction in petroleum. So refineries "crack" longer molecules to create shorter ones, increasing the amount of gasoline. I'm not sure if that's the gasoline subsidizing the heavier fractions. It might be the other way around. There would be more heavier fractions available if we didn't crack them, and therefore they'd be cheaper.
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      That still requires changes to the refineries, but even so, when the cracking is eventually turned off, the same mechanism remains.

Mistletoe 3y ago

If you’ve never seen this you really should to understand how bad this can go. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-...

londons_explore 3y ago
I've been to some of these 'toxic lakes'. Usually they consist of a few things in large quantities that are easy to neutralize - eg. sulphuric or nitric acid. And thats mixed in with small amounts of something that is natural yet toxic - eg. Mercury, lead, arsenic, etc. The whole lot is typically in the form of a slurry with solids and lots of water. It has to be kept wet, or the toxic solids will turn into dust and blow everywhere. It can't be allowed to get too wet, or it will overflow the containment pond. As far as I can see, there is no real solution - while the acids can be neutralized, the heavy metals can't be locked back into solid rock form - at least not at the scale of these ponds. I suspect the best thing to do (apart from not mining at all) is to just make ponds as big as possible and let them settle for as many decades as possible, and eventually they'll turn back into mudstone-like rock.
- danaris 3y ago
  Now, this may be naïve or uninformed, but... Shouldn't it be possible to take that slurry and deliberately dry it out much faster, possibly even including a step that separates the products to some extent for separate processing or storage? If it were being dried out in a sealed processing facility, rather than a pond open to the air (and wildlife), the toxic dust wouldn't be a problem—indeed, it would be the end goal. Turn it to dust, compress the dust into something you can seal in a jar or whatever and then store the sealed jar. Or potentially even sell it; I bet some of these toxic byproducts would actually be something someone else wants for their own industrial processes. Obviously even if it's possible, this isn't done because it would be more expensive—but if we, say, were more concerned with health and safety than profits, couldn't this be much less time-consuming and risky to the local water table than just letting it sit for decades or centuries?

costanzaDynasty 3y ago

And the wars haven't started yet. Soon though. Driving your electric car straight to hell on a road paved with feelings.

CalRobert 3y ago
If only we knew how to build things so you didn't need a 2000kg metal box to go buy a packet of crisps.
- isoprophlex 3y ago
  Sorry, VanMoof folded, now the only other option for me to travel like a citizen of the 21st century is gone. Back into my electrified F150 I guess...
wsc981 3y ago
Ukraine certainly is rich in minerals (and food production): https://ukraineinvest.gov.ua/en/industries/mining/#:~:text=Ukraine%20has%20extremely%20rich%20and,magnesium%2C%20timber%2C%20and%20mercury https://ukraineinvest.gov.ua/en/industries/mining/#:~:text=U....
jillesvangurp 3y ago
Several counter points: - singling out electrical vehicles is a bit disingenuous; there are lots of other consumers of rare earths. E.g. combustion engines have lots of exotic things on board and cobalt is used in oil refining. Lots of other industries use exotic minerals. - A lot of this stuff can be recycled and already is. Especially valuable commodities used in batteries. - There are alternate battery chemistries already being used in electric cars that have a lot less exotic materials. LFP batteries use no cobalt. Sodium ion batteries use no cobalt or lithium. Likewise, Tesla announced new engines that don't depend on rare earths a few montsh ago.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  - Minerals aside, petrochemicals seem to have caused/enabled an awful lot of bad behavior

defrost 3y ago

It's good news if you're in Maine: Gem Hunters Found the Lithium America Needs. Maine Won’t Let Them Dig It Up https://time.com/6294818/lithium-mining-us-maine/ https://time.com/6294818/lithium-mining-us-maine/ not so good news if you're indigenous: Tribes object. But a federal ruling approves construction of the largest lithium mine https://www.npr.org/2023/07/17/1188204958/tribes-object-federal-ruling-approves-lithium-mine https://www.npr.org/2023/07/17/1188204958/tribes-object-fede... A mining company is hunting for lithium, right on the edge of wildlife refuge https://phys.org/news/2023-07-company-lithium-edge-wildlife-refuge.html https://phys.org/news/2023-07-company-lithium-edge-wildlife-... and, of course, it's not just Lithium - Copper trumps sacred land: Battle for Oak Flat: How Apache opposition to a copper mine became a religious liberty test https://phys.org/news/2023-06-oak-flat-apache-opposition-copper.html https://phys.org/news/2023-06-oak-flat-apache-opposition-cop...

jazzyjackson 3y ago
The grand canyon was originally prospected for mining, they didn't build a railroad to the middle of nowhere for tourists after all. I won't be surprised if I live to see the day that national security trumps scenic detours. I feel like most people who want to see it have seen it, if we can put together a way to distribute the profits evenly to citizens like Alaska and Norway I think you'd win a lot of votes.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  I wouldn’t dare bet against you but I find it a bit short sighted to say that those who want to see it have seen it.
  - aziaziazi 3y ago
    Dear future kids, here was a wonderful and poetic place. Daddy and friends needed those rocks slot to support the level of comfort they accustomed to. Here’s a 4D .metavers file so you can enjoy it too as I did! Kiss, your loving grandpa.

AbrahamParangi 3y ago

I’m interested in how this editorial got written. It’s not attributed to anyone and the language and perspective seem to me to be CCP talking points. “Sustainability, equity and security are all at risk in the rush to break China’s dominance over their production.” - I can think of one entity which wouldn’t want China’s dominance of rare earth production broken and it’s not the DRC. “China’s ascendancy is the result of forward thinking by the country’s leadership” - Seems strangely flattering since it doesn’t seem like it adds anything to the arguments or the context. “it is not in the interests of any nation to partner with just one other country or group of countries” - I believe this is explicitly a CCP talking point (link below for reference). Obviously, other people might say it but it seems sort of… suspect? Like the article purports to make a moralistic claim about exploitation and then goes into pure realpolitik. In my opinion that’s the sort of thing you’d only say if you were wearing social justice as a mask and didn’t actually believe in it yourself. https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjbxw/202302/t20230220_11027664.html https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjbxw/202302/t20230220_1102...

tough 3y ago
I guess like you can buy -articles- on my local newspaper for your local business, now you can buy -papers- on nature or whatever, must be a case of how much money you paying for the ad Submarines are pretty easy to detect once you've been here for a while tho http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
0xDEF 3y ago
Is there any open data about how big a market China is for Nature, Elsevier etc.?
metacritic12 3y ago
I think it just happens in this case that the pie-maximizing-in-cooperative-state behaviour == not duplicating mining efforts == China favoring. An opposite argument could be make for semiconductors. In that case, the environmental approach is to NOT make multiple fabs, keep them in Taiwan / the Netherlands, and discourage China from making new fabs. This would be against China. Generally, the environmental position favors not duplicating effort, which favors the current incumbent.

lizknope 3y ago

Asianometry made a couple of recent videos on rare earth elements. They aren't that rare but the concentration is so low and they are always mixed in with other elements so it takes a lot of processing. China‘s Iron Grip on the Rare Earth Magnet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxpKcbg30e4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxpKcbg30e4 A Semiconductor Rare Earths Problem? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caEsW5h3dhA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caEsW5h3dhA

guerrilla 3y ago
> They aren't that rare but the concentration is so low and they are always mixed in with other elements so it takes a lot of processing. I think the original meaning of "rare" may have been in opposition to dense, rather than meaning scarce. They are not densely concentrated in the substrate they're taken from as you say. From M-W rare, "3. marked by wide separation of component particles."

mrangle 3y ago

This article should be used in standardized testing for how much bullshit someone can ingest in thirty seconds. Kudos to the author and anyone who can get through all of it as written.