3 ms·

Finding a place to mine ore containing rare earth metals is easy, it's purely the refinery capacity that's the bottleneck with environmental laws being the limi

Finding a place to mine ore containing rare earth metals is easy, it's purely the refinery capacity that's the bottleneck with environmental laws being the limiting factor to building them. The vast majorities of countries will let you mine them but they're always in such low concentrations (hence "rare" earth) that it's not economical to haul massive amounts of crushed rock to a refinery in another country. Due to their chemistry they don't form very concentrated veins like a lot of other minerals do - the key is just collecting lots and lots of crushed rock. All of the methods use extremely nasty liquid-liquid extraction [1] techniques that require massive pools of toxic and corrosive extractants that are difficult to dispose of afterwards because they're quickly used up in the chemical reactions but remain very toxic. Anyone who allows cheap refineries pays a very heavy price long term [2]. Several other countries are actually pretty well set up to refine them on short notice but that infrastructure is reserved for refining uranium and other considerably more valuable metals. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid%E2%80%93liquid_extraction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid%E2%80%93liquid_extracti... [2] 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...

joe_the_user 3y ago
Indeed, The thing I'd want to add is that it's not technologically impossible to build a safe Lithium mine (or a safe nuclear power plant or a safe oil transportation infrastructure). It can be much more costly and so in these days of cost-cutting, unsafe operation is common. But one should still keep in mind safety isn't theoretically impossible.
perihelions 3y ago
That yale.edu article needs additional context. It's verbatim repeating the PRC's talking points on the US-China trade dispute, the one over China's rare earth tariffs that was litigated before the WTO. The US position is that the export tariffs are a tactic to subsidize Chinese consumers of rare earths—their manufacturing sector—by giving them preferential prices for Chinese rare earths, the raw inputs. That's illegal under WTO rules. The PRC's position, what e360 is legitimizing (and amplifying), is that the West *morally deserves* to compensate China for the ecological costs of China's own mining industry, because we are its end consumers; and that these tariffs should be permitted under WTO rules as an environmental measure, not a protectionist one. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earths_trade_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earths_trade_dispute https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-trade-idUSTRE6BM3S420101223 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-trade-idUSTRE6B... https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2014/March/US-wins-victory-in-rare-earths-dispute-with-China https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-... It's jarring to suddenly be reading CPC foreign policy talking points in a random environmental article!
- scythe 3y ago
  Ironically, the article also says that when the US won its case at the WTO, the Molycorp rare-earth mine in the Mojave Desert went bankrupt soon after! Something of a monkey's paw.
partitioned 3y ago
Well sounds like something the people of Wyoming will love. They hate big bad government trying to tell them what to do. Let them drink the slurry.
- porkbeer 3y ago
  What is the purpose of this comment other than to express hate and ignorance? Please add to the conversation or respectfully stfu, and find elsewhere to slander yourself.
  - partitioned 3y ago
    It's called "just deserts". Wyoming has been sending people to congress and making my life measurably worse with their votes. Only by drinking the slurry will they have a chance to wake up (but they still probably won't).

joe_the_user 3y ago

Indeed, The thing I'd want to add is that it's not technologically impossible to build a safe Lithium mine (or a safe nuclear power plant or a safe oil transportation infrastructure). It can be much more costly and so in these days of cost-cutting, unsafe operation is common. But one should still keep in mind safety isn't theoretically impossible.

perihelions 3y ago

That yale.edu article needs additional context. It's verbatim repeating the PRC's talking points on the US-China trade dispute, the one over China's rare earth tariffs that was litigated before the WTO. The US position is that the export tariffs are a tactic to subsidize Chinese consumers of rare earths—their manufacturing sector—by giving them preferential prices for Chinese rare earths, the raw inputs. That's illegal under WTO rules. The PRC's position, what e360 is legitimizing (and amplifying), is that the West *morally deserves* to compensate China for the ecological costs of China's own mining industry, because we are its end consumers; and that these tariffs should be permitted under WTO rules as an environmental measure, not a protectionist one. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earths_trade_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earths_trade_dispute https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-trade-idUSTRE6BM3S420101223 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-trade-idUSTRE6B... https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2014/March/US-wins-victory-in-rare-earths-dispute-with-China https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-... It's jarring to suddenly be reading CPC foreign policy talking points in a random environmental article!

scythe 3y ago
Ironically, the article also says that when the US won its case at the WTO, the Molycorp rare-earth mine in the Mojave Desert went bankrupt soon after! Something of a monkey's paw.

partitioned 3y ago

Well sounds like something the people of Wyoming will love. They hate big bad government trying to tell them what to do. Let them drink the slurry.

porkbeer 3y ago
What is the purpose of this comment other than to express hate and ignorance? Please add to the conversation or respectfully stfu, and find elsewhere to slander yourself.
- partitioned 3y ago
  It's called "just deserts". Wyoming has been sending people to congress and making my life measurably worse with their votes. Only by drinking the slurry will they have a chance to wake up (but they still probably won't).