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Norway discovers Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals
- sofixa 2y agoOn one hand, it's unfair that a country already very rich with natural resources discovers more of them. On the other hand, if there is a country which can be trusted to exploit natural resources in a way that benefits the whole country and its population, and not fall down the resource curse[1], it's Norway. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
- 7thaccount 2y agoThere are a lot of unfair things in the world :)
- zer00eyz 2y ago> in a way that benefits the whole country and its population Selling oil to the world and buying Nestle stock. Great for Norway, too bad for everyone else. Its akin to apple and musk saying "fuck it where gonna split the pie with every one in CA" and the rest of America getting bupkis. Norway is a model for good for NORWAY, not a model for good.
- iwontberude 2y agoApple is not the reason why Silcon Valley is the way it is, this is emergent and not in any agents control. Let’s not forget Apple has large campuses around the US and in Ireland.
- analognoise 2y agoEspecially Ireland, because that’s how you can shelter a bunch of your profits from taxes. Apple cares about Ireland as much as they can abuse them to not pay their share of taxes.
- selectodude 2y agoApple has had a pretty large office in cork since 1980.
- dmix 2y ago> Norway is a model for good for NORWAY, not a model for good. Why should a country prioritize other countries over their own interests, particularly when it comes to economics? Everyone does that I guess it's only bad when youre doing well or something, then you're obliged to be the world's benefactor. We're not even talking about donating to developing countries either.
- zer00eyz 2y agoThe line is very arbitrary... > Why should a country prioritize other countries over their own interests, particularly when it comes to economics? Everyone does that Why should a person prioritize other people over their own interests, particularly when it comes to economics? Everyone does that... I guess it's only bad when youre doing well or something, then you're obliged to be the peoples's benefactor. We're not even talking about donating to developing people either.
- supplied_demand 2y ago==The line is very arbitrary...== Is it? Countries are not people. Democracies like Norway, are comprised of many people who elect officials to represent their interests as a people. How is that the same as an individual person?
- zer00eyz 2y agoSo it's fine for Norway to sell oil and buy nestle for the good of its people. But it's bad for the ultra rich to do the same?
- supplied_demand 2y agoWhat "good of its people" are the ultra rich serving? They are serving the good of themselves, no other people involved. When Norway sells oil, lots of that money goes to a generous social safety net that supports people of Norway. The analogy doesn't really work.
- rqtwteye 2y agoIt beats the model of the rest of the world where billionaires get resources for cheap and then sell oil to the world and buy Nestle stock. "Its akin to apple and musk saying "fuck it where gonna split the pie with every one in CA" and the rest of America getting bupkis." It beats taking the whole pie and complaining about taxes.
- CamperBob2 2y agoHonestly, it seems like the "rare earth elements" are considered "rare" because people didn't bother looking for them until recently. They seem to be pretty widely distributed in reality, just not always easy to access.
- ajuc 2y agoYup. Lead is less common in Earth's crust than: - lithium - cobalt - neodymium - lanthanum - ytrium - scandium - cerium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth... We simply had far more uses for lead till very recently.
- KptMarchewa 2y agoThat's the case with great majority of the limited minerals.
- dagw 2y agoThey seem to be pretty widely distributed in reality That's the problem. They're 'everywhere', but generally in such low concentrations that it just isn't profitable to extract them.
- fifilura 2y agoI agree. It seems like these news got old pretty quickly https://lkab.com/en/press/europes-largest-deposit-of-rare-earth-metals-is-located-in-the-kiruna-area/ https://lkab.com/en/press/europes-largest-deposit-of-rare-ea...
- karaterobot 2y agoThis is my understanding as well. Until recently, it wasn't worth the cost for most countries to secure their own supplies, so they just bought them from the countries that sold them cheaply. When push comes to shove—or, when rare earth metals because strategic—it's a question of "do we want to invest in digging up our own?" not "gee, do we have enough of this stuff in the ground at all?".
- smegsicle 2y agoalso unfair number of fjords
- mogadsheu 2y agoThe thing about Norway is that it’s a cold, barren, remote place where very few people want to live. Most of the year it’s cold and gray, and most of the country is uninhabitable. The result is that its natural resources haven’t been consumed to the degree that most developed countries’ resources have, and there aren’t as many people to consume them. I find it a strangely fair situation. Their luck comes from having friendly neighbors who care about their well-being and responsible development.
- samastur 2y agoWhat the hell are you talking about? I've been to Norway 4-5 times and will visit again in about a month. It's wonderful throughout and wish we could live there.
- b112 2y agoThat, and the heroes that risked life and limb to start those first oil rigs, many dying, so a poor country could use the wealth to help its own people.
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y agoNorway has been relatively wealthy since 1870...
- anonyfox 2y ago> where very few people want to live just as a sole data point: been there a few times, and my personal ideal weather _is_ cool/gray/wet with ideal outside temperature of 15C. I can withstand the cold, but find it hard to tolerate heat (as in >20C). Purely from a weather perspective, I'd move there. What holds me back is that I also need dense urban surroundings nearby with all the buzz it brings (cyberpunk style) - norway is lacking that, including Oslo. _Too_ quiet/beautiful/peaceful for my liking.
- NegatioN 2y agoWhat gets most foreigners is usually the darkness in the winter, and not the temperature fwiw. It's hard to describe, but many people end up quite depressed.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- blackhawkC17 2y agoNorway already had a developed, functional economy before discovering oil, so it didn't fall into the resource curse. In contrast, any developing country that discovers a valuable resource will almost always devolve into corruption and, at worst, conflict because their weak institutions can easily be corrupted by internal and external parties. A case study is my country (Nigeria), a notoriously corrupt oil-dependent cratered economy. I'm honestly happy for Norway to find more resources. Any country that demonstrates responsible use of resources for internal development deserves more..this includes most of Western and Northern Europe plus the US and Canada.
- snowpid 2y agoDo (educated) people in Nigeria see Norway as a role model for political development? Also how is Botswana seen in Nigeria? (If this questions arent too broad, my apologies)
- blackhawkC17 2y ago> Do (educated) people in Nigeria see Norway as a role model for political development? Corruption and incompetence are too rampant here, so the Norwegian model will never work—nobody thinks of it. We also have 40 times the population and fewer resources than Norway, making it impossible. > Also, how is Botswana seen in Nigeria? Almost no one thinks of it, lol. But it's arguably the best African country for the average citizen, owing to relatively low corruption and a high value for the rule of law. Compared to Europe, Bostwana is a backwater, but in Africa, it's currently our peak :(
- epolanski 2y agoFrom what I've read about Botswana is way ahead on many matters compared to most of Europe (e.g. gender equality).
- blackhawkC17 2y agoEven if that were true (I doubt it), Botswana remains way behind on economic prospects for the average individual, the core issue when we talk about development. > Based on these estimates, 17.2 percent of the population in Botswana (446 thousand people in 2021) is multidimensionally poor, while an additional 19.7 percent is classified as vulnerable to multidimensional poverty (509 thousand people in 2021). https://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/Country-Profiles/MPI/BWA.pdf https://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/Country-Profiles/MP...
- dncornholio 2y agoThis has absolutely nothing to with what is fair. They just lucky. Nothing unfair, unless you think about who put the metals there.
- screye 2y agoIt's unfair. Period. But nothing in the world has ever been fair. So unfair as it maybe, it's also normal. General question, has any high HDI country fallen prey to the resource curse? (Maybe California and some communist nations?) Norway has done well, and they've done very very well.... But, high HDI, no immigration, cultural homogeninity and infinite money hack does make it seem like they're playing on easy mode. Many countries with lower starting HDI have navigated around their resource curses just as well (Singapore, Botswana). Norway deserves credit, but it is an ineffective blueprint for nations looking to beat their own economic traps.
- EA-3167 2y agoTruthfully it's neither fair nor unfair, it's academic. These minerals are not actually rare, they're ubiquitous, but they're energetically and environmentally unfavorable to exploit. China does it because of their um... unique economic system, and lack of eff's to give about the environmental consequences. Everyone else would have to pay a fortune in energy costs and another fortune mitigating environmental effects, which makes them economically unfavorable to exploit. For Norway, just like Wyoming and a dozen other places this same story has played out, this changes nothing.
- dr-detroit 2y ago[dead]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> it seem like they're playing on easy mode Now consider their climate and centuries of war.
- Epa095 2y agoIt's literally called 'Dutch disease', so there's the answer to your question ;-)
- wizardforhire 2y agoThis recent real life yore video backs up your claims https://youtube.com/watch?v=RO8vWJfmY88&pp=ygUJTm9yd2F5IG9w https://youtube.com/watch?v=RO8vWJfmY88&pp=ygUJTm9yd2F5IG9w
- jmyeet 2y agoNorway isn't a lucky outlier. Norway's control over resource extraction is simply tolerated by the United States because they're a European nation. When other countries try and do anything similar, which can include just broaching the subject of nationalizing resource extraction, their (often democratically elected) governments get overthrown in a coup by some fascist government with mysterious connections to the CIA who will always give production contracts to Western companies. And if that fails, just starve ("sanction") them until they comply. Examples: - Guatemala (1954) [1] - Cuba (1952 and the many later attempts to assassinate Castro) [2] - Iran (1953) after the Iranian parliament passed legislation to nationalize the oil industry [3] - Syria (1949) [4] - Congo (1960) [5] There are dozens of these. These countries aren't mysteriously poor. They haven't failed. They have been active exploited and their wealth stolen. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Cuban_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952_Cuban_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iran_coup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iran_coup [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1949_Syrian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1949_Syrian_coup_d%27%C3... [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Crisis
- mywittyname 2y agoNot having a democratically-elected government overthrown by a global superpower because of their location sounds an awful lot like luck. Especially when the superpower in question has a habit of doing so. There's probably more to it. The USA is powerful, but it's not infinitely powerful. The same strong institutions that have kept Norway from falling to the resource curse have likely contributed to its ability to maintain its autonomy with soft power. If Norway's government turned into a revolving door of corrupt dictators, it's likely the USA would have a different approach for dealing with the country.
- jmyeet 2y agoNorway has resources, strategic geographical positioning (North Sea, Arctic, Danish Straits) and has proximity to the (then) Soviet Union so the US couldn't afford to lose Norway to the Soviet sphere of influence. The US couldn't risk another Iran.
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- nuz 2y ago"Demand for rare earths and critical minerals is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years" For a limited resource.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoThey're essentially unlimited. They make up 68ppm of the Earth's crust. If we used all of that to make stuff, we'd run out of room to put the stuff before we'd run out of rare earths.
- BurningFrog 2y agoAll resources are limited!
- breck 2y ago"We have never run out of a single resource." https://x.com/naval/status/1800363450180522313 https://x.com/naval/status/1800363450180522313
- addaon 2y ago… he said, as he seasoned his stew with silphium.
- riffraff 2y agoa dodo stew!
- coldtea 2y ago>Whenever a resource becomes scarce, incentives drive technology to find better alternatives, we move towards abundance at each iteration. The denial is strong in these ones... "Hey, it worked in the past, when the population was 1/100th to 1/4th (start of 20th century), industrial production and consumption was 1/10000th was it is, demand for most modern necessary resources zero, and so on, so should work in millenia to come. And if not we can always pull a pivot to an alternative resource out of our magic hats, because 'science'".
- b112 2y agoIt should be noted that there is no shortage of places in, for example North America, with rare earths, but instead all mines were shut down. Why? China. China purposefully sold such way under production cost, then once all competing mines closed, raised prices. And if you're in business, and thinking of going through the cost of reopening, you certainly wouldn't now that your competition has shown it can bankrupt you at a whim. It's actually not a bad strategy for China to have taken. Now though, China is restricting on political principles, to hobble chip production for the West. Now, there is a desire for domestic production again. But if I had a dormant rare earths mine, I wouldn't step up without some protection, such as duties on foreign imports. Because otherwise, if the duty is just on China, it will still flow cheap through other countries.
- bdauvergne 2y agoThere is a french expression « Gouverner c'est prévoir », « To govern is to predict ». If China wants to frequently subsidize west consumption (rare earth, EV cars, batteries, solar panels, microwave ovens in the past, the list is long...), great for us, but our government should have the lucidity to keep some industry under limited economic perfusion (keep the machine tools, fire most of the workers, but keep things running and knowledge) for when the scheme will with certainly came to its end; COVID should have been an eye opener for most.
- BurningFrog 2y agoIs there any documentation that this happened? I ask because this is one of the most common myths in Economics.
- pkaye 2y agoI researched this a bit earlier this week but didn't save the links. Its not just that China could produce rare earth minerals at lower costs but western countries starting tightening their laws on mining (due to uranium byproducts) but also environments laws. Then they willingly shared the production techniques to China to do all the dirty work. However US restarted its rare earth mining a few years back and now it ranks second in production through far behind China. I'm guess the main concern was the need of these rare earth minerals for military equipment. https://www.statista.com/statistics/268011/top-countries-in-rare-earth-mine-production/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/268011/top-countries-in-...
- ck2 2y agoI thought the irony is that "rare" earth metals are not rare at all? It's just that no-one wants to mine them at great expense for little profit? (edit: are not, not are)
- breck 2y agoCorrect, the term is a misnomer. The Wikipedia page on "rare" earths is very interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element
- ajmurmann 2y agoIt means the mineral wasn't cooked to a high internal temperature (sorry, I accept the downvotes in advance)
- pestatije 2y agowell done!
- timonoko 2y agoYou only need strong Green party in the country and odds will even out. As we all know Finland has more fossil fuel than Norway. Peat is basically oil, but little younger. Finnish Green Party has managed to block all use of peat, because while it is totally renewable, it does not grow back fast enough.
- Peroni 2y agoConsidering it takes 1,000 years for 1m of peat to build back up, I'm not sure it's reasonable to call it renewable.
- kragen 2y agowell, you could extract it sustainably at 1000 cubic meters per square kilometer per year, and that is a thing that people have done in the past. but it's not going to be an economically competitive source of energy
- vintermann 2y agoBurning topsoil is kind of insane. Peat is not renewable on practical human timescales.
- originalvichy 2y agoPeat is worse than coal with regards to co2 emissions, so I will vote to keep it in the ground.
- master-lincoln 2y agoThat's like saying coal is renewable. E.g. Lignite (brown coal) is just Peat that was compressed over many years.
- soco 2y agoI wonder how's it working in Norway, what will the locals have to say about getting huge holes in their backyards...
- khaki54 2y agoNorway just moved up on Russia's "countries to invade" list
- astrodust 2y agoThey'll have to fight their way through Finland which has a history of not working out for them.
- spinningarrow 2y agoNorway and Russia do share a border (albeit a small remote one).
- astrodust 2y agoBefore they could, theoretically, just roll past, but now Finland will be compelled to join due to Article 5. Not that they'd need much compelling.
- skrebbel 2y agoFinland and (Soviet) Russia fought two wars and Finland lost territory in both.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoAnd in both cases, Soviet Russia took less of Finland than they wanted to, because the losses were unacceptable to continue.
- lye 2y agoYou're thinking of another country that has a habit of invading or destabilizing countries rich in natural resources, especially when they don't do as they're told. Russia has more oil, gas and rare earths of its own than it knows what to do with.
- wumeow 2y ago
- philip1209 2y agoWow, Norway is going to go from rich to richer. They already have put $1.5 trillion (!) into their national pension fund with oil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...
- vundercind 2y agoThis is what the US should have done. Huge amounts of collective wealth, frittered away. Alaska’s the only state I know of that even kind-of demands that permanent extraction from the very land under our feet benefit its people broadly, instead of only a few.
- Gud 2y agoNot frittered away. That money went straight to the rich and well connected.
- rqtwteye 2y agoSeems the plan worked really well.
- reducesuffering 2y agoSo while Norwegians have collectively saved ~$300k per citizen, Americans are collectively in debt ~$100k per citizen.
- bpodgursky 2y agoAlaska does the exact opposite of what you are glamorizing, by frittering away extracted wealth on a state UBI (which many recipients use to avoid building careers or skills).
- vundercind 2y agoAt least the unrecoverable wealth of the very land of the state is distributed to residents, I mean. That’s not the opposite, it’s just less than the ideal of capturing quite a bit of that value and investing it for citizens’ benefit so that some of the wealth isn’t lost to a few private hands forever. It’s the closest the US gets to doing something that’s a good idea, with its vast non-renewable natural resources.
- tiffanyh 2y agoNorway is so interesting. They purposefully setup a sovereign fund & political structure that incentives long-term thinking. Great video below on how they think about energy, use and raw materials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO8vWJfmY88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO8vWJfmY88
- piva00 2y agoThey have to thank Farouk al-Kasim for that, an Iraqi geologist from Basra who worked at the Iraqi Petroleum Company and moved to Norway, wrote a white paper selling the idea of the state participation in exploiting oil in Norway and the rest is history.
- tiffanyh 2y agoAnd it's not just oil, the country is 99% renewal energy usage.
- blackhawkC17 2y agoDon't get high on your own supply
- t43562 2y agoAs far as electric motors are concerned we might want to consider using rare-earth-free motors. Example: https://advancedelectricmachines.com/ssrd/ https://advancedelectricmachines.com/ssrd/ This one also uses aluminium rather than copper wiring which has advantages when recycling apparently because any copper content that remains with recycled steel makes it less durable.
- syngrog66 2y agogood. anything that reduces the West's dependence on CRINK nations is wise (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea.) The 4 we have higher than normal risk of war with, or at least total boycott/embargo.
- whereismyacc 2y agoDidn't we have this headline for Sweden like a year ago? Same deposit?
- piva00 2y agoCompletely different, the Norwegian discovery is in the southeast of Norway while the Swedish discovery is in Kiruna, north of the Arctic circle.
- fifilura 2y agoThe location in Sweden is not particularly bad. The logistics to shipping is very well established through the all season harbor Narvik (in Norway) because of the iron ore mines. The culprit is the Sami people that just happened to live there before the more powerful swedish government annexed it. Who is right? The people who were here first herding reindeer or the government? Not a trivial question to answer if you take a step back.
- peroo 2y agoIf you're a cynic, announcing that you've "discovered" a large of amount of REE in your iron ore tailings - and having the chief executive of the EU declare it strategically important - seems like a very good way of making sure you can continue mining iron ore for the forseeable future.
- patall 2y ago> The logistics to shipping is very well established through the all season harbor Narvik (in Norway) because of the iron ore mines. Unless a train derails. Once. Or twice. Or, out of a sudden, it become too warm in May. Then some minor mines start to close. (Just telling it as it is, lol. Who knows what happens next)
- fifilura 2y agoYeah maintenance has been a major problem lately. But this route has delivered iron ore reliably for probaly 100 years now. The iron ore from Sweden was (somewhat paradoxically) the main reason Hitler invaded Norway.
- ldehaan 2y ago[dead]
- JoeAltmaier 2y agoCareful when talking about mineral resources. It's not a matter of throwing around textbook phrases about how common something is in the Earth's crust. Mining is always, always, always about the economics. How concentrated; how accessible by road; how easy to extract; distance to refineries; cost of building and transporting people and supplies to the mine. Even, affect on prices once the mine starts delivering! A mine can deliver so much it deflates prices and drives itself out of business. Lots of everything, everywhere. But to build a mine, you have to ask a mining engineer, and they measure if it's worth anybody's effort.
- coldtea 2y ago>A mine can deliver so much it deflates prices and drives itself out of business. Couldn't the owners just ...hoard the extra/throttle the delivery of the supefluous amount to keep prices up?
- dflock 2y agoYes, but... storing stuff costs money, keeping a mine open and unflooded, etc... costs money, even if you're not doing any mining, etc... Also markets will adjust prices if they know about your stockpile, too.
- mwigdahl 2y agoDe Beers has entered the chat...
- permo-w 2y agothis is what OPEC does with oil
- kristofferR 2y agoIt's relatively central: https://akamai.vgc.no/v2/images/9fdc0877-a37a-4bf1-ba64-6185af28728d?format=auto&w=720&s=99f85382a3eafb2a5ccb78e0a26051690d767f5e https://akamai.vgc.no/v2/images/9fdc0877-a37a-4bf1-ba64-6185... https://maps.app.goo.gl/92bDQtmUkf7ZyJYZ6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/92bDQtmUkf7ZyJYZ6
- GlibMonkeyDeath 2y ago"The 'rare' in the name "rare earths" has more to do with the difficulty of separating of the individual elements than the scarcity of any of them. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanthanide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanthanide The lanthanide series of elements is interesting because the 4f levels that are getting filled are actually physically closer to the nucleus than the outer orbitals, so their chemical properties are very similar between elements. That also makes them hard to separate from one another. Unless there is a special Norwegian process for this separation, I am not sure this announcement will mean much.
- dmix 2y agoAre some mines easier to seperate than others? Or is it a niche industrial skill?
- georgeecollins 2y agoYes, some ground is easier to process, but that isn't the limiting factor. But the real cost is the toxic waste created and labor and the ground is super torn up because you process so much. It helps if you can do it far away from people. Hopefully they have a better plan to clean up afterward.
- veqz 2y agoUnfortunately this is also in pretty decent farming land. The land owners will be compensated, but I understand many don't feel too happy about leaving their farms...
- georgeecollins 2y agoThis is one of those weird narratives where you see stories about rare earth minerals are thought to be rare like gold, not rare as in practically everywhere but in very small quantities. They used to mine rare earth metals in California. It's terrible for the environment and labor costs are high. But in an emergency you could do it there and many other places.
- 2y ago
- maxglute 2y agoSo who/where is going to do dirty the processing?
- admissionsguy 2y ago> Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals There was one discovered in Kiruna, Sweden last year [1] and announced to much fanfare during an EU summit. I wonder if there is any particular reason behind this trend. In both cases the path to commercial extraction is long and uncertain. [1] https://lkab.com/en/press/europes-largest-deposit-of-rare-earth-metals-is-located-in-the-kiruna-area/ https://lkab.com/en/press/europes-largest-deposit-of-rare-ea...
- epolanski 2y agoBecause it is a huge news that we may have the capacity in Europe to not be completely reliant on imports.
- lionkor 2y agoMan Norway looks an awful lot like it has weapons of mass destruction right about now
- Pulcinella 2y agoIndeed. I am hearing the Norwegian people yearn for freedom.
- Animats 2y agoRare-earths supply has been picking up for years. - Australian rare earth mines.[1] - MP Minerals Mountain Pass, California mine.[2] Now the price of raw ore has dropped. "Revenue decreased 49% year-over-year to $48.7 million, driven by a 54% decrease in the realized price of rare earth oxide (“REO”) in concentrate and a 9% decrease in REO sales volumes partially offset by initial sales of separated NdPr."[3] Rare earth gluts have happened before. There's some price manipulation from China, and too much financialization at MP Minerals (they just did a stock buyback) but it's mostly that demand isn't that sensitive to price. Rare earth costs are a small fraction of the cost of a motor. MP Minerals is still running at a loss. The previous owner of that mine went bankrupt. The bottleneck now seems to be the next steps in ore processing. MP Minerals announced in 2021 that they were starting to build a processing plant in Fort Worth, Texas.[4] The building has been built and there are cars in the parking lot.[5] It's a small facility, subsidized by General Motors and DoD. Production of product (magnets) is supposed to start in 2025. There's no fundamental shortage of rare earths, but making money at this seems to be very difficult. [1] https://www.mining-technology.com/features/australia-rare-earth-mines/ https://www.mining-technology.com/features/australia-rare-ea... [2] https://mpmaterials.com https://mpmaterials.com [3] https://investors.mpmaterials.com/investor-news/news-details/2024/MP-Materials-Reports-First-Quarter-2024-Results/default.aspx https://investors.mpmaterials.com/investor-news/news-details... [4] https://mpmaterials.com/articles/mp-materials-begins-construction-on-texas-rare-earth-magnetics-factory-to-restore-full-us-supply-chain/ https://mpmaterials.com/articles/mp-materials-begins-constru... [5] https://earth.google.com/web/search/13840+Independence+Pkwy,+Fort+Worth,+TX/@32.9843462,-97.25093848,213.88671875a,0d,60y,120.34992427h,91.32064946t,0r/data=CigiJgokCdjUtNwTZURAEYGR1d80YkRAGUu43V_je1LAIUHdtEFOfVLAIhoKFjZoZ0YwYl9nbGpUbktVOU9UY2MzLWcQAg https://earth.google.com/web/search/13840+Independence+Pkwy,...
- photochemsyn 2y agoThe problem with rare earths is you get a mix of different rare earths in the final concentrate, which then have to be separated from each other using a lot of time-consuming steps, since they're vary similar chemically (technically, having identical d- and s-orbital configurations, only differing in f-orbitals). An active area of research: https://www.ornl.gov/news/game-changing-rare-earth-elements-separation-technology-licensed-marshallton https://www.ornl.gov/news/game-changing-rare-earth-elements-...
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoDoes Norway still have much of a mining industry? After years of relying on resources from other countries, I would imagine that building the infrastructure, acquiring equipment, and hiring skilled workers will be a serious challenge. And the first productive year would still be a long ways away. On the other hand, it may be strategically important for NATO to have productive mines that aren’t under the control of enemy states (Russia, China, etc).
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- larsiusprime 2y agoNorway has a very long and interesting history regarding natural resource development and stewardship, and lately a huge conversation has been about what is going to come after Oil. Would be very interesting if the answer is rare earth minerals! I highly recommend a particular paper, entitled "The New Oil" which gives a very good overview of the history of Norwegian resource development: https://www.idunn.no/doi/pdf/10.18261/issn.1504-2936-2021-01-01 https://www.idunn.no/doi/pdf/10.18261/issn.1504-2936-2021-01... Of course that is entirely in Norwegian, so for the anglophones here's a link to a translated version that I did for a friend's blog: https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/05/17/norway-the-once-and-future-georgist-kingdom/ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/05/17/norway-the-once-and...