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U.S. already has the critical minerals it needs, according to new analysis

MisterTea 1y ago
Well not thrown away, but discarded as tailings. Otherwise, that would be quite the garbage pail and matching truck to collect it! :-D Though it doesn't address the issue of waste from the refining process which currently looks like this: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-...
- alephnerd 1y ago
  > Though it doesn't address the issue of waste Either you eat the cost of the externality or you accept that countries that can will end up dominating the industry, and hold entire sectors like automotive or semiconductors hostage. This is what China did and what Vietnam [0] and India [1] are attempting to do as well. It's like packaging for grid batteries - someone has to do the dirty work because manufacturing is inherently dirty. The only rule that matters even in a "rules based order" is might makes right. If we don't want to do it, then we need to cultivate partners who can - but the only countries who are not China and open to eating the externalities are Vietnam and India, which is why South Korea and Japan depend on them after China weaponized REE imports to both in 2016 (THAAD) and 2012 (Senkaku) respectively. [0] - https://en.mae.gov.vn/Pages/chi-tiet-tin-Eng.aspx?ItemID=8111 https://en.mae.gov.vn/Pages/chi-tiet-tin-Eng.aspx?ItemID=811... [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45093322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45093322
  - xnx 1y ago
    Would outsourcing the dirty production combined with a strategic stockpile of processed materials (and some processing capacity) be a smart solution? Let China process the materials under normal circumstances, but keep 6 months of processed output on hand in case trade is disrupted (trade disagreement, pandemic, war, etc.).
    - alephnerd 1y ago
      > Let China process the materials under normal circumstances, but keep 6 months of processed output on hand in case trade is disrupted (trade disagreement, pandemic, war, etc.) That's not enough of a leeway when dealing with a country who has active land disputes with 2 countries we have a defense treaty with (Japan, Phillipines) and 1 with whom we have an ambiguous defense commitment (Taiwan). And even the Chinese government knows that countries like the the US will try to stockpile. Almost all processing, mining, and exporting in China for REEs is managed by SoEs and under close monitoring from state regulators. This is why the Biden admin initiated the Minerals Security Partnership with Japan, India, and Australia.
    - kelnos 1y ago
      Six months feels insufficient. You'd want several years, at minimum. I think there are two ways to effectively mitigate this risk: 1) have mining and manufacturing of your own that covers most of your needs, or 2) balanced trade where you get something critical from another country, but they also get something critical from you (and can't easily get it somewhere else). (Of course when you have very solid allies, you can relax a bit more and rely on them, but you still have to be prepared for a situation where that ally has a shortage and prioritizes their own use.)
    - XorNot 1y ago
      China plans in 5 year increments and actually follows through on that. Waiting out 6 months of production would be easy. And even the threat of interruption would drastically mess with prices.
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  "These minerals are being use to fortify our water supply."
- bdamm 1y ago
  The BBC piece is an interesting attempt at garnishing attention. The reporter provides the google maps link to show how large and disgusting the process is. But it is actually a very small lake, if you compare it to things such as oil extraction. Take a look at the oil sands of Fort Mcmurray, Alberta; and at the same zoom level as the reporter uses, you'll see this is absolutely massive and diminishes the "massive" rare earths waste lake by orders of magnitude: https://www.google.com/maps/@57.0304073,-111.55372,6025m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDkxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@57.0304073,-111.55372,6025m/dat... I don't think it is good, but let's be reasonable in comparing environmental harm.
  - MisterTea 1y ago
    That is a whataboutism. This isn't about China or the size of the lake, but the fact that there is a lake because the effluent is difficult to dispose of and currently has no use. Edit: to further clarify, I am not against refining them in the USA. Just that we have to also address the consequences of doing so.
    - bdamm 1y ago
      "Difficult to dispose of and has no use" is the very definition of a tailings pond, and you'll find them all over the place if you care to look. Environmental catastrophies are happening all over the globe on a massive scale. My point is exactly that; yeah it's toxic, but so is basically every mine and many oil refineries too. Check out the rate of cancer around coal mines or refining hubs, you might be surprised.
  - soperj 1y ago
    I don't think that lake tailing pond even exists any more. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mildred+Lake,+AB+T9K+2Z1/@57.0181949,-111.5993739,3a,75y,242.69h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sPHs2FOiNMUlZmnGKqNU_-Q!2e0!5s20250501T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D0%26panoid%3DPHs2FOiNMUlZmnGKqNU_-Q%26yaw%3D242.68607!7i16384!8i8192!4m14!1m7!3m6!1s0x53b070d819d60179:0xe3d9390fe37f1ac8!2sBison+Viewpoint!8m2!3d57.0014434!4d-111.5906443!16s%2Fg%2F11fy2pfzv4!3m5!1s0x53b070bd50c837f3:0xc72387be8e2edcca!8m2!3d57.033333!4d-111.6!16s%2Fg%2F1tjg_0_k?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDkxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mildred+Lake,+AB+T9K+2Z1/@... Check the previous dates. 2018 yes, 2022, no.
- sandworm101 1y ago
  And, just as how old gold tailings are revisited decades later, that pile of discarded material will one day be a resource. https://www.ctvnews.ca/northern-ontario/article/company-works-on-plan-to-extract-gold-from-mine-tailings-near-kirkland-lake-ont/ https://www.ctvnews.ca/northern-ontario/article/company-work... https://www.jxscmineral.com/blogs/gold-tailings-impacts-and-how-to-recycle-them/ https://www.jxscmineral.com/blogs/gold-tailings-impacts-and-...
Guthur 1y ago
Mining is first and foremost a material logistics problem. If I need to study significantly more material to retrieve a economically viable amount of sight after elements it will be always a difficult proposition.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  The economics are out of whack in the mining industry in the 2020s as well. North American mining firms tend to be private sector, but in Asian countries like China, Indonesia, India, and Vietnam the mining conglomerates and processors are state-owned enterprises, or in the case of Japan and South Korea, private sector firms with a controlling stake owned by a sovereign development fund. This is why we need a Temasek or Mubadala for America.
  - kelnos 1y ago
    I feel like we'll see more and more of that style of ownership in the US when it comes to mining. We're already seeing the government buying stakes in semiconductor companies, as well as subsidizing manufacturing. Mining seems like it should be firmly on the list of things that are of national security importance.
  - govg 1y ago
    There are variants and flavours of this already at smaller scales like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalPERS?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalPERS?wprov=sfla1 But the US in general hates "state owned enterprises" in the form that China has.
    - ninalanyon 1y ago
      One might invert it and say that the US prefers enterprise owned states.
    - alephnerd 1y ago
      American and European pension funds do not act like Sovereign Development Funds (SDFs) - they tend to act under a mandate of "wealth safeguarding", and tend to target dedicated asset pools without short-term liabilities. A fund like CalPERS has an added issue that it has become hyper-politicized. The only North American pension funds I can think of that act like SDFs is the Ontario Teacher's Venture Growth arm, but they've begun pulling back from venture and growth funding. > But the US in general hates "state owned enterprises" in the form that China has We don't need a China style model tbh. A coordinated trust banking model with a controlling stake owned by an agency or ministry like in Japan and South Korea is probably a better analogue for the US - in most cases we have the IP, human, and financial capital, it's coordination that is lacking. The issue is antitrust fundamentalists would balk at that kind of government enabled consolidation. The IRA and CHIPS would have been steps in the right direction, but who knows now with this admin. They are discussion SWFs but I do not trust their ability to execute. I would love In-Q-Tel to transition into something similar for Cybersecurity and Enterprise SaaS, but they have issues.
AceJohnny2 1y ago
Years ago I attended a USGS talk about Critical Minerals. (it's archived somewhere...) The federal government (at least a competent one, not sure about the current status) tracks the stability of Critical Mineral sources. Turns out (to no surprise) that it's to the US's advantage to outsource very polluting mining and processing of critical minerals. (Nobody likes open-pit mines, see people thoughts about the Permanente quarry south of Cupertino) Of course it's a trade-off, as the US becomes dependent on an external source, and the cost of bringing up internal production increases as internal mining sources are shut down and potentially skill is lost. Related link: https://www.usgs.gov/news/science-snippet/department-interior-releases-draft-2025-list-critical-minerals https://www.usgs.gov/news/science-snippet/department-interio... And here's the 2025 draft report: https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2025/1047/ofr20251047.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2025/1047/ofr20251047.pdf Edit: here's the USGS talk, from 2017: https://youtu.be/N53Rm-aDCu8 https://youtu.be/N53Rm-aDCu8
- ambicapter 1y ago
  Why not do both, get minerals from other countries while it's polluting, spend some of your research budget on figuring out how to do the mining without the downsides.
  - AceJohnny2 1y ago
    > spend some of your research budget on figuring out how to do the mining without the downsides. Well now see that'd be government spending and the majority of our voters/government don't want none of that Tangentially, attending the USGS talks gave me a huge appreciation for the excellent, useful work that (some?) of our federal agencies do, which just made me that much more livid at the senseless cuts that DOGE & Republicans have done.
    - spwa4 1y ago
      > Well now see that'd be government spending and the majority of our voters/government don't want none of that What do you mean? Trump spent more than the US government has ever spent before just this year. He did so in his last term too. He just doesn't want to spend it on necessary things. After all, they're necessary. If he doesn't do it, someone will, right? There's a slight issue with this reasoning: it usually ends in the state having to do it anyway, at greatly increased cost, further increasing the already eye-watering spend Trump did.
bdamm 1y ago
This is actually super interesting to me. Given that the US is actually blessed with mineral concentrations, why is it so assumed that only China can produce rare earths? Is it the land opportunity cost? Is it the cost of labor? Is it the cost of regulation? And in the end, this is only a motor, or a battery, and the actual rare earth content is not very high. If the cost of rare earths was double or even triple the amount of sourcing them from China, how much does that actually impact the end price of a consumer good?
- alephnerd 1y ago
  > why is it so assumed that only China can produce rare earths You want carcinogens in you water supply, and a whole NYT expose about it? That's why. Mining and processing is VERY VERY VERY dirty. Countries like China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and India are choosing the accept the externalities and/or make deals with shady partners if needed. Add to that spamoflauge campaigns lead by nation state competitors trying to stoke opposition to these projects [0], and it becomes hard. [0] - https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dragonbridge-targets-rare-earths-mining-companies https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dra... Edit: can't reply, so replying here. > mines many elements domestically, so why the sudden environmental concern specifically with rare earths Optics mostly, along with a healthy dose of social media disinfo [0]. Processing is also a pain in the butt and causes severe externalities. > while the US relied on market forces to handle supply chains. Pretty much, but private sector firms are also worried/hemmed by the implications of litigation. The recognition that the status quo is unstable arose after China weaponized exports to Japan during the Senkaku Diaoyu crisis (it was one of the first things I worked on in my short stint in policy), but "industrial policy" was a dark word you could never utter on the hill until the last 3-4 years. Also, 13-15 years ago, China wasn't really viewed as a threat the same way it is today. Russia was viewed as the primary peer state competitor to the US back then. I yelled hoarse warning the people I reported to that we needed to deep dive into Chinese institutions back then, but no one listened.
  - kelnos 1y ago
    Curious why this is downvoted, as this matches my understanding. We have strong (ish) environmental and worker protections in the US that other countries don't have. These are good things, but they make it a lot more expensive to do this stuff domestically. Mining and processing is very dirty.
eszed 1y ago
This is a legitimate use-case for targeted tariffs and / or subsidies. (And, you know, environmental regulations, so mining and refining sites don't turn into what's described in a sibling comment.)
- alephnerd 1y ago
  The Biden admin worked on this as part of the IRA and CHIPS, and a lot of bilateral treaties with Japan, Australia, South Korea, UAE, and India but now it's up in the air. The Chinese government even attempted to lead a spamoflauge campaign against North American REE projects initiated by the Biden admin [0] [0] - https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dragonbridge-targets-rare-earths-mining-companies https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dra...
thisisnotauser 1y ago
I used to work on a DoD special project that required rare earths that we could only get from China and we had to write a monthly memo about the risk to our $10B program that China would just stop selling it to us. The problem boiled down to the Chinese government buying out and shutting down any competitors anywhere in the world, plus Congress requiring the DoD to go with the lowest cost, which was always China. We knew what the problem was, we made the problem clear, no one did anything about it. Maybe this administration blowing up the government is good, actually.
- mothballed 1y ago
  I'm shocked DoD doesn't have straw buyers in friendly (or neutral) 3rd party countries to deal with that possibility.
  - dgfitz 1y ago
    I’m shocked you thought the government was ever functional enough to do something like that.
    - j-bos 1y ago
      They used to, iirc that's how they sourced the titanium used in the b2 bombers, which was mined in the ussr.
      - selectodude 1y ago
        A-12 Oxcart
      - Enginerrrd 1y ago
        I think that was the SR-71, but yeah.
      - MegaButts 1y ago
        They got the titanium from the Soviet Union, so not exactly an ally. The US just lied about using it for pizza ovens instead of jets.
non_aligned 1y ago
"Having" and "willing to use" are two things, right? The problem is that the US, for the most part, no longer has any appetite for projects that leave the landscape scarred and the waters polluted. In California, we prefer to go through annual cycles of water rationing rather than build new dams. I'm sure the mindset would change if things get sufficiently dire, but that threshold might be farther than we assume.
- SequoiaHope 1y ago
  Certainly we could curb our water use. Do we even have enough sites to build dams which would solve the problem? Otherwise we should consider the relative merits of golf courses and agricultural production and allocate accordingly.
  - nradov 1y ago
    Golf courses use a minuscule fraction of California's total water supply. Many of them are now irrigated by gray water. The major fresh water use is mostly agriculture. We need to eat, but on the other hand a lot of that water ends up getting used to grow alfalfa for export to Saudi Arabia: profitable for certain farmers, not great for the rest of us. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-arizona-fresh-scrutiny-of-saudi-arabia-owned-farms-water-use https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-ar...
  - exoverito 1y ago
    If you're operating under the idea that we can't expand the supply of water, then you basically believe California is full. It would then follow that you would be against immigration, since more people would only exacerbate the problem.
    - mrtesthah 1y ago
      That makes no sense and derails the discussion (which is about mining of minerals -- not immigration), considering over 90% of the water is used by industrial agriculture -- not individuals. The fact that individuals are being asked to conserve water at all is a sham.
measurablefunc 1y ago
I recommend looking into the work of Vaclav Smil & Mark Mills. Vaclav is pretty well known & his work is pretty easy to find. Mark Mills was a physicist who started working at investment funds & energy research think tanks. He also has a lot of interesting things to say about the so called "energy transition"¹. In short, you don't have to take my word for it but the material reality & physics of the situation is much more complicated & dire than people realize. It's more than just a simple matter of "critical" minerals & metals. ¹https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Nz-4eEBTw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Nz-4eEBTw
syntaxing 1y ago
Odd lots mentioned about this. Only a very small portion of our “rare earth” mineral domestically came from China to begin with. And a lot can be procured locally (for now) but at a higher price
dwd 1y ago
There are multiple moves outside the US to address this, but the cost of setting up a refinery is at least USD1b. Iluka (Aus) has a mineral sands stockpile from their zircon/rutile processing, and are constructing a refinery next to the heap to process the rare earth minerals. Plant is fully funded and should come online end of 2026. https://www.iluka.com/products-markets/rare-earth-products/ https://www.iluka.com/products-markets/rare-earth-products/ Lynas (Aus) has two refineries (and one planned in the US with DoD funding) and is partnering with a Korean firm in magnet production. They are also the only commercial-scale producer of Dy/Tb outside of China and recently raised an additional AUD800m to fund expansion.
ta20240528 1y ago
Jim Kennedy is an American miner who argues that the Thorium nuclear waste liability is a large part of what is hobbling the rare-earth industry in the USA. https://thoriumenergyalliance.com/resource/jim-kennedy-rare-earth-elements-thorium-legislative-efforts/ https://thoriumenergyalliance.com/resource/jim-kennedy-rare-... Its sounds plausible, but I'm not a geologist.
NoahZuniga 1y ago
This was already known due to old analysis. The problem with getting rare-earth minerals isn't that they are that rare, but that they are a pain to process.
AndyMcConachie 1y ago
[flagged]
egorfine 1y ago
Anyone heard anything about that mineral deal that Trump forced Zelensky to sign?
southernplaces7 1y ago
If Trump needed further excuse for bloviating out some more pig-ignorant, economic wrecking ball bullshit with international trade "deals", here it is!
whatever1 1y ago
Rare earths are not rare. Of course the US has everything. The problem always was the cost for managing the mining externalities in a developed society. With the current setup we were getting a great deal because we’re were paying very low cost to get rare earths while shipping mining externalities and horrible working conditions overseas.
mtw 1y ago
Of course the U.S and allies like Canada/Australia have all the critical minerals needed. But the U.S. does not have the ecosystem to mine and process it. The author suggests critical R&D but the administration is also waging war on the top universities (Harvard & co.), and generally looking down on what's coming from them. A good researcher is going to have a pact with the devil to agree to this, unless the administration throws money and brute force at the problem.
- Empact 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - baby 1y ago
    You're aware they scooped Terence Tao's department funding right?
    - dmix 1y ago
      For context Trump suspended all of UCLAs federal funding re: antisemitism claims and the case is being fought in court by professors, with a judge saying she's likely to restore medical research funding (which is what Tao was doing there on MRIs) because the government didn't follow proper administrative processes. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-09-18/ucla-nih-grants-federal-judge-500-million https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-09-18/ucla-n...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- quirk 1y ago
  Is Harvard the top university for mining research though? I assumed it would be Texas A&M or Purdue or something like that.
- Tangurena2 1y ago
  We absolutely could mine and refine the stuff. It is everywhere. The "problem" is that the refining process is horribly toxic and the residue/slag is toxic and radioactive. The last refinery that had been located in the US is now a SuperFund site. Every country would prefer that the refining takes place in China because that way the pollution & hazardous waste remains in China. The anger is that China is being "uppity" by wanting to make the things (like motors) out of the "rare earth" elements instead of being the colony that supplies raw materials to the Empire/colonizer. This was one of the complaints leading to the Revolution in 1776 - only raw materials could be shipped to England and all finished goods could only be shipped from England. The colonies were forced to remain at the bottom of the economy. China wants "a seat at the table". Western countries are unwilling to let that happen.
snarkyturtle 1y ago
The link to the Science article is a 404. Not a good look.
- cactusplant7374 1y ago
  https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adw8997 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adw8997
ozim 1y ago
Having them is one thing, buying out from others as they sell cheaper and then still having your own after others depleted their stash and selling at premium - that’s the game.
- jlarocco 1y ago
  Sure, but "the game" also includes scenarios like the cheap producers cutting you off for political reasons before you have the technology to produce your own.
  - ozim 1y ago
    Like Anakin/Padme meme: "you do have a minimal setup to produce your own, to scale up any time ... right".
ck2 1y ago
rare-earth minerals aren't "rare" in availibility they are rare PER amount of earth it's very labor intensive which makes it expensive to mine which is why countries with oppressed labor can do it far cheaper than USA ALSO it's extremely toxic with radioactive byproducts in the earth accumulated which again why companies in USA didn't want to do it for little to no profit But he's still going to invade Greenland, he's already got CIA mucking around there trying to get rid of opposition to forced annexation
- pphysch 1y ago
  > which is why countries with oppressed labor can do it far cheaper than USA > which again why companies in USA didn't want to do it for little to no profit Genuinely asking, do you really think American megacorps care about their laborers and the environment? There are many reasons why America is falling behind economically, but their dominant corps being too moral and ethical is not one of them.
99_00 1y ago
This has always been known by domain experts. The problem has never been availability of minerals. It is the environmental damage from the polluting extraction process and lack of operational know how and trade secrets to do it efficiently. An often overlooked competitive advantage China has is lack of environmental regulations
deleted 1y ago
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lazyeye 1y ago
This is good news that critical minerals are available locally.
cyanydeez 1y ago
Does it include exploitable workers?
AngryData 1y ago
The US is large enough to have basically every material resource it could need. The problems comes from the cost/pollution of mining and refinement and the cleaner you are the more costlier it gets, and actually possessing the equipment, processing facilities, and experienced workforce to utilize those resources, which we have a huge lack of because we spent decades outsourcing most of that work. Again because doing it cleanly costs more money, and investors won't get as good of a return on their investment so outsource it. Nobody invests in operations that only make a token profit when they could instead invest it overseas and earn a substantial profit.

Well not thrown away, but discarded as tailings. Otherwise, that would be quite the garbage pail and matching truck to collect it! :-D Though it doesn't address the issue of waste from the refining process which currently looks like this: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-...

alephnerd 1y ago
> Though it doesn't address the issue of waste Either you eat the cost of the externality or you accept that countries that can will end up dominating the industry, and hold entire sectors like automotive or semiconductors hostage. This is what China did and what Vietnam [0] and India [1] are attempting to do as well. It's like packaging for grid batteries - someone has to do the dirty work because manufacturing is inherently dirty. The only rule that matters even in a "rules based order" is might makes right. If we don't want to do it, then we need to cultivate partners who can - but the only countries who are not China and open to eating the externalities are Vietnam and India, which is why South Korea and Japan depend on them after China weaponized REE imports to both in 2016 (THAAD) and 2012 (Senkaku) respectively. [0] - https://en.mae.gov.vn/Pages/chi-tiet-tin-Eng.aspx?ItemID=8111 https://en.mae.gov.vn/Pages/chi-tiet-tin-Eng.aspx?ItemID=811... [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45093322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45093322
- xnx 1y ago
  Would outsourcing the dirty production combined with a strategic stockpile of processed materials (and some processing capacity) be a smart solution? Let China process the materials under normal circumstances, but keep 6 months of processed output on hand in case trade is disrupted (trade disagreement, pandemic, war, etc.).
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    > Let China process the materials under normal circumstances, but keep 6 months of processed output on hand in case trade is disrupted (trade disagreement, pandemic, war, etc.) That's not enough of a leeway when dealing with a country who has active land disputes with 2 countries we have a defense treaty with (Japan, Phillipines) and 1 with whom we have an ambiguous defense commitment (Taiwan). And even the Chinese government knows that countries like the the US will try to stockpile. Almost all processing, mining, and exporting in China for REEs is managed by SoEs and under close monitoring from state regulators. This is why the Biden admin initiated the Minerals Security Partnership with Japan, India, and Australia.
  - kelnos 1y ago
    Six months feels insufficient. You'd want several years, at minimum. I think there are two ways to effectively mitigate this risk: 1) have mining and manufacturing of your own that covers most of your needs, or 2) balanced trade where you get something critical from another country, but they also get something critical from you (and can't easily get it somewhere else). (Of course when you have very solid allies, you can relax a bit more and rely on them, but you still have to be prepared for a situation where that ally has a shortage and prioritizes their own use.)
  - XorNot 1y ago
    China plans in 5 year increments and actually follows through on that. Waiting out 6 months of production would be easy. And even the threat of interruption would drastically mess with prices.
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
"These minerals are being use to fortify our water supply."
bdamm 1y ago
The BBC piece is an interesting attempt at garnishing attention. The reporter provides the google maps link to show how large and disgusting the process is. But it is actually a very small lake, if you compare it to things such as oil extraction. Take a look at the oil sands of Fort Mcmurray, Alberta; and at the same zoom level as the reporter uses, you'll see this is absolutely massive and diminishes the "massive" rare earths waste lake by orders of magnitude: https://www.google.com/maps/@57.0304073,-111.55372,6025m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDkxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@57.0304073,-111.55372,6025m/dat... I don't think it is good, but let's be reasonable in comparing environmental harm.
- MisterTea 1y ago
  That is a whataboutism. This isn't about China or the size of the lake, but the fact that there is a lake because the effluent is difficult to dispose of and currently has no use. Edit: to further clarify, I am not against refining them in the USA. Just that we have to also address the consequences of doing so.
  - bdamm 1y ago
    "Difficult to dispose of and has no use" is the very definition of a tailings pond, and you'll find them all over the place if you care to look. Environmental catastrophies are happening all over the globe on a massive scale. My point is exactly that; yeah it's toxic, but so is basically every mine and many oil refineries too. Check out the rate of cancer around coal mines or refining hubs, you might be surprised.
- soperj 1y ago
  I don't think that lake tailing pond even exists any more. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mildred+Lake,+AB+T9K+2Z1/@57.0181949,-111.5993739,3a,75y,242.69h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sPHs2FOiNMUlZmnGKqNU_-Q!2e0!5s20250501T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D0%26panoid%3DPHs2FOiNMUlZmnGKqNU_-Q%26yaw%3D242.68607!7i16384!8i8192!4m14!1m7!3m6!1s0x53b070d819d60179:0xe3d9390fe37f1ac8!2sBison+Viewpoint!8m2!3d57.0014434!4d-111.5906443!16s%2Fg%2F11fy2pfzv4!3m5!1s0x53b070bd50c837f3:0xc72387be8e2edcca!8m2!3d57.033333!4d-111.6!16s%2Fg%2F1tjg_0_k?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDkxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mildred+Lake,+AB+T9K+2Z1/@... Check the previous dates. 2018 yes, 2022, no.
sandworm101 1y ago
And, just as how old gold tailings are revisited decades later, that pile of discarded material will one day be a resource. https://www.ctvnews.ca/northern-ontario/article/company-works-on-plan-to-extract-gold-from-mine-tailings-near-kirkland-lake-ont/ https://www.ctvnews.ca/northern-ontario/article/company-work... https://www.jxscmineral.com/blogs/gold-tailings-impacts-and-how-to-recycle-them/ https://www.jxscmineral.com/blogs/gold-tailings-impacts-and-...

Guthur 1y ago

Mining is first and foremost a material logistics problem. If I need to study significantly more material to retrieve a economically viable amount of sight after elements it will be always a difficult proposition.

alephnerd 1y ago
The economics are out of whack in the mining industry in the 2020s as well. North American mining firms tend to be private sector, but in Asian countries like China, Indonesia, India, and Vietnam the mining conglomerates and processors are state-owned enterprises, or in the case of Japan and South Korea, private sector firms with a controlling stake owned by a sovereign development fund. This is why we need a Temasek or Mubadala for America.
- kelnos 1y ago
  I feel like we'll see more and more of that style of ownership in the US when it comes to mining. We're already seeing the government buying stakes in semiconductor companies, as well as subsidizing manufacturing. Mining seems like it should be firmly on the list of things that are of national security importance.
- govg 1y ago
  There are variants and flavours of this already at smaller scales like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalPERS?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalPERS?wprov=sfla1 But the US in general hates "state owned enterprises" in the form that China has.
  - ninalanyon 1y ago
    One might invert it and say that the US prefers enterprise owned states.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    American and European pension funds do not act like Sovereign Development Funds (SDFs) - they tend to act under a mandate of "wealth safeguarding", and tend to target dedicated asset pools without short-term liabilities. A fund like CalPERS has an added issue that it has become hyper-politicized. The only North American pension funds I can think of that act like SDFs is the Ontario Teacher's Venture Growth arm, but they've begun pulling back from venture and growth funding. > But the US in general hates "state owned enterprises" in the form that China has We don't need a China style model tbh. A coordinated trust banking model with a controlling stake owned by an agency or ministry like in Japan and South Korea is probably a better analogue for the US - in most cases we have the IP, human, and financial capital, it's coordination that is lacking. The issue is antitrust fundamentalists would balk at that kind of government enabled consolidation. The IRA and CHIPS would have been steps in the right direction, but who knows now with this admin. They are discussion SWFs but I do not trust their ability to execute. I would love In-Q-Tel to transition into something similar for Cybersecurity and Enterprise SaaS, but they have issues.

AceJohnny2 1y ago

Years ago I attended a USGS talk about Critical Minerals. (it's archived somewhere...) The federal government (at least a competent one, not sure about the current status) tracks the stability of Critical Mineral sources. Turns out (to no surprise) that it's to the US's advantage to outsource very polluting mining and processing of critical minerals. (Nobody likes open-pit mines, see people thoughts about the Permanente quarry south of Cupertino) Of course it's a trade-off, as the US becomes dependent on an external source, and the cost of bringing up internal production increases as internal mining sources are shut down and potentially skill is lost. Related link: https://www.usgs.gov/news/science-snippet/department-interior-releases-draft-2025-list-critical-minerals https://www.usgs.gov/news/science-snippet/department-interio... And here's the 2025 draft report: https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2025/1047/ofr20251047.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2025/1047/ofr20251047.pdf Edit: here's the USGS talk, from 2017: https://youtu.be/N53Rm-aDCu8 https://youtu.be/N53Rm-aDCu8

ambicapter 1y ago
Why not do both, get minerals from other countries while it's polluting, spend some of your research budget on figuring out how to do the mining without the downsides.
- AceJohnny2 1y ago
  > spend some of your research budget on figuring out how to do the mining without the downsides. Well now see that'd be government spending and the majority of our voters/government don't want none of that Tangentially, attending the USGS talks gave me a huge appreciation for the excellent, useful work that (some?) of our federal agencies do, which just made me that much more livid at the senseless cuts that DOGE & Republicans have done.
  - spwa4 1y ago
    > Well now see that'd be government spending and the majority of our voters/government don't want none of that What do you mean? Trump spent more than the US government has ever spent before just this year. He did so in his last term too. He just doesn't want to spend it on necessary things. After all, they're necessary. If he doesn't do it, someone will, right? There's a slight issue with this reasoning: it usually ends in the state having to do it anyway, at greatly increased cost, further increasing the already eye-watering spend Trump did.

bdamm 1y ago

This is actually super interesting to me. Given that the US is actually blessed with mineral concentrations, why is it so assumed that only China can produce rare earths? Is it the land opportunity cost? Is it the cost of labor? Is it the cost of regulation? And in the end, this is only a motor, or a battery, and the actual rare earth content is not very high. If the cost of rare earths was double or even triple the amount of sourcing them from China, how much does that actually impact the end price of a consumer good?

alephnerd 1y ago
> why is it so assumed that only China can produce rare earths You want carcinogens in you water supply, and a whole NYT expose about it? That's why. Mining and processing is VERY VERY VERY dirty. Countries like China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and India are choosing the accept the externalities and/or make deals with shady partners if needed. Add to that spamoflauge campaigns lead by nation state competitors trying to stoke opposition to these projects [0], and it becomes hard. [0] - https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dragonbridge-targets-rare-earths-mining-companies https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dra... Edit: can't reply, so replying here. > mines many elements domestically, so why the sudden environmental concern specifically with rare earths Optics mostly, along with a healthy dose of social media disinfo [0]. Processing is also a pain in the butt and causes severe externalities. > while the US relied on market forces to handle supply chains. Pretty much, but private sector firms are also worried/hemmed by the implications of litigation. The recognition that the status quo is unstable arose after China weaponized exports to Japan during the Senkaku Diaoyu crisis (it was one of the first things I worked on in my short stint in policy), but "industrial policy" was a dark word you could never utter on the hill until the last 3-4 years. Also, 13-15 years ago, China wasn't really viewed as a threat the same way it is today. Russia was viewed as the primary peer state competitor to the US back then. I yelled hoarse warning the people I reported to that we needed to deep dive into Chinese institutions back then, but no one listened.
- kelnos 1y ago
  Curious why this is downvoted, as this matches my understanding. We have strong (ish) environmental and worker protections in the US that other countries don't have. These are good things, but they make it a lot more expensive to do this stuff domestically. Mining and processing is very dirty.

eszed 1y ago

This is a legitimate use-case for targeted tariffs and / or subsidies. (And, you know, environmental regulations, so mining and refining sites don't turn into what's described in a sibling comment.)

alephnerd 1y ago
The Biden admin worked on this as part of the IRA and CHIPS, and a lot of bilateral treaties with Japan, Australia, South Korea, UAE, and India but now it's up in the air. The Chinese government even attempted to lead a spamoflauge campaign against North American REE projects initiated by the Biden admin [0] [0] - https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dragonbridge-targets-rare-earths-mining-companies https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dra...

thisisnotauser 1y ago

I used to work on a DoD special project that required rare earths that we could only get from China and we had to write a monthly memo about the risk to our $10B program that China would just stop selling it to us. The problem boiled down to the Chinese government buying out and shutting down any competitors anywhere in the world, plus Congress requiring the DoD to go with the lowest cost, which was always China. We knew what the problem was, we made the problem clear, no one did anything about it. Maybe this administration blowing up the government is good, actually.

mothballed 1y ago
I'm shocked DoD doesn't have straw buyers in friendly (or neutral) 3rd party countries to deal with that possibility.
- dgfitz 1y ago
  I’m shocked you thought the government was ever functional enough to do something like that.
  - j-bos 1y ago
    They used to, iirc that's how they sourced the titanium used in the b2 bombers, which was mined in the ussr.
    - selectodude 1y ago
      A-12 Oxcart
    - Enginerrrd 1y ago
      I think that was the SR-71, but yeah.
    - MegaButts 1y ago
      They got the titanium from the Soviet Union, so not exactly an ally. The US just lied about using it for pizza ovens instead of jets.

non_aligned 1y ago

"Having" and "willing to use" are two things, right? The problem is that the US, for the most part, no longer has any appetite for projects that leave the landscape scarred and the waters polluted. In California, we prefer to go through annual cycles of water rationing rather than build new dams. I'm sure the mindset would change if things get sufficiently dire, but that threshold might be farther than we assume.

SequoiaHope 1y ago
Certainly we could curb our water use. Do we even have enough sites to build dams which would solve the problem? Otherwise we should consider the relative merits of golf courses and agricultural production and allocate accordingly.
- nradov 1y ago
  Golf courses use a minuscule fraction of California's total water supply. Many of them are now irrigated by gray water. The major fresh water use is mostly agriculture. We need to eat, but on the other hand a lot of that water ends up getting used to grow alfalfa for export to Saudi Arabia: profitable for certain farmers, not great for the rest of us. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-arizona-fresh-scrutiny-of-saudi-arabia-owned-farms-water-use https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-ar...
- exoverito 1y ago
  If you're operating under the idea that we can't expand the supply of water, then you basically believe California is full. It would then follow that you would be against immigration, since more people would only exacerbate the problem.
  - mrtesthah 1y ago
    That makes no sense and derails the discussion (which is about mining of minerals -- not immigration), considering over 90% of the water is used by industrial agriculture -- not individuals. The fact that individuals are being asked to conserve water at all is a sham.

measurablefunc 1y ago

I recommend looking into the work of Vaclav Smil & Mark Mills. Vaclav is pretty well known & his work is pretty easy to find. Mark Mills was a physicist who started working at investment funds & energy research think tanks. He also has a lot of interesting things to say about the so called "energy transition"¹. In short, you don't have to take my word for it but the material reality & physics of the situation is much more complicated & dire than people realize. It's more than just a simple matter of "critical" minerals & metals. ¹https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Nz-4eEBTw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Nz-4eEBTw

syntaxing 1y ago

Odd lots mentioned about this. Only a very small portion of our “rare earth” mineral domestically came from China to begin with. And a lot can be procured locally (for now) but at a higher price

dwd 1y ago

There are multiple moves outside the US to address this, but the cost of setting up a refinery is at least USD1b. Iluka (Aus) has a mineral sands stockpile from their zircon/rutile processing, and are constructing a refinery next to the heap to process the rare earth minerals. Plant is fully funded and should come online end of 2026. https://www.iluka.com/products-markets/rare-earth-products/ https://www.iluka.com/products-markets/rare-earth-products/ Lynas (Aus) has two refineries (and one planned in the US with DoD funding) and is partnering with a Korean firm in magnet production. They are also the only commercial-scale producer of Dy/Tb outside of China and recently raised an additional AUD800m to fund expansion.

ta20240528 1y ago

Jim Kennedy is an American miner who argues that the Thorium nuclear waste liability is a large part of what is hobbling the rare-earth industry in the USA. https://thoriumenergyalliance.com/resource/jim-kennedy-rare-earth-elements-thorium-legislative-efforts/ https://thoriumenergyalliance.com/resource/jim-kennedy-rare-... Its sounds plausible, but I'm not a geologist.

NoahZuniga 1y ago

This was already known due to old analysis. The problem with getting rare-earth minerals isn't that they are that rare, but that they are a pain to process.

AndyMcConachie 1y ago

[flagged]

egorfine 1y ago

Anyone heard anything about that mineral deal that Trump forced Zelensky to sign?

southernplaces7 1y ago

If Trump needed further excuse for bloviating out some more pig-ignorant, economic wrecking ball bullshit with international trade "deals", here it is!

whatever1 1y ago

Rare earths are not rare. Of course the US has everything. The problem always was the cost for managing the mining externalities in a developed society. With the current setup we were getting a great deal because we’re were paying very low cost to get rare earths while shipping mining externalities and horrible working conditions overseas.

mtw 1y ago

Of course the U.S and allies like Canada/Australia have all the critical minerals needed. But the U.S. does not have the ecosystem to mine and process it. The author suggests critical R&D but the administration is also waging war on the top universities (Harvard & co.), and generally looking down on what's coming from them. A good researcher is going to have a pact with the devil to agree to this, unless the administration throws money and brute force at the problem.

Empact 1y ago
[flagged]
- baby 1y ago
  You're aware they scooped Terence Tao's department funding right?
  - dmix 1y ago
    For context Trump suspended all of UCLAs federal funding re: antisemitism claims and the case is being fought in court by professors, with a judge saying she's likely to restore medical research funding (which is what Tao was doing there on MRIs) because the government didn't follow proper administrative processes. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-09-18/ucla-nih-grants-federal-judge-500-million https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-09-18/ucla-n...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
quirk 1y ago
Is Harvard the top university for mining research though? I assumed it would be Texas A&M or Purdue or something like that.
Tangurena2 1y ago
We absolutely could mine and refine the stuff. It is everywhere. The "problem" is that the refining process is horribly toxic and the residue/slag is toxic and radioactive. The last refinery that had been located in the US is now a SuperFund site. Every country would prefer that the refining takes place in China because that way the pollution & hazardous waste remains in China. The anger is that China is being "uppity" by wanting to make the things (like motors) out of the "rare earth" elements instead of being the colony that supplies raw materials to the Empire/colonizer. This was one of the complaints leading to the Revolution in 1776 - only raw materials could be shipped to England and all finished goods could only be shipped from England. The colonies were forced to remain at the bottom of the economy. China wants "a seat at the table". Western countries are unwilling to let that happen.

snarkyturtle 1y ago

The link to the Science article is a 404. Not a good look.

cactusplant7374 1y ago
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adw8997 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adw8997

ozim 1y ago

Having them is one thing, buying out from others as they sell cheaper and then still having your own after others depleted their stash and selling at premium - that’s the game.

jlarocco 1y ago
Sure, but "the game" also includes scenarios like the cheap producers cutting you off for political reasons before you have the technology to produce your own.
- ozim 1y ago
  Like Anakin/Padme meme: "you do have a minimal setup to produce your own, to scale up any time ... right".

ck2 1y ago

rare-earth minerals aren't "rare" in availibility they are rare PER amount of earth it's very labor intensive which makes it expensive to mine which is why countries with oppressed labor can do it far cheaper than USA ALSO it's extremely toxic with radioactive byproducts in the earth accumulated which again why companies in USA didn't want to do it for little to no profit But he's still going to invade Greenland, he's already got CIA mucking around there trying to get rid of opposition to forced annexation

pphysch 1y ago
> which is why countries with oppressed labor can do it far cheaper than USA > which again why companies in USA didn't want to do it for little to no profit Genuinely asking, do you really think American megacorps care about their laborers and the environment? There are many reasons why America is falling behind economically, but their dominant corps being too moral and ethical is not one of them.

99_00 1y ago

This has always been known by domain experts. The problem has never been availability of minerals. It is the environmental damage from the polluting extraction process and lack of operational know how and trade secrets to do it efficiently. An often overlooked competitive advantage China has is lack of environmental regulations

deleted 1y ago

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lazyeye 1y ago

This is good news that critical minerals are available locally.

cyanydeez 1y ago

Does it include exploitable workers?

AngryData 1y ago

The US is large enough to have basically every material resource it could need. The problems comes from the cost/pollution of mining and refinement and the cleaner you are the more costlier it gets, and actually possessing the equipment, processing facilities, and experienced workforce to utilize those resources, which we have a huge lack of because we spent decades outsourcing most of that work. Again because doing it cleanly costs more money, and investors won't get as good of a return on their investment so outsource it. Nobody invests in operations that only make a token profit when they could instead invest it overseas and earn a substantial profit.