The book called the rare earth metals war dives into this topic is detail. There is a dark side though. China has polluted close to 60% of its ground water and a massive chunk of agricultural land to a point where it’s unusable. That will take centuries of not millennia to fix itself. Many communities who live close by these refineries suffer the most horrific heath issues. In the end you still need to produce food.
Exactly there is a cost to everything. The trick is weight up the cost versus the benefit and make a call. The best call you can based on the data available
Rare earth elements are really not so rare as they are scattered around the planet and not really concentrated in one area. China is willing to dig up an area the size of Ohio to get the elements, the US not so much.
Well, if Trump actually gets Greenland, perhaps. 😄 Otherwise, I'm not so sure. Remember, they effectively killed the Kvanefjeld rare earths project after years of development when it banned uranium mining. If memory serves me right, the company behind it is still fighting the government over it in court.
True, the U.S. has plenty of helium. But China has largely weaned itself off U.S. helium. It still imports most of what it needs, but these days Russia and Qatar are its main suppliers. Which kind of goes to my point: having a resource and having leverage aren’t necessarily the same thing.
The book called the rare earth metals war dives into this topic is detail. There is a dark side though. China has polluted close to 60% of its ground water and a massive chunk of agricultural land to a point where it’s unusable. That will take centuries of not millennia to fix itself. Many communities who live close by these refineries suffer the most horrific heath issues. In the end you still need to produce food.
As Thomas Sowell once famously put it: “There are no solutions in life, only trade-offs.”
Exactly there is a cost to everything. The trick is weight up the cost versus the benefit and make a call. The best call you can based on the data available
All so/exactly right ... I got the rec and bought it when you sent the post earlier ...
Rare earth elements are really not so rare as they are scattered around the planet and not really concentrated in one area. China is willing to dig up an area the size of Ohio to get the elements, the US not so much.
Exactly. That’s why I said the name is a bit of a misnomer in the first place.
That’s where Greenland will probably come into play. None of the pesky regulatory hurdles as in the US to mine and process the rare earth elements.
Well, if Trump actually gets Greenland, perhaps. 😄 Otherwise, I'm not so sure. Remember, they effectively killed the Kvanefjeld rare earths project after years of development when it banned uranium mining. If memory serves me right, the company behind it is still fighting the government over it in court.
I would like to read the agreement signed by the US and the other parties in regards to Greenland at the UN a couple of weeks ago.
May answer the questions about access to the rare earth elements.
Lau I think the one thing the U.S. has that China does not is helium.
True, the U.S. has plenty of helium. But China has largely weaned itself off U.S. helium. It still imports most of what it needs, but these days Russia and Qatar are its main suppliers. Which kind of goes to my point: having a resource and having leverage aren’t necessarily the same thing.