China's Rare Earth Setbacks
First, let me say that most of the claims that we are running out of rare earth metals are way overblown. We have enough of most of the the fifteen lanthanoids to last until mankind has decided walking is not really our thing, and go the way of the whale and float around for a living.
That said, there are still a few elements which China does have quite strong hold on. Or should I say, had.
This week, there have been two big setbacks for China. First was that Japanese geologists say they’ve found huge concentrated deposits of rare earths in the Pacific seabed that could total 100 billion tons--or enough in a single square mile of seafloor to cover nearly half the world’s annual demand.
The second was that the WTO ruled against China in a case brought by the US and others over China's hoarding of rare earth elements. The result of this is that China should not be able to pull any more "unofficial embargo" stunts like last year.
So go ahead and make your hybrid motors, solar panels, wind turbines and high capacity batteries. Because China no longer will control the market, there is some chance that your earth-saving devices will not longer be created by strip mining vast swaths of Southern China (with little side-effects like lead poisoning, deforestation, water sources being destroyed, radiation poisoning and rampant pollution in general).
That said, there are still a few elements which China does have quite strong hold on. Or should I say, had.
This week, there have been two big setbacks for China. First was that Japanese geologists say they’ve found huge concentrated deposits of rare earths in the Pacific seabed that could total 100 billion tons--or enough in a single square mile of seafloor to cover nearly half the world’s annual demand.
The second was that the WTO ruled against China in a case brought by the US and others over China's hoarding of rare earth elements. The result of this is that China should not be able to pull any more "unofficial embargo" stunts like last year.
So go ahead and make your hybrid motors, solar panels, wind turbines and high capacity batteries. Because China no longer will control the market, there is some chance that your earth-saving devices will not longer be created by strip mining vast swaths of Southern China (with little side-effects like lead poisoning, deforestation, water sources being destroyed, radiation poisoning and rampant pollution in general).
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| this is actually one of the largest rare earth mines in the world.... and it's in China |
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