
China Wrestles with the Toxic Aftermath of Rare Earth Mining - sohkamyung
https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-wrestles-with-the-toxic-aftermath-of-rare-earth-mining
======
blunte
I disagree with this:

"Environmental experts and local officials say the cost of the cleanup should
not be shouldered by the Chinese government alone, but also by the rare earths
industry and the global companies and consumers that benefit from these
technologies."

The mining companies should bear the cost, since it was a cost that they
simply ignored at the time. If that cost had been factored into their
business, prices for their materials would have been higher (and the consumers
would have paid).

Instead, like many businesses, they took responsibility for only the costs
that they had to. In general, consumers should not shoulder the burden of
corporations' bad business practices.

If true costs were considered, there would be far less materialism (and
corresponding pollution).

All that said, sometimes everyone has to contribute to right a wrong. However,
it's not ok that everyone pay for one party's past wrongs only to see other
parties continuing to repeat those wrongs.

~~~
ambicapter
Yeah, all these experts happen to be Chinese.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
The eternal problem of externalities. They ought to be priced into the cost of
the rare earths, but doing so means you lose out to your less scrupulous
competitors.

~~~
dalbasal
Pricing externalities has become such a common comment.

Does anyone know good examples (family led also, but successful mostly) of
pricing externalities?

I mean the alternative is regulation and/or legislation. Those work pretty
well when a reasonable (ie production still happens) of harmful
processes/methods. Eg banning CFCs in certain products. I know of examples
where these were deployed.

Tldr: what is the best, big example of a real, functional price system for
"externalities?"

I don't want to jump to conclusions, but it feels like this line of thinking
is similar to state "retraining" to deal with unemployment due to economic
changes. Very popular rhetorically, but very few encouraging examples.

~~~
wffurr
The cost of regulatory compliance is the way to price in externalities. The
other option is a lawsuit after the damage is done.

~~~
dalbasal
That's not quite "pricing."

~~~
wffurr
I'm not sure how else one "prices" an externality. Require the company to
clean up after itself - that costs money, the company then internalizes that
cost into their operating structure and the cost of their products.

------
worklogistics
PSA: There is a disinformation campaign that pushes the narrative that
renewables are big users of rare earth minerals. They are not.

The #1 uses of rare earth is chemical catalysts (used for processing fossil
fuels) and pollution control (also fossil fuels)

Top uses of rare-earths in the US

Chemical Catalysts 55% Metallurgy & Alloys 15% Ceramics and Glass Making 10%
Glass Polishing 10% Other 10%

Source: [http://geology.com/articles/rare-earth-
elements/](http://geology.com/articles/rare-earth-elements/) Batteries, solar
panels and magnets are in that 'other' category.

------
digitalengineer
In the forth quarter of 2018, 46.89 million iPhones were sold worldwide.
That's just the iPhones. Wouldn't it be great if products from Apple were
easier to repair or upgrade instead of encouraging consumers to buy the latest
model? It would also make it easier to recycle. How much mining would that
prevent?

~~~
keymone
So what happens to old iPhones? Hard to believe they are all in a dump
somewhere.

~~~
TeMPOraL
In places like China, where labor is very cheap, they're most likely
disassembled into parts, which are then used to repair other iPhones - much
like it happens with Android phones. In places where labor isn't cheap, I
can't imagine where else would they go but a landfill.

~~~
simonh
Hand an iPhone in to an Apple Store or some affiliated retailers, or online
and they will recycle it for you for free. They built a family of robots to
automate disassembling them.

------
westiseast
Perhaps it’s churlish to mention, but...

China was happy to ignore environmental standards in order to corner the
market in rare earth minerals. American miners couldn’t compete because they
were _already_ “internalizing” the environmental costs, and were priced out of
the market.

Once China had put everyone else out of business (and blocked foreign
businesses from mining inside China), it started not only reducing output to
increase prices, but also started to very slowly apply environmental standards
it previously ignored.

The Chinese government also showed how willing they were to now use this
almost complete monopoly for political purposes in 2010.

And now in 2019 they’re calling for consumers and global companies to
contribute to the costs of “internalizing” the pollution?

~~~
titzer
Now you realize how the game theory of economics is fundamentally at odds with
the natural world and sustainability. It always pays to defect now, and the
loudest voices are usually the rich players who moan about economic growth and
"burdensome regulations". Mining and logging in the US was very much like this
before regulation, but that was on a much smaller scale, with simpler
technology and less energy available to scale up. My advice: pay attention
closely to environmental policy and don't let regulations be rolled back in
the name of growth!

~~~
dustingetz
The resolution to the economic prisoner’s dilemma is religion, which evolved
to coordinate the globally shared values needed to defeat a backstab/backstab
situation. For example “thou shalt not murder” is win/win.

~~~
anthonypasq
in what world does murdering someone have equivalently inconspicuous
externalities as burning fossil fuels?

~~~
earthstabber
ours

------
slics
Interesting, although I wish more thought is put into the cost model upfront
for any kind of mining that harms the environment prior to these excavations.
By taking under consideration the cleanup process at the beginning, it
eliminates the need to fight for funding after the mining is done. Although in
communist countries all the government cares is to rip the benefits and not
worry about the after effects.

