
Deposit of rare-earth minerals off Japan could supply world for centuries (2018) - lelf
https://www.sciencealert.com/japan-discovered-a-rare-earth-mineral-deposit-that-can-supply-the-world-for-centuries
======
vanderZwan
Ever since I learned of Jevon's Paradox[0], headlines like this make me a bit
anxious. Between the lines I tend to read _" don't worry, we can pretend that
we don't have to actually own up to our wastefulness for a little while
longer, and make the problem even worse in the process!"_

I'm fully aware that that is just how I interpret things, and maybe I'm being
too cynical, but it does feel like we are focusing on the wrong long-term
solution if we just keep looking for new ways to _extract_ resources, if you
know what I mean.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox)

~~~
comboy
I wouldn't worry about resources being finite. There's a nice negative
feedback loop. The less we have of them left, the higher the price and more
incentive to develop alternative solutions.

I have no idea about environmental impact of mining these.

~~~
vanderZwan
While an elegant theory, that approach to economics is about as realistic and
practical as spherical cows in a vacuum[0] are to biology. In real life
markets are a lot more complicated and irrational (because they involve
humans).

That Jevon's Paradox wikipedia article I linked to in the first comment is one
example of such a complication.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow)

~~~
__HYde
[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/12/31/258687278/a-be...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/12/31/258687278/a-bet-
five-metals-and-the-future-of-the-planet)

> Simon didn't see the growing population as a catastrophic problem. He
> explained that we are not like any other species. We have an economy and
> markets. So, according to Simon, if the world demands more oil, the price of
> oil will go up, and there will be an incentive to find more, or find an
> alternative.

> Simon proposed that they bet on what would happen to the price of five
> metals — copper, chromium, nickel, tin and tungsten — over a decade.

> And the logic was that these metals were essential for all kinds of stuff —
> electronics, cars, buildings. So, if Ehrlich was right, more people on the
> planet would mean we would start running out of stuff, and the price of
> these things should go up.

> Those next 10 years, from 1980 to 1990, crept by. The world population grew
> by 800 million people. Then it was 1990. And they tallied it up. Simon, the
> economist, decisively won. Prices for the five metals went down by an
> average of 50 percent.

> One of the reasons the prices dropped was just what Simon said. The
> catastrophe Ehrlich was predicting just did not happen. People invented
> substitutes, like companies switching from aluminum to plastic for
> packaging.

------
mrpopo
The article is 6 months old and the study it's based on is more than 1 year
old. How is the project?

There are rare earth minerals everywhere. Even when they are economically
viable to extract, most countries are unwilling to, because of the
environmental costs associated with mining and refining. As well as the human
health costs for workers. I'm not sure Japan will be willing to pay that
price.

~~~
0n34n7
The nice thing about this specific resource is that it is under water,
negating many of the problems you mention.

~~~
throwawaycanada
If it is in the ocean that would be a disaster.

~~~
bubblewrap
Doesn't most pollution end up in the oceans, anyway? If mining pollutes
rivers, those rivers spill into the ocean eventually.

------
Merrill
The rare earth oxides are in mud on the seafloor in 18,700 feet of water. The
concentration is only 0.66%, which is a lot lower than other known ore bodies
on land. Mountain Pass in California is about 8.9% rare earth oxides.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minami-Tori-shima#Minami-
Tori-...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minami-Tori-shima#Minami-Tori-
Shima_area_rare_earth_deposits)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_rare_earth_mine#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_rare_earth_mine#Geology)

~~~
samirm
Those numbers are from sources in 2013/4, this latest report was done in 2018.

~~~
Merrill
To quote from the 2018 Nature article: "During these cruises, Rare Earth
Yttrium-rich mud having a maximum of almost 8,000 ppm of total REY content
(ΣREY) was confrmed."

8000 ppm would be 0.8% concentration. Most of the samples are poorer than
that.

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23948-5.pdf](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23948-5.pdf)

~~~
samirm
Thanks for finding the new numbers.

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j16sdiz
Similiar deposits have been found for decades. All these "news" pop up because
the China trade war

~~~
gpvos
Thanks for adding that context. But without this post, I would have missed
that bit of information, like I missed this news the previous times it came
around.

------
klodolph
The reason why China is the source of all of our rare-earth metals is because
they are aggressively mining & processing it. There are a variety of reasons
why China is doing the mining and processing, including factors like proximity
to supply chains, China's strategic goals, different environmental & labor
laws, land use laws, etc.

As soon as it gets more expensive to source rare-earth metals from China,
other sources will come online. Other countries could ramp up mining &
processing, perhaps as a "matter of national security", but for whatever
reason that hasn't happened yet. This is done in other areas, there are a fair
number of industries that only exist in the US because the military-industrial
complex is interested in keeping supply chains independent of influence by
foreign powers.

~~~
shdh
Problem is China artificially deflating the price of their metals when other
facilities do come online, forcing those newly opened operations to shut down.

~~~
klodolph
I understand that this is a problem for the operators, but this not a problem
for consumers. Those other facilities will just come online when the price
goes back up.

------
senectus1
This was found years ago.

This "finding keeps popping up as a new finding...

My understanding is that its huge, but underwater and dredging/vacuuming it up
would be _massively damaging_ to the ocean environment not to mention so
expensive it's not really cost effective. Yet.

It depends on what China does with their huge reserves...

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
Original story, which dates from April 2018:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23948-5.pdf](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23948-5.pdf)

------
zamfi
My understanding is that the challenge is in the refining & processing, not
the existence of mineral deposits.

~~~
adventured
That's essentially it.

China made it a strategic goal to become globally dominant in rare earths. It
was a position the US held previously. China's share of the market eventually
climbed into the high 90% range. It's now back down to closer to 70% to 75%
depending on the source. Between their state subsidies for the sector, meant
to maintain their position, and their willingness to ignore the environmental
disaster that the rare earth metals industry often is, they can simply do it
cheaper than everyone else.

Japan's moves after China used rare earths against them a decade ago, were
extremely successful. They were largely responsible for the drop in China's
market share.

The US has been very irresponsible about this. It's pretty wild that the
military industrial complex has not been forcing the issue extremely
aggressively. It would not be difficult for the US to be entirely self-
sufficient on rare earths.

If the US were not so circus-like on matters of strategic importance (too many
clowns focused on everything that isn't actually important), it would
immediately put $10-$20 billion to work with the Army Corp of Engineers and
whatever US mining companies were necessary (the US has several of the world's
largest miners), and it'd nationalize the Mountain Pass mine as an issue of
extreme national security. There would be no niceness, no pleasantries. All
environmental reviews would be ignored as a matter of national security, it
would be a violent rush to production no matter the initial cost. It would
then ramp up production enough to deflate China's position down toward 50%
globally (through a combination of domestic production and working with
foreign partners eg in Australia and elsewhere to boost their production
further asap), and ensure the US has a lever it can always use if China tries
to pull this again. It's simply taking the club out of China's hands on this
issue. And as far as stupid spending goes, this would not be all that
expensive.

The US would further use the nationalized mine (ideally do this with multiple
mines) - in a modestly subsidized fashion over time - to build up an enormous
stockpile of rare earths, exactly like and for the same reason as the
strategic petroleum reserve. The US has a small version of this now, it should
increase that drastically.

~~~
pjc50
> There would be no niceness, no pleasantries. All environmental reviews would
> be ignored as a matter of national security, it would be a violent rush to
> production no matter the initial cost

This is how you get things like [http://nmindepth.com/2014/07/07/remembering-
the-largest-radi...](http://nmindepth.com/2014/07/07/remembering-the-largest-
radioactive-spill-in-u-s-history/)

How many people would you poison to, essentially, make a point against China?
Besides, the whole project of demonstrating how the US is a superior place to
China by, er, nationalising a mine at gunpoint, poisoning the surroundings,
and disallowing people legal redress for complaints?

~~~
Chris2048
> the whole project of demonstrating how the US is a superior place

Or just avoiding war. The "point" dissuades china warring against the US.

~~~
pjc50
The nuclear weapons and the carrier battle groups do that, surely?

Messing around with the flow of trade goods to disrupt the economy of other
countries that you're nontheless inextricable from is a form of conflict, but
not a warlike one.

~~~
Chris2048
Petrol is stockpiled because the military needs it, not just the economy. REs
are needed for many military machines too.

------
sytelus
One of the things I worry about is how much of raw materials we have left for
various compounds. As a civilization we are consuming enormous amount of stuff
and dumping them in sea or underground every year. Things like iron, silicon,
aluminium are abundent and we easily have supply for _probably_ few 10s of
thousands of years (at current rate of consumption) however what about
everything else like gold, iridium, rhodium, platinum etc which are required
to make many many things we treasure dearly. When might this party end?

~~~
Isinlor
W can mine asteroids:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)

~~~
ryanmercer
But saying "mine asteroids" is like walking up to a stone age man and saying
"why are you walking, just build a Bugatti Veyron and drive there dummy".

Even if we do develop technology to mine asteroids (note that several of the
companies that were attempting this in recent years have gone out of business
or been acquired extremely cheaply) it's still a relatively short term
solution. The asteroid belt only contains material equal to (roughly) 4% of
the mass of the Moon.

That 4% mass of the Moon is spread out over mind boggling distances that
doesn't even start untill roughly beyond the orbit of Mars. At those
distances, PV power is going to be worthless, even at Mars the maximum solar
irradiance is only about 59% of that on Earth so you're going to need to
either build massive solar arrays and use wireless transmission to get the
power down to the mining craft/drones (which will have to have considerable
batteries in the event they get out of line of sight) or power them with some
sort of nuclear solution.

Now, you'll be pulling a good deal of material off that you use purely for
reaction mass. You'll also be pulling off a lot of stuff that won't really be
worth sending back to Earth in any appreciable quantity like nickel and iron
(although could be useful for construction in space and possibly worth sending
to Mars) so when you do actually get to rare earths/precious metals you'll
likely be able to mine more in a decade (if not a year) than earth has ever of
say gold or platinum metal groups, but by even assuming you develop all the
technology you need to do this, by the time you safely land it back on Earth
it'll still be fantastically expensive to get to point of first delivery and a
very very time consuming process purely due to the distances and practical
limit on reaction mass for accelerating and decelerating.

Then you're still only talking 4% the mass of the Moon, if you were making a
decent effort at mining the asteroids you might pull worthwhile material out
for a century or two before you've exhausted the bulk of it and then it is
"well, I hope we've developed FTL travel or generation ships!"

~~~
bwhmather
To access an equivalent amount of mass from the moon you would need to strip
mine it to a depth of about 23.5km. On earth it would be about 1km. Your point
about losing a lot of it as reaction mass still stands, but 4% of the moon is
actually quite a lot.

~~~
ryanmercer
> but 4% of the moon is actually quite a lot.

Yes, and it is spread out over a huge amount of space. The asteroid belt
occupies 1AU of space that starts 2.2 AU out and and ends 3.2 AU out.

Sure, roughly half of the belt's mass is contained in just four asteroids -
Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea.

Ceres alone is the 33rd largest known object in our solar system and simply
mining it might be realistic but its orbit is 2.5-3 AU out but from what we've
observed it is estimated to be 20% carbon by mass in its near surface, that is
a LOT of material that you have to remove just to get at other stuff. With a
(believed) rocky core, you have 70-190km of ice that likely varies
considerably in composition and concentration.

Even if you can get out there, even if you can mine it at -36F in direct
sunlight, you're going to have a world of trouble doing it and may not even
find a worthwhile concentration of materials you actually want, you may be
processing ice and dust attempting to skim the rare earths and precious metals
out of the dust.

------
ngcc_hk
Thought there are two tactic resources that threatening USA - rare earth which
china news agent starting to voice about. But that may slowdown economy but
unlike chip probably can really be stored.

The second one is antibiotics. Not sure about that one. It can kill as it is
now t easy to replace in short term and demand is inelastic to a certain
extent. Wonder more about that more.

------
_bxg1
I'm sure this is wildly naive, but I'm a little surprised we haven't figured
out how to synthesize these minerals. Maybe it's just not economically
worthwhile.

~~~
zamfi
Indeed. Rare earths are specific elements in the periodic table. The only way
we could "synthesize" these elements is atomically -- by bombarding other
elements with nucleons and hope they stick or split. "Not economically
worthwhile" is a massive understatement. :)

A similar process is required to turn lead into gold!

~~~
burfog
We're doing it already, in every nuclear power plant. We might as well harvest
the results. Many won't be radioactive, with the problematic isotopes
disappearing quickly, and anyway we know how to separate isotopes.

Particularly common: yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, and samarium.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_products_(by_element)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_products_\(by_element\))

For political reasons, the USA is one of the few nuclear countries that does
not reprocess fuel. Besides missing out on rare earths, we're discarding about
95% of the uranium as waste. (discarding about 90% of the energy, with
overhead taking a bit) Russia, China, France, India, and Pakistan all have
reprocessing plants.

~~~
zamfi
Is this actually a significant source of rare earth elements? My understanding
is that they’re rare compared with things like carbon, nitrogen, etc. Cerium,
one of the rare earths, is apparently more common than copper, even.

Seems like extracting them from spent nuclear fuel would be much less economic
than just grinding them out of rocks, but IANANE.

------
daodedickinson
30 December 2018

~~~
utopcell
Still within the centuries time window. :-)

------
sgt101
2018?

------
jayalpha
Bullshit

[https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2018/05/rare-earth-
depl...](https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2018/05/rare-earth-depletion-
non-solution-for.html)

