

Japan Discovers Large Precious Metal Deposit in Seabed - philco
http://www.tokyotimes.com/2012/japan-makes-amazing-discovery-in-the-pacific/

======
drucken
This article keeps rearing its head every 6 months/year, even on HN
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1886895>).

It will be a very long time before mining the seabed for rare earth minerals
will be anywhere near as economically viable (or even environmentally-
friendly) as traditional mining.

It is just that everyone has relied on China for so long for this dirty
(literal sense) industry that they are now effectively being held hostage. It
is not due to the fact that "rare earth minerals" are actually rare and for a
large part of the 20th century, the US, for example, was one of the primary
producers and exporters.

~~~
jsm386
It does seem like there has been progress made/realistic goals in mind. I
submitted this Times piece earlier today:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/science/vast-deposits-
of-g...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/science/vast-deposits-of-gold-and-
other-ores-lure-seabed-miners.html?hp)

There are contracts for delivery in place: Meanwhile, Tong Ling, China’s
largest importer of copper concentrates and one of the world’s largest copper
smelters, recently signed a deal with Nautilus for more than a million tons of
Pacific sulfide ores per year — an amount equal to about 5 percent of the
world’s copper production.

------
nekojima
From original post: "mud samples taken from the seabed around 5,600 metres
(18,300 feet) down"

The techniques to extract these deposits would likely be similar to deep sea
oil extraction. Their proposed timeline of production in five years is
optimistic, especially given these are just the initial samples.

Original post: [http://news.yahoo.com/japan-finds-major-rare-earth-
deposits-...](http://news.yahoo.com/japan-finds-major-rare-earth-deposits-
researcher-091926573--finance.html)

------
ChuckMcM
Fascinating, not sure if you can easily mine the stuff underwater though.

~~~
Tycho
It seems reasonable to assume that we'll develop the technology to do so in
the not so distant future...

~~~
ChuckMcM
Really? It was looking to me like the Mountain Pass mine would re-open and
once a 'stable' supply was available again it would reduce investment in
alternate supplies.

I've seen research into replacing rare-earths with other more common materials
but haven't seen any serious work into underwater mining (except the fringe
stuff where people are pulling gold out of seawater but that doesn't seem
'well funded' to me).

Do you know of any underwater mining projects other than the Scripps Institute
and Woods Hole ones?

