

Tiny village in Nebraska hides world’s largest rare earth mineral deposits - ukdm
http://www.geek.com/articles/news/tiny-village-in-nebraska-hides-worlds-largest-rare-earth-mineral-deposits-2011085/

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gtvwill
I could have sworn china only held 97% of the worlds current stock of
processed rare earth minerals...rather than the actual deposits themselves.
Not to mention the rarity of these processed minerals elsewhere is not due to
the scarcity but rather due to the heavy processing & costs required to
extract them...Which is why the mines that do so are rare in their own way.

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jessriedel
> Not to mention the rarity of these processed minerals elsewhere is not due
> to the scarcity but rather due to the heavy processing & costs required to
> extract them.

This distinction is only important if we consider a future where technological
advances significantly bring down the cost of extraction. Here and now, the
only thing that is important is the amount that is extractable for a
reasonable price. (Or, more specifically, the shape of the supply curve.) If
there were a trillion trillion tons of the stuff behind an invisible force-
field that we couldn't get past, that would nominally remove the scarcity but
it wouldn't practically matter.

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_delirium
True, but the barriers can also be of several types, which would matter when
looking at how persistent they're likely to be. For example, if China
dominates because its reserves are significantly easier to extract technically
(e.g. closer to the surface, higher concentration), that would be a different
situation than if it's more due to environmental or regulatory policies, or to
labor costs.

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killerswan
This may vindicate what I've been saying for years: "we don't need to mine
asteroids, there's more of whatever you want in some corner of Nebraska!"

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nyrath
I was under the impression that the extraction and purification of rare earth
elements was such an ecological catastrophe that environmental protection laws
in the US had made the existing mines in the US so unprofitable that they shut
down.

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46Bit
It's a little more complex than that, but I'd say that's what it boils down
to. There's all sorts of horrible stuff that gets mined along with the rare
earths, much of it exceedingly hazardous.

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saulrh
"largest _untapped_ deposit"

Emphasis mine. This is still an awesome find, but it would be better if these
deposits were also large in absolute terms. Is there any chance someone has
found better details?

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blutonium
It's a pretty sizable deposit, but it's underground. That means it'll be
pricier to extract, and not all of the ore can be mined. Looks like lower
grade than the Chinese deposits currently mined too, and it's a different mix
of elements.

<http://www.quantumrareearth.com/projects.html>

[http://www.iamgold.com/English/Operations/Operating-
Mines/Ni...](http://www.iamgold.com/English/Operations/Operating-Mines/Niobec-
Niobium-Mine/Mining-Processing/default.aspx) \- a similar deposit in Quebec.

<http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2002/fs087-02/fs087-02.pdf> \- good summary of REEs

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pohl
Elk Creek is a 30 mile drive from where I was born and raised.

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mikelbring
Where is that at? I grew up in Peru outside of Auburn, went to school in
Auburn.

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pohl
Awesome! I was born in Auburn, grew up in Brock, took piano lessons at and
skateboarded the hills of Peru, and went to high school in Johnson. Small
world.

My first exposure to computation was in a basement room at Peru State College,
where Stan McCaslin set me up to play Trek on a line printer terminal that was
dialed into some machine in Omaha. A couple of years later, the TRS-80 Model I
was released, so this was quite a while ago.

~~~
mikelbring
I think you're a lot older :). I graduated Auburn High School in 2007. My
parents still live in Peru (I moved to Arkansas), my dad works at Cooper
Nuclear Station.

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pohl
Yeah, I was class of `86, so I could be your dad. ;-)

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trebor
Looks like a good opportunity to relegalize mining and do a responsible job of
mining it out. This kind of wealth could really help repay our debts and help
our economy improve. And possibly make things cheaper to make microcircuits
here, rather than in China (where they'd love to sneak some malware into our
government/intelligence agencies).

Nitpick: Sounds like they're "sitting on" rather than "hiding" the deposit.

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nitrogen
I wish articles about rare earth mineral use in high-tech devices would be
more specific about which minerals are used in what components. They love to
say that LCD monitors, cell phones, etc. use rare earth elements, but why, and
how?

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guynamedloren
For those of us who are unfamiliar, could somebody share some insight or
background on these _rare earth minerals_?

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uvdiv
They're a row of elements on the periodic table (lanthanides) which have a
broad range of industrial uses (see the wiki). It is a misnomer, as many of
them aren't particularly rare.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanthanide>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element>

They occur all over the world. The US was once the leading producer, but (IMHO
unreasonable) regulation forced its mines to close (they were in California).
Currently China produces virtually all of them (97%-99%). There's a
geopolitical stink about their protectionism: they're restricting exports,
which (to my understanding) means they're intervening in favor of Chinese
rare-earth consuming manufacturers (e.g. electronics industries). There's also
human issues, in that the mines are a major pollution source and health
hazard, and many (NYT estimates half) are operated illegally by crime
syndicates.

<http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2002/fs087-02/>

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/22/us-china-
rareearth...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/22/us-china-rareearth-
idUSTRE72L10I20110322)

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/14/us-china-
rareearth...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/14/us-china-rareearth-eu-
idUSTRE76D3Q620110714)

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/09/rare-
earth_me...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/09/rare-earth_metals)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/business/global/30smuggle....](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/business/global/30smuggle.html?pagewanted=all)

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joe_the_user
Yes, Your last link certainly bears reading...

The US was happy to allow China to produce the elements in hazardous
conditions just as its happy to allow Chinese to "recycle" circuit boards in
villages where they take them apart by bare hand.

But when China begins restricting the export of these elements, then it is a
scandal.

And no, I am not any kind of fan of China...

