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Supplies of Rare Earth Elements Exhausted By 2017
tomhudson writes "While we bemoan the current oil crisis, I ran across an editorial that led me to research a more immediate threat. Ramped-up production of flat-panel displays means the material to make them will be 'extinct' by 2017. This goes for other electronics as well. Quoting: 'The element gallium is in very short supply and the world may well run out of it in just a few years. Indium is threatened too, says Armin Reller, a materials chemist at Germany's University of Augsburg. He estimates that our planet's stock of indium will last no more than another decade. All the hafnium will be gone by 2017 also, and another twenty years will see the extinction of zinc. Even copper is an endangered item, since worldwide demand for it is likely to exceed available supplies by the end of the present century.' More links at the journal entry."
We still haven't even begun to use our Upsidasium supply.
Surely it will last us forever.
I just pooped your party.
*Tries to shoot self but fails due to gun not functioning without Zinc*
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Come back, zinc, come back!
*Whew*, it was just a dream. Thank goodness I still live in a world of telephones, car batteries, handguns [*bang*!] and many things made of zinc.
find a substitute
I hear Quake 5 for the abacus is going to be awesome!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Pennies are zinc.
Maybe that's another good reason to stop making pennies.
If I had a nickel for every time I had a nickel, I'd be richcursive!
actually vacuum tubes were depleting our reserves of vacuum. By the time they went out of use, there was no vacuum left on earth! Some proposed mining vacuum from deep space, but it wasn't practical.
*mines veldspar*
So that's it then: we HAVE to go discover Rare Moon elements, Rare Mars elements, Rare Ganymede elements, ad infinitum...
It's all a cunning plan by NASA to stay employed!
(do I really NEED to put a '/sarc' after this?)
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
what happens when we run out of carbon?
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Food is becoming extinct as well. We're starting to burn everything we grow.
Most of the stuff on
It means it's time to start hoarding pennies.
I think they're good reasons to see pennies as a good investment.
So all of my invested dollars are worth more not less?
I'm not not licking toads.
Once the prawn industry realizes that without the rare earth elements they won't be able to push Brazilian flatulence prawn on the 22" flat screen monitors it'll only take them a few minutes to come up with a solution. For that matter, tell them they can't take ANY more pictures of Japanese naked squid sumo girls until they find a way to produce cheap gas (not the B.F.P. kind) and the problem will be solved.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
ad infinitum
It's a good thing we have plenty of infinitum.
It looks like we will have enough to get through Dec 21, 2012. That's all we need.
Indeed. Will you sign up to be a slave rower?
I hate printers.
so you HAVE had my wife's cooking!
Some people are like slinkys. They're useless, but it puts a smile on your face to push them down the stairs.
An economist and a chemist were discussing the final exams they produce for their students.
The chemist bemoaned about how he had to change the questions every year to prevent cheating.
The economist said he gave the same questions every year.
The chemist said "So how do you catch cheaters?"
"The correct ANSWERS change every year."
Kevin Smith on Prince
*Points at silicon*
from TFA: "But we can't exactly set up a reservation somewhere where the supply of gallium and hafnium can quietly replenish itself."
Don't we have lots of Indium reservations throughout the American southwest? Why don't we, you know, just use that?
blah blah blah
The coming global depletion of supplies of Illudium Phosdex, the shaving cream atom, makes me angry, very angry. Without it, we cannot manufacture the Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator and civilization will crash. Damn you, Al Gore.
We'll just counter it by genetically engineering cows that fart backwards.
"Thank goodness I still live in a world of telephones, car batteries, handguns and many things made of zinc."
And in the history of mankind this has happened: NEVER!
Reminds me of the old joke about the guy falling off a building - as he sees floor after floor flash past, he keeps thinking, "So far, so good. So far, so good."
All joking aside, there have been situations where civilizations have collapsed because of resource shortages. Look at the Maya, for example. They had a civilization comparable to Rome, with far superior agricultural technology. However, when their population exceeded their ability to grow food, the entire civilization vanished in a paroxysm of war and famine.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Recycling is just part of the radical agenda to destroy America by making us drive smaller cars, which means smaller families which mean birth control which means the End of Christianity. I saw it on Fox News
Shame about Unobtainium, I can't seem to get it anywhere.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Wouldn't it be more fair to say that it's not reasonable or economically feasible to mine metals off the moon today? It seems pretty pessimistic to assume that we won't be able to do it tomorrow, necessity being the mother of invention and all that...
It's pretty safe to assume it won't be feasible tomorrow either, with the approaching holiday and all that. Check back next week.
Although eventually we'll just need to build more ad infinitum siphons, too.
As long as we can make them out of infinitum, we should be in good shape...
I just had a fleeting image of round, inflated cows rolling lazily around a field.
Thank you for making my day.
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How many Libertarians does it take to stop a Soviet tank battalion?
None: the free market will sort it out.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Indium is derogatory. The accepted term is Native Americium.
That and a whole lot more, thanks for asking.