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Rare Earth Deposit Discovered In US
s31523 writes "With China having 97% of the market share of rare earth elements, many countries are nervous about being able to get supplies of key elements needed for high tech gear. Quantum Rare Earths Developments Corp. has reported they have discovered a potential huge source of rare earth elements, right in the middle of the U.S. While the USGS reports that the U.S. has an estimated 13 million metric tonnes available for mining (about 1/3 of China's reserves), finding another regular source is crucial to global stability. The potential yield of the deposit, found in Nebraska, could be the world's largest source for Niobium and other rare earth elements. Could this be the next gold rush?"
At stewarding its own resources, preferring instead to buy resources from other countries that do not have the level of regulation we have. We have plenty of oil, gas, rate earth metals etc... we just don't go after it.
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
that the US has no shortage of rare earth deposits...we have shortage of rare earth refining....
We already knew that the USA had large deposits of rare earth elements.
It is just cheaper to buy them from China than to mine and process what is available domestically.
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
Can we refine them here and export the waste to China for 'disposal,' or do we only get to ignore the environmental problem if they produce the waste themselves?
So Nebraska has something worthwhile! That is news!
With the price of corn these days, I'd say they have something else that's worthwhile.
The last US Rare Earth mine closed because it was an ecological nightmare to smelt the ore, not because it ran out. Since this is a new vein and not a new smelting process, it'll be doomed to failure the exact same way, so will the (relatively) new vein in Idaho. Short of the EPA rolling over on a mine that will be a superfund site within months of opening in a Democratic administration (anyone want to figure the odds of that?), this mine will be a non-starter.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
Most rare earth minerals are actually not that valuable. They're necessary and quite abundant. The reason China controls the trade is that they have been willing thus far to run operations which mine at great cost for minimal profit. They've been buying operations in Africa and on other continents where large stores are found. In order for a US company to want to mine these minerals there will have to be a critical uptick in price, and that will raise prices on a number of important manufactured goods.
This is good news for Nebraska. The western side of the state is very sparsely populated, and getting more so as kids leave small towns for the city. More than half the state's population live in the two cities of Omaha and Lincoln. Getting development and jobs out there will help keep small town life alive for longer.
The troubling part is that western Nebraska is over the Ogallala aquifer that supplies water to much of the plains states. I shudder to think what would happen if it got contaminated with rare-earths.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Er, no. Rare earths aren't actually that rare. The reason we get them from China isn't because they have a monopoly on the source. They just have the cheapest labor to dig them out of the ground.
"Rare earths" aren't that rare. They're just at low concentrations, which makes for an inefficient mining operation. Getting rid of the waste products is a big problem. Molycorp has re-opened a rare earth mine in California, and is expanding capacity.
There are other rare earth mines in the US. There's no shortage of places to mine. It's just that, until recently, it wasn't profitable.
You misspelled bubble.
You're worried about this because you saw a fictional company in a fictional movie that did bad things?
You need therapy. Jesus, what is wrong with you?
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/joke may help answer that question.
There is a very good reason for this. Rare earths aren't really that rare. What makes them "rare" (or I should say scarce) is how difficult it is to process them into their raw oxide. This is not an easy process. You can't just dig them out of the ground and sell the dirt to a laser making company.
So the next company that will be coming online is the Australian Lynas Corp with their processing plant in Malaysia and the worlds largest single rare earth deposit in Western Australia. The Malaysian processing plant is costing a lot of money to build - not the sort of capital an individual has.
Check this out:
http://www.lynascorp.com/page.asp?category_id=1&page_id=25
That gives you an idea of how rare earths have outpaced gold in the last 2 years.
Next I believe is USA's Molycorp (I may be wrong on that but I think that is right).
So what if there are minerals? We have lots of natural mineral and petroleum and other fossil fuel resources all over the US. Every time anyone wants to mine or drill for them, the environmentalists step in a file lawsuits to stop or delay the mining or drilling.
In southern California, environmentalists are trying to stop solar power stations out in the desert by suing to prevent the power lines that would carry the electricity to where people live.
So there's a solution to the rare earths problem. What difference does it make if we won't be allowed to use it?
"finding another regular source is crucial to global stability"
Ha! It's in the US, it's good for US stability! Sheesh, like the primary concern of the US is strictly the world at large. I'm a liberal and a citizen of the world (as much as anyone else), but let's be honest here.
The US is rich in natural resources. Yes, the jobs may go overseas - but our mineral deposits, forests, fisheries, energy resources (coal, to name 1), and all the other things I'm forgetting to mention - will stay here. (Assuming we don't let our international trade policy to become lopsided against our general well being.)
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Quick, everyone! Some country has a rare metal we can harvest. Grab a gun and let's invade.
Perhaps I'm trolling, perhaps I'm not.
There's IRONY in this here post! Wee-hee! *prospector dance*
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The were either not developed or closed because they were more costly than offshore. But that is changing.
I want to know how many cell phones this rare earth deposit is equivalent to.
no, it is copper
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein
a href="http://www.lynascorp.com/page.asp?category_id=1&page_id=25">yes/
The "rush" isn't in the resources itself, but the stocks of the company. If you do a GoogleNews search for "rare earth" and "nebraska", you'll find that them majority of the reports are through "market" sources. It's hype so that day traders will invest thus allowing original investors to sell at higher prices, get out, and watch it deflate because they all know that rare-earth mining and smelting is such a dirty business that the EPA won't allow it.
The only way to get them to work is to have someone with a whip stand behind them. That will only get them to work hard enough not to get whipped.
You would be better off just having the whip cracker do the work.
No country that runs its economy on slavery has ever been able to out compete a country of free people working for their own benefit.
Black slaves did not build the USA. They didn't even build the south.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You have it backwards. You are witnessing the dollar bubble popping. Gold is just sitting there being worth what it always is worth.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
You scream about environmentalist and say that we will not mine rare earth. Yet, California pass re-starts later this year. Likewise, they will be doing the refining HERE, and producing magnets in USA. So, california pass's re-start shoots down the BS about not having any. In addition, other nations have plenty of mining and that includes Canada and many nations in EU. How clean are their operations? Clean.
The problem is NOT environmentalist. It is business execs that want to have the lowest cost by producing goods in a similar fashion as China. It is not going to happen. Yet companies make loads of money by simply putting up a clean operation right from the gitgo.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The Fear of a Toxic Rerun
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/business/global/30rare.html?pagewanted=all
A $230 million refinery being built here in an effort to break China's global chokehold on rare earth metals is plagued by environmentally hazardous construction and design problems, according to internal memos and current and former engineers on the project.
...
But the construction and design may have serious flaws, according to the engineers, who also provided memos, e-mail messages and photos from Lynas and its contractors. The engineers said they felt a professional duty to voice their safety concerns, but insisted on anonymity to avoid the risk of becoming industry outcasts.
TFA goes into detail about all the problems that have been discovered and some of the corners that have been cut.
I sure as hell wouldn't want the future superfund site that's described in TFA to be in my State.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
These are not minor problems - they are building a plant that handles 90C slightly-radioactive acid-abrasive slurry on a reclaimed swamp out of regular concrete, with no moisture barrier between the ground and the concrete, with cracks and voids in the walls of the already inadequate concrete, and connecting these tanks with pipes made out of regular non-corrosion resistant steel. The moisture from the ground is going to crumble the concrete, the slurry is going to eat through the pipes, and then go right into the ground. Not good.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Holy brainwashing batman!
Even if money ends in hands of "illegal aliens", they'll spend most of it consuming local services and satisfying basic needs. That will create jobs and stimulate economy.
When government workers get raises, private workers have to get raises as well as private workplace would become less competitive when hunting for workers. Also, government workers, like illegal aliens would spend it on services and basic needs, creating jobs and stimulating economy.
Your third claim, raising salaries of those who are already well off is what tax raises is supposed to PREVENT. Because wealthy rarely spend money locally, instead investing it into whatever brings them most return, which is rarely something in the local economy, and often is against local economy. Mortgage crisis and many similar ways to earn money from crashing or massively slowing economy down would like a word with you, as would investments in companies that simply outsource, eliminating local jobs and cutting local economy at its knees. Which is what is happening in the West (USA, Canada, EU region, Australia, Japan etc wealthy countries) - we're approaching the levels where capital controls so much power that its self-destructive potential is starting to overpower host country's ability to survive it.
This is basic economics: capitalism is functional as long as it's properly guided so that it's natural tendency to become self-destructive is kept in check while it's positive drive for more competitiveness is supported. For examples of self-destructive nature of capitalism when unguided, you should take a look at the biggest crises that occurred in twentieth century - most of them have roots in failure to control the aforementioned self-destructive nature resulting in capitalism simply self-destructing. From bank crashes to motions that led to starting of WW2, collapse of capitalist system due to it running out of control has traditionally been one of the root causes.
This is what strikes me as amazing about people who complain about this issue - the sheer amount of doublethink required to actually believe that things they spout are correct, when it's at conflict with basic economics which you really don't need a degree to understand.
Fine, you people won't do my googling for me, I did it myself; Yes, and yes. "otcqx" and the company site's Investor's page.
Second question: How do I buy shares from the OTCQX marketplace? US based online brokers have no idea what I'm talking about....
For optimal comment enjoyment, take red pill now.
It's not about whether it can be got elsewhere, it's all about whether they can mine it as cheaply as China does.