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Major Find By Japanese Scientists May Threaten Chinese Rare Earth Hegemony
cold fjord writes "It looks like deep sea exploration may pay off big time as Japanese scientists have located rich deposits of rare earth elements on the sea floor in Japanese Exclusive Economic Zone waters, following up on their find two years ago of huge deposits of rare earths in mid-Pacific waters. The cumulative effect of these finds could significantly weaken Chinese control of 90% of the world supply of rare earth metals, which the Chinese have been using to flex their muscles. The concentration of rare earth metals in the Japanese find is astonishing: up to 6,500 ppm, versus 500-1,000 ppm for Chinese mines. The newly identified deposits are just 2-4 meters below sea floor which could make for relatively easy mining compared to the 10+ meters they were expecting... if they can get there. The fact that the deposits are 5,700 meters deep means there is just one or two little problems to resolve : 'A seabed oil field has been developed overseas at a depth of 3,000 meters. . . But the development of seabed resources at depths of more than 5,000 meters has no precedent, either at home or abroad. There remains a mountain of technological challenges, including how to withstand water pressure and ocean currents and how to process the mining products in the ocean, sources said.'"
We have plenty of rare earths in the USA. Only the absurd policies regarding treating thorium (which has a 14 billion year half life) as a dangerous nuclear waste, requiring prohibitively expensive disposal, keeps us from taking advantage of those resources. note: Coal fired power plants get to treat the radioactive nuclear material in their fly ash as a natural byproduct and so are completely unregulated.
That's basically space technology - building autonomous vehicles operating in extreme conditions doing useful work. Almost like space mining, although in a different environment. For the Japanese, this could be their equivalent of the Apollo project. I find it an interesting technical challenge. But you're right that if rare earth elements are the only thing to be extracted from these seabeds, they'll end up with huge piles of tailings. Well, I guess that would be one of the the tough tech problem to crack...
Ezekiel 23:20
Cue China's claim these areas "have always belonged to China", like Senkaku Islands, in 3.. 2... 1...
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Anyway, I thought the problem wasn't finding the deposits (they're everywhere, and rare earths aren't that "rare").
The problem here is competing with China's willingness to pollute the absolute living fuck out of their own back yard, to refine the ores cheaper than everyone else.
If Japan and the West wanted to do something REALLY useful -- find refining methods that are less polluting and resource intensive -- or find substitute substances and processes to avoid the need for rare earth metals completely.