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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.'"
...the Chinese don't have a monopoly exactly. They just undercut the prices any time anyone else tries to operate. I don't know why that wouldn't work against the Japanese as well. But the Chinese can't do it forever, and we all benefit from their cheap REM in the meantime.
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
Seems like this just tells us the concentration, otherwise we already knew this in 2011.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/07/04/2058218/japanese-team-finds-new-source-of-rare-earth-elements
I'm fairly sure that the reason China controls 90% of the market is because they're actually mining their deposits, not because they are the only ones who have deposits. I think there are plans in the U.S. to restart some mines, and surely this is the case elsewhere too. There was a time when it was very uneconomical to run these, so they were mothballed.
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.
How are they going to do that? It's in the Japanese Exclusive Economic Zone, did you read the article or just jumped to posting a reply for the sake of trying to appear clever? They can't clam it but they could just setup shop and start mining, and the Japanese and US and anyone else can park right up next side them.
http://www.ehow.com/about_5423099_ocean-mineral-rights.html
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.
The issue with rare earth metals has never been access to them, contrary to the article, but cost. If it were simply a matter of access, the United States, Australia and other nations have massive supplies. However, producers in those nations were driven out of business because the cost of extracting them in a clean, (relatively) environmentally friendly manner was simply not competitive with the Chinese, who can afford to undercut foreign producers due to their notoriously lax environmental regulations. Now this new methodology may be helpful in that it drives down the cost of production to become competitive again, but I am concerned that it may create tremendous environmental damage.
So, you didn't read his comment at all did you? Just decided to go on an anti space-mining tirade because he mentioned it in a passing simile?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Can you point to a place in space that has the concentration of minerals you want, and is as easily and cheaply accessible as the ocean?
Comparatively? Yes. We know that a significant portion of the asteroid belt bodies are M-type asteroids with very high concentration of iron and nickel. (Just try to imagine a 200 km-sized mountain of virtually pure iron.) If you're in space and need large volumes of structural materials for space use, an M-type asteroid is the place to go. After a certain point, it's going to be cheaper that lifting steel from Earth's gravity well.
Ezekiel 23:20
The problem with rare earths is that they are usually found in conjunction with radioactive ores, particularly containing thorium.
This makes recovery and refining a nasty and if you insist on environmental safety a quite expensive job.
China has been willing to do it on the cheap for the rest of the world. More recently they have realized that other nations have been exporting their environmental issue to China by buying cheap Chinese rare earths. This is coming to an end as China sensibly restricts exports of these materials.
I guess the problem lies in the ecological effect of possible dispersion of the materials over large areas of the ocean. It's not like finely-grained materials don't create a freely-floating suspension in water. Although I guess that one could say that you have to solve the problem anyway, otherwise the machines won't be able to see where they are working, due to all the turbidity around them.
Ezekiel 23:20
The so-called "rare earths" aren't all that rare, the problem lies in the fact that geology-wise, they don't tend to form highly concentrated ore deposits, and basically have to be mined as less-concentrated admixtures in ores of other elements.
Ezekiel 23:20
Not just generators, but a lot of electronics, especially HDDs.
I got here through a series of tubes
That's the plan, and we're ready to film it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0831387/
They could wake up Godzilla
What a douche comment. You can't possibly know what might be found in all those asteroids. There is every reason to suspect that there are rare earths in some of them. There might even be a huge asteroid with such concentrations that it will satisfy our needs for the next thousand years. Exploration is what locates such things.
Obviously, you are opposed to space exploration. Is there a reason for that? Are you afraid of the unknown?
Finally another use for the Hughes Glomar Explorer, a ship built in the 70's under the guise of underwater mining but actully used by the CIA to raise a sunken sub. My daily dose of Irony is now complete.
Google "rare earth thorium regulation". Usually, anti-regulation whining like this gets plenty a mention in right-wing think tank-funded articles and political editorials.
This one gets YouTube propaganda from the thorium reactor proponents and some of their websites. Why is it that, at least in terms of web presence, the only people concerned about this care more about thorium than rare earth minerals?
Probably not news many people here are aware of, but China, and in some cases Russia, have been claiming islands owned and even occupied by Japan are theirs. Most significantly, China claims Okinawa and asserts that Okinawans are genetically Chinese.... therefore... well you get the idea.
Bollocks. Just call the guys from "Bering Sea Gold". They will just get down there and suck up all the Rare Earths....all with the drama that we all love... Show name: "Japanese Exclusive Economic Zone Waters Rare Earths" , or JEEZWRE (working title)
If you think "rare on earth" is in any way part of the point, you aren't paying any attention. People proposing mining asteroids aren't proposing returning the materials they mine to Earth.
The real catch isn't if it is possible but if it is economically feasible. Just like tar sands if the cost and energy required to extract it is too high then it might as well not exist.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Ignorant troll, I'll feed you. If you are in space you want to get the materials from space, i.e. somewhere with a gravity well that is not as bad as Earth. Maybe the moon is good. Asteroids will be useful due to Zero-G which may allow much lower cost exploitation, and many are nearer outer destinations. Plus we will spend more time on mapping asteroids that come near Earth which is a good side benefit spaceguard-wise. There exist ideas for exploitation of space resources that once started can be self-fulfilling and allow Man's leap into space. Yes, it started with Science Fiction. With Capitals. Or didn't you know satellites as communication relays is an idea first promoted by a Science Fiction writer? (Many of whom have scientific or technological backgrounds of their own)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke
They have lots of samples, so they have a pretty good idea of what can be found.
It's possible there are unexpected pockets of concentrations, but it's rather unlikely as those big rocks weren't formed in significant gravity wells that could cause the density based separations. Nor does it appear that they were formed with the same kind of thermal convection type actions that affected Earths geology either.
No, I'm not a geologist, but come on, don't people stay awake during the high school science classes? Or ever catch one of the various educational channels shows on the formation of the solar system?
So which weighs more, a pound of lead or a pound of aerogel? Who cares, my question is how did you fit an entire pound of aerogel in that room?
A pound of lead. No, really, unless you are weighing in a vacuum.
Think of weighing a pound of lead and a pound of wood underwater. The lower density of the wood and the weight of the water displaced makes for the difference. The same holds for air, but for most substances the difference is undetectable. However, lead vs aerogel is easily detectable. By my rough calculations, at room temperature, 1lb of lead weighs 0.99989418lb allowing for air displacement and 1lb of aerogel (at 1.9kg/m^3) weighs 0.368421053lb (and occupies 0.238732632m^3, so it'll fit in the room quite easily)
(Of course, to be ultra pedantic, I'm assuming you mean pound mass rather than pound force here)
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
The Chinese haven't been using "rare earth hegemony" to flex their muscles. The Chinese have correctly identified rare earths as an important strategic resource, and therefore aren't in a hurry to sell them at bargain basement prices to whoever wants them.
This of course, has put the people who like buying rare earths cheaply into a snit, and caused them to put their spin machine into action to demonize this as some kind of belligerent act.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."