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CMI Director Alex King Talks About Rare Earth Supplies (Video)
CMI in this context is the Critical Materials Institute at the Iowa State Ames Laboratory in Ames, Iowa. They have partners from other national laboratories, universities, and industry, too. Rare earths, while not necessarily as rare as the word "rare" implies, are hard to mine, separate, and use. They are often found in parts per million quantities, so it takes supercomputers to suss out which deposits are worth going after. This is what Dr. King and his coworkers spend their time doing; finding concentrations of rare earths that can be mined and refined profitably.
On November 3 we asked you for questions to put to Dr. King. Timothy incorporated some of those questions into the conversation in this video -- and tomorrow's video too, since we broke this into two parts because, while the subject matter may be fascinating, we are supposed to hold video lengths down to around 10 minutes, and in this case we still ended up with two videos close to 15 minutes each. And this stuff is important enough that instead of lining up a list of links, we are giving you one link to Google using the search term "rare earths." Yes, we know Rare Earth would be a great name for a rock band. But the mineral rare earths are important in the manufacture of items from strong magnets to touch screens and rechargeable batteries. (Alternate Video Link)
On November 3 we asked you for questions to put to Dr. King. Timothy incorporated some of those questions into the conversation in this video -- and tomorrow's video too, since we broke this into two parts because, while the subject matter may be fascinating, we are supposed to hold video lengths down to around 10 minutes, and in this case we still ended up with two videos close to 15 minutes each. And this stuff is important enough that instead of lining up a list of links, we are giving you one link to Google using the search term "rare earths." Yes, we know Rare Earth would be a great name for a rock band. But the mineral rare earths are important in the manufacture of items from strong magnets to touch screens and rechargeable batteries. (Alternate Video Link)
I read somewhere (maybe on another /. forum) that a lot of garbage dumps now contain more rare-earth elements than high density deposits. Would something like plasma gasification solve two problems at once?
Could be total bunkum...any body with real knowledge care to chip in?
Videos are a worthless communication medium when the intent is the transfer propositional (rather than visual) information. I can't scan a video the way I can scan text, it's hard to pick out when questions are being asked without watching the entire thing, I can't control the rate of information dispersal, etc. etc.
There is no reason for this to be a video, or for it to be in two parts for that matter. Oh wait, there is, but only for your corporate overlords: money.
"Dr. Ames and his coworkers" should be "Dr. King and his coworkers"
"And this stuff is important enough that instead of lining up a list of links, we are giving you one link to Google using the search term "rare earths." "
And said search term brings up totally different results depending upon your geographical area, some of which lead you to nothing worth value.
It's like the editors of this once-venerable tech blog have totally forgotten about tech and stories they've covered in the past.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
That would be because the problem was by and large resolved.
Metal prices can fluctuate by several orders of magnitude in the short term. They can fluctuate to a moderate degree in the mid-term. But the long-term trend of metals as a whole is almost always downward (excepting "investment metals", which are inherently distorted by investors). There's no shortage of anything in the crust. The crust is unimaginably massive. It's always a question of what you've found, what extraction processes you've gotten mature enough to compete, and what infrastructure you've actually built. As a general rule, most resource "reserves" rise over time, not drop, because each tech advancement tends to put exponentially more resource into play.
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Don't forget that Afghanistan has an estimated about 1 Trillion $USD worth of rare earth metals. One day they will get their shit sorted out and move into the 20th century. Then they will be mining and making billionaires and eventually a tech industry. By then the metals will be worth even more.