CDZ At What Point will Rare Earth Processing Take Off?

[william the wie]

Despite the name Rare Earths are not especially rare but they have different magnetic effects that makes processing difficult. With China throwing its weight around on processing rare earths how soon will cheaper processing techniques be discovered and by who?

I am particularly interested in what will happen when happen in the stock market when new processing techniques take off and another round of tech start up bubbles begin. Any Ideas?

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

Appalachia will blossom ...

 

[OldLady]

Despite the name Rare Earths are not especially rare but they have different magnetic effects that makes processing difficult. With China throwing its weight around on processing rare earths how soon will cheaper processing techniques be discovered and by who?

I am particularly interested in what will happen when happen in the stock market when new processing techniques take off and another round of tech start up bubbles begin. Any Ideas?

Rare earth mining has begun in one location in Alaska and there are many potential sites for exploration. The trick is separating one from the other after you've got it above ground. However, they say they've figured that out too.
Critical Minerals Alaska – Rare Earths

 

[william the wie]

Appalachia will blossom ...

Definitely possible.

 

[Moonglow]

Despite the name Rare Earths are not especially rare but they have different magnetic effects that makes processing difficult. With China throwing its weight around on processing rare earths how soon will cheaper processing techniques be discovered and by who?

I am particularly interested in what will happen when happen in the stock market when new processing techniques take off and another round of tech start up bubbles begin. Any Ideas?

Rare earth mining has begun in one location in Alaska and there are many potential sites for exploration. The trick is separating one from the other after you've got it above ground. However, they say they've figured that out too.
Critical Minerals Alaska – Rare Earths

Northern Nevada for lithium.

 

[Moonglow]

I don't see how coal is a rare Earth mineral unless they are referencing anthracite coal..

 

[Third Party]

Despite the name Rare Earths are not especially rare but they have different magnetic effects that makes processing difficult. With China throwing its weight around on processing rare earths how soon will cheaper processing techniques be discovered and by who?

I am particularly interested in what will happen when happen in the stock market when new processing techniques take off and another round of tech start up bubbles begin. Any Ideas?

I don't doubt the techniques have been purchased by the US already. They won't be released until the market needs it or until China needs a pimp slap.

 

[OldLady]

I don't see how coal is a rare Earth mineral unless they are referencing anthracite coal..

In the article I linked, it said rare earth minerals tend to be in veins with gold. Not a lot of that in Appalachia, I think.

 

[Crixus]

Despite the name Rare Earths are not especially rare but they have different magnetic effects that makes processing difficult. With China throwing its weight around on processing rare earths how soon will cheaper processing techniques be discovered and by who?

I am particularly interested in what will happen when happen in the stock market when new processing techniques take off and another round of tech start up bubbles begin. Any Ideas?

Well, it won’t be American that’s for sure. We have about 8 generations of uneducated lay about types pouring across the border daily so it will likely be someone in India or Pakistan that does it.

 

[task0778]

Businesses will find ways to more cheaply extract the REEs, or they'll find alternatives that works as well. As we all are well aware, money talks. When it becomes worthwhile, people will develop new ideas, probably several of them. From Scientific American, a few days ago:

Some industries that rely on rare earth elements are going outside the box and looking for ways to bypass mining entirely. After all, such operations in China and elsewhere have significant environmental impacts that can threaten human health in the absence of strict regulation. The presence of radioactive thorium in some ore is one example. In addition, some mining and separation processes involve chemicals that produce toxic wastewater. All of these dangerous byproducts require scrupulous storage and disposal.

With China threatening to weaponize its advantage when it comes to rare earth elements, more companies may invest in innovations that could replace these materials with something else. Gholz points to a 2010 incident in which China temporarily cut off Japan from its supply of rare earth elements. Afterward, Japanese automakers such as Toyota and Honda began developing hybrid car motors that greatly reduced or even eliminated rare earth elements, such as terbium and dysprosium, from the powerful magnets used in electric motors.

During the 2010 supply scare, other large industries that used rare earth elements also discovered they could do without some of them. Oil refinery operators temporarily stopped using the rare earth element lanthanum, which improves oil refining efficiency, when the price went up. The glassmaking industry largely abandoned using the rare earth element cerium for polishing. Although industries related to national security would be unable to entirely forgo rare earth minerals, Gholz thinks the U.S. military's demand could be "easily satisfied by non-Chinese production" because this need represents less than 5 percent of the total market.

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE

In any case, a variety of industries will continue to rely heavily on rare earth minerals. To obtain them without depending on Chinese or U.S. mines, they could recycle those elements already used in products, says Eric Schelter, a professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, whose research projects include developing new chemical processes for separating rare earth elements from ore. "The appeal here is that there has already been a significant energy input and waste output to purify rare earth elements from their ore materials," he says. "Simply throwing them away is therefore wasteful, considering that in technological devices, they are typically relatively pure compared to their ores."

He pointed to many research projects at both academic and government labs: the latter include the U.S. Department of Energy's Critical Materials Institute at the Ames Laboratory and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For example, rare earth elements such as neodymium and dysprosium are frequently combined in permanent magnets. To separate them, Schelter's lab has developed chemical processes that can selectively dissolve one rare earth element while the other remains solid. It's a "fast and efficient approach to metals separation," he says, but the cost is currently not competitive with mining. Still, he thinks that could change because the market price of rare earth elements is currently kept "artificially low"—it does not account for the cost of waste treatment and handling during the mining and separation processes. If the recycled versions of these materials were marketed as cleaner alternatives to mined rare earth elements, it might encourage companies seeking a greener image to pay more for them.

"Consumers recognize the importance of free trade coffee and consequences of blood diamonds," Schelter says. "It stands to reason that ethical cobalt and clean or recycled rare earth elements can contribute to a more sustainable picture for this industry."

Don't Panic About Rare Earth Elements

 

[william the wie]

Also Soyuz and Skylab experiments found out many ways of using micro-gravity to hit levels of refining that are down right magical compared to refining in macro-gravity.

 

[Picaro]

California has a major source of them; they closed the mines when most of the electronics factories off-shored and moved to the Asian sweatshops and labor camps. Other sources will be found as soon as it becomes cost effective for domestic production to start up again. No real problem for the U.S.

 

[Staidhup]

When it is financially feasible.