Comment on China has stopped exporting rare earths to everyone, not just the U.S., cutting off critical materials for tech, autos, aerospace, and defense

Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

• Avg@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  They are not nearly as rare as the name implies.

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  • jayandp@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    The rarity is the ability to do it without caring about the massive environmental damage often caused while procuring the minerals.

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  • captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Check my understanding here: It’s not that they’re scarce, but there’s no geological process that concentrates them like copper or gold. There aren’t any neodymium seams the way there are gold seams, there’s a very little amount everywhere. So you might as well sift the entire Mojave.

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    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Yeah there’s a reason people were saber rattling over those offshore deposits Japan claimed, and it’s not because undersea mining is cheap and efficient or “they’re on every continent what’s the big deal”

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  • meliaesc@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Finding the labor to mine and process it cheaply enough to maintain profit margins, while simultaneously deporting everyone, is what makes things rare.

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