US Sits On Supply of Rare, Tech-Crucial Minerals 324
We've recently discussed China's position as the linchpin of the world's supply of rare earths, and their rumblings about restricting exports of of these materials crucial to the manufacture of everything from batteries to wind turbines. Now an anonymous reader sends this MSNBC piece on the status of the US's supply of rare earths. "China supplies most of the rare earth minerals found in technologies such as hybrid cars, wind turbines, computer hard drives, and cell phones, but the US has its own largely untapped reserves that could safeguard future tech innovation. Those reserves include deposits of both 'light' and 'heavy' rare earths... 'There is already a shortage, because there are companies that already can't get enough material,' said Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist who recently retired. 'No one [in the US] wants to be first to jump into the market because of the cost of building a separation plant,' Hedrick explained. ... [S]uch a plant requires thousands of stainless steel tanks holding different chemical solutions to separate out all the individual rare earths. The upfront costs seem daunting. Hedrick estimated that opening just one mine and building a new separation plant might cost anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion and would require a minimum of eight years. [But the CEO of a rare earth supply company said] 'From what I see, security of supply is going to be more important than the prices.'"
Re:No one's thinking long term anymore (Score:5, Informative)
The real reason we are not drilling offshore, is that it will not reduce gas prices more than 2 cents and will not make the US energy independant. There have been extensive studies on this and the oil is not just there. The EIA estimated that offshore drilling would reduce US gas prices by 2 cents. The areas offshore entire states contain enough oil to supply the US for only a few months. We could save more energy if people installed some more insulation in their homes and inflated their tires than we would ever get from offshore oil drilling. The idea that we can solve our problems with domestic drilling is a lie told by the public relations of the Oil Industry and Republican puppets.
The second point is it cannot be done safely. That is a fact. Last year there was a massive oil spill off of Australia using the same "Clean safe" technology that the oil companies wanted to use offshore in the US. The fact is, it would take just one spill to destroy miles of beaches and pollute and contaminate the very seafood we eat. A study of the environment around oil rigs found fish around there with vastly higher levels of heavy metals and the seafloor covered with heavy metals and toxic carcinogens including arsenic. Unfortunately there are some who seem to think it is acceptable to pollute our environment with toxic waste that will kill us in order for oil companies to make some more profit.
Here again we see the oil company propoganda at work. In the real world unexpected things happen, pipes break. An oil rig can have a drill shaft miles deep, a leak anywhere in that can pollute and contaminate ground water, cause long running leaks into the ocean which can last for months and destroy hundreds of miles of ocean environment and beaches.
All of this means offshore drilling simply isnt worth the risk. Just one spill and we have ruined the environment, and for nothing at all, it simply will not solve energy problems.
Re:Supply and demand? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Supply and demand? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, we don't even know how much of the rare earth minerals are in the US. Vast parts of the United States are either under surveyed or not surveyed at all.
I'm up in Alaska and there is a huge fight over expanding mines and new mines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_Mine [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dog_mine [wikipedia.org]
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/rare_earths/mcs-2010-raree.pdf [usgs.gov]
"In 2009, rare earths were not mined in the United States."
Re:More than a short term supply problem (Score:3, Informative)
In the next 50-100 years?
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/rare_earths/mcs-2010-raree.pdf [usgs.gov]
Consumption in the US
7,410
Reserves in the US
13,000,000
1754 years worth
Chinese mining
120,000
Chinese reserves
36,000,000
300 years worth.
Re:Let's channel Frank Spedding (Score:3, Informative)
A bit of a nitpick I guess, but uranium isn't usually considered a rare earth. The transactinides do share some chemistry with them, which is why the Spedding process for uranium purification was used after the war for lanthanides.
The problem with rare earths is that they are very evenly spread out in the crust, they don't tend to form concentrated ores the way most other metals do. There's actually more lanthanides around than many precious metals, for example, it's a problem of purification.
I think there's plenty of uranium in North America, especially in Canada.
Re:shortage?? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Supply and demand? (Score:2, Informative)
Pebble Mine is the big fight here right now, probably the second biggest single copper deposit of its type on the planet.
The main anti-mining group just had to pay 100,000 in "settlement" for funneling money into the anti-mining initiative.
Re:Supply and demand? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, because I really want to get cancer from drinking water that is polluted by the mine that gathers these elements, or die in a mine collapse because the mine owner is too cheep to provide for safety bunkers.
What year do you think this is, 1900? Mining is not perfectly safe. It never ever will be. In 2008 in the US, 15 people died in coal mine accidents. In 2007 the number was 21. In 2007, China -- the worst in the world -- had 4746 deaths.
In 2007 the US produced 1,147 million short tons of coal. China produced 2,795.
By comparison the only European countries with significant coal production are Germany and Poland. Germany produces about 1/5 of the US, and Poland produces even less (this is true presently and in 2007). Numbers for the European countries are hard to find, but accidents are not. Barely 6 months ago (2009) at least 17 miners died in Poland. Google Ruda Soska if you're unfamiliar with it.
Am I missing anything here? Are the very few remaining European coal mines really that different from the US or Canada?
It is why gas is taxed to high in Europe
Is THAT why gas is taxed so highly in Europe?
It is why coal miners in the US die in a collapse, and the European coal miners spend 3-4 days in an emergency shelter waiting to be dug out.
See/rebut above?
Re:US mining is politically uneconomical (Score:5, Informative)
I own a mineral deposit in a central Nevada mining district, though not with any intent to exploit it. I am quite familiar with the regulatory details of mining in the US. It is very different than the caricatures spoon-fed to the public by activist organizations.
Environmental impact studies are fine and necessary. Archaeological impact studies are mostly bullshit; the region is littered from end-to-end with artifacts leftover from the Lake Lahontan civilization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Lahontan), you can find stuff everywhere if you know what to look for. So everyone just pretends that there are no artifacts.
There are two big problems that really make it impossible to profitably mine US deposits. First, there is an environmental lawsuit industry that thrives on delaying the opening of mines until the companies run out of money to deal with them. The lawsuits are mostly bullshit about hypothetical habitats for endangered species and the like; they aren't credible, but that isn't the point and some courts are willing to entertain them indefinitely.
Second, a big problem is that if you pick up a rock, you own it. In the western US mining districts, those rocks are laden with natural concentrations of all sorts of low-value heavy minerals that are magically transformed into "toxic waste" the minute you touch it. This has arguably been the biggest killer of new mining. The obligation to scrub natural mineral formations of elements with no economical value very substantially increases the cost because you end up "mining" metals that have no value. This is particularly problematic for things like rare earth metals -- the mineral complexes are intrinsically "toxic waste" under standard regulatory regimes. It doesn't matter that they are natural, the mining company is obligated to treat nature as a superfund site.
Regulations regarding arsenic in the water have been similarly exploited by environmental activist groups to shut down mining. In many places in the western US, the background levels of arsenic in the groundwater is naturally several times higher than the EPA limits because of the local mineral formations. The way it works now is that if you do mining near those formations, you become responsible for bringing the natural background levels within EPA guidelines -- a fool's errand. So mining companies avoid areas where the local arsenic levels exceed EPA guidelines, lest they become responsible for cleaning up arsenic they didn't produce.
Environmental activists have very cleverly created a regulatory framework that holds mining companies responsible for natural mineral distributions even if the mining companies are in no way responsible. This has effectively outlawed heavy metal mining in the western US because the environment is naturally full of heavy minerals.
Re:Supply and demand? (Score:3, Informative)
There's no straw man except the one you just constructed; we're talking about regulating the mining of TOXIC MINERALS, not putting up a wind farm, and the poster I responded to put forth that regulating these things was a bad idea. If you don't think anybody would argue againt regulating such things, then read the post I responded to.
Re:Supply and demand? (Score:3, Informative)
And by "not wanting to lose a trading partner," you really mean "not wanting to lose the group that lends us boatloads of money."
Re:Not safe? (Score:4, Informative)
sorry you seem to still believe this, but it is propaganda that has been debunked repeatedly:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/19/opinion/main4275167.shtml
Yes we've seen how the US handles trade disputes (Score:5, Informative)
The WTO & the environment. (Score:3, Informative)
We have international courts and trade agreements. If they don't play fair, they can get slapped with tariffs or outright bans. And if they won't play ball at all, well, by our own rules we should not be trading with them.
You seem to be under the impression that our international treaties were written in a way to provide a fair shot for communities that favor strong environmental and labor protections over bottom-feeding rent-seekers. [wikipedia.org]
Unfortunately, the WTO cares far more about trade barriers than the environment. While the WTO recognizes the right of nations to protect human health and their natural resources, it does not recognize any restraint on trade in "like products." So, for example, if you want to ban tuna caught in a way that threatens dolphins, you can't do that under WTO/GATT precedent if the end products (canned tuna) is the same. It doesn't matter that the method of making the product is different, and that customers may be concerned. Dolphin-safe & dolphin-unsafe canned meat is physically the same.
Here [wto.org] is a good list summarizing the big mixed-bag of WTO & GATT v. the environment lawsuits. Generally speaking, a law that governs the effects of a product once on US soil are fine, as long as you treat foreign and domestic products equally. A law that tries to govern how a product is made in another country which is indistinguishable from an equivalent product made elsewhere is generally not okay.
Reading about WTO/GATT cases is often very frustrating. Sometimes it's because the international bodies make decisions that seem grossly obstructionist to protecting the environment. Other times it's because countries are trying to hide flagrantly protectionist measures against foreign goods (while safeguarding domestic goods) under the rubric of protecting health & the environment. (Take the Thai cigarettes case, where the US sued Thailand for blocking cigarette imports for health reasons ...but still allowed the sale of domestic cigarettes.)
Re:Supply and demand? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, more specifically we're talking the Interstate Commerce Clause. If states can externalize the cost of environmental destruction and reap all the tax revenue benefits, that's *precisely* the kind of thing the clause was intended to address.
Re:Supply and demand? (Score:3, Informative)
I admire the intent of your post, but the US is so utterly in bed with China that your nation will never put up bans or tariffs.
You'll accept most of their conditions regardless of political posturing - the voters in the US will demand the politicians kowtow if it means higher prices otherwise.
As for international courts... are you guys ever going to join the International Criminal Court? It's hard to take your presence in the other courts seriously when you pick and choose which ones have jurisdiction over you. It's a bit off-topic (and possibly trolly) but when you bring up international courts, remember that the US isn't looking particularly good.
Re:Not safe? (Score:3, Informative)
We have all sorts of off-shore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita came through back-to-back, none of 'em leaked a drop.
[Citation Needed]
This was the 3rd google result for 'gulf of mexico oil spills'
http://blog.skytruth.org/2007/12/hurricane-katrina-gulf-of-mexico-oil.html [skytruth.org]
Seems like you're just regurgitating a Republican talking point.
Read the Minerals Management Service press release and report if you're skeptical.
/For the life of me I can't seem to find the portion of the Coast Guard website that lists all the oil spills which have ever been reported.