Rare earth metals are used to manufacture everything from electric or hybrid vehicles, wind turbines, consumer electronics and other clean energy technologies
It is estimated the world has 99 million tonnes of rare earth reserve deposits.[6] China's reserves are estimated to be 36 million tonnes or roughly 30 percent of the world's total reserves
Japanese researchers have mapped vast reserves of rare earth elements in deep-sea mud, enough to feed global demand on a “semi-infinite basis,” according to a new study.
The deposit, found within Japan’s exclusive economic zone waters, contains more than 16 million tons of the elements needed to build high-tech products ranging from mobile phones to electric vehicles, according to the study, released Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports.
China’s hold on these elements gave them a lot of power in the distribution of these commodities. The government declared these elements to be a protected and strategic good in 1990.
The term 'semi-infinite' is kinda like saying 'dehydrated water'.
Semi-infinite, like 'semi-infinity Chan, right?…… after all, everybody knows that Zig Forums is going to be seized and shut down soon, right ?…
either that, or Jim's going to be extradited from the Philippines on CP charges due to the FOSTA Bill, so it's a no-brainer that he'll probably just shut it down.
Jose Stewart
More like invasion of American forces to combat terrorists and insurgents
Christopher Moore
Aw shit son.
Zachary Richardson
I would hardly call anything semi-infinite, but this should last quite a while.
Jack Long
What a bad day to be a communist
Jeremiah Taylor
Don't worry China and America can both try to invade Japan. Japan has only ever been defeated by a European military force, and America doesn't have any of those anymore.
Christopher Green
What is the exact name of this rare material? Why won't this article give me the power of knowledge to do research myself? Why does it claim to be "semi eternal" when everything in life has a limit. Even if we somehow managed to extract minerals from the sun, the scientists would put some number to it to generally see how long we have before we run out. this article reeks of fake, give me the archive, I'm not clicking on that.
Because in Chemistry and geology, they are literally called "rare earth metals." Just look up rare earth metals on the periodic table.
Adam Mitchell
jfc
Matthew Garcia
I'll tell you what's 'rare'…
Finding a nation who's entire population has become radioactive from the Fukushima Power Plant Melt-Through
They've been contaminating the entire Pacific Ocean 24/7 ever since the total wave.
Fuck them… Since they seem to enjoy radiation so much, maybe we should just pick up where we left off in WWII
nasty little rodent-ants
Asians are nothing more than yellow alien niggermonkeys
Jose Evans
Wait …what!!!?? isn that an oxymoron?
Thomas Cook
Exactly :^)
Gabriel Wilson
Oh you…
Aaron Walker
==AH HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH=
Chase Morales
Like clockwork. Good on the Japs, but just wait for the mainland roaches to start insisting that undersea mud has always been rightful Chinese soil by mandate of the Xi- I mean, heavens.
That guy in your picture looks like he's dying of liver cancer
Wyatt Reed
mining rare elements requires moving a lot of soil and toxic chemical the most polluting process per kilo of refined product
Chinese villages turned to toxic swamps like 8ch
Just as we begin to face up to past pollution issues - agricides, nuclear, irresponsible management of plastic, human and industrial waste in the oceans - we are kicking off with new ones - nanotechnology, genetic pollution from GMO materials grown outside a lab and soon, deep-sea strip mining.
Stirring up the sediment will create the acquatic equivalent of PM2.5 - destroying habitats rich in creatures we have not yet even discovered, choking sea creatures, changing the oxygen and light levels in the oceans and impacting on the food chain.
Given human greed and political corruption, there is unlikely to be any way to stop it. But nobody should be surprised and nobody should claim innocence when the damage is done and we have to deal with the consequences.
And we should start keeping a register of all those involved in the damage, so that those responsible, companies, shareholders, employees, and their economic descendants, can be billed, to pay for those consequences.
I'm so sick of the chink/gook bashing. It's completely well, if we're talking about pre-19th century, at least undeserved and I can't help but feel it's the result of anime and Japan's position during the Second World War, as well as the appreciation Hitler had for them.
But how are the Japanese going to mine the minerals without importing millions of Africans and Middle Easterners?
Thomas Turner
China still has a monopoly. The reason is that they employ African slave labor to mine these elements. Keeping the cost cheap to foreign countries. Japan actually gives their people real working wages because they are decent people. Even if Japan did have all the rare Earth elements, working wages will keep their prices on the market higher than their Chinese rivals. This can be a double edged sword though. Remember China has been devaluing the Yuan for years so their people don't revolt. Paper tiger and all that.etc
Good luck, the Japanese just activated their military.
Jaxon Garcia
holy shit can we just reliably shoot down nukes already so we can get another crusade started up to roll over the riceniggers
Joshua Hill
This, shit will be fucked up and even more when they will be forced to catch as many tons as they can like they did in wwii with shale, sure, shenips in real assault mechs are kawai as fuck, but the price will be really high.
Aaron Wright
STANDS UP AND APPLAUDS YOU !!!
congratulations !! you just restored my faith in the human race… you are the ONLY one who had anything intelligent and sophisticated to say.
you're cool
James Edwards
thanks doc!
Jayden Reyes
Look at the place on the map. Mining them elements would be not an easy endeavor This is seabed with average depth of 5500 meters. Technologies to mine from such depth simply doesn't exist.
Remember Glomar Explorer cover? Now Japanese need to make fake story real.
Rare earth elements aren't "rare" in the meaning that there aren't a lot of them. In reality rare earth elements are some of the most abundant in the universe, lithium was one of the first elements made in the big bang and is right there with hydrogen as the most common.
The reason they are called "rare" is because they don't form veins or concentrations, they are RARIFIED as in spread throughout the earths crust evenly. This makes mining them difficult, because even though you could dig anywhere and find them, they aren't concentrated enough for efficient mining in any one place.
Ergo most rare earth element mining is extreme STRIP mining, because the only way to get it is to process a lot of soil, brute forcing it. Also the only way to get it to concentrate out of all that soil is basically to wash the soil through acids and other harmful chemicals, which causes ridiculous pollution.
Most civilized countries have reduced strip mining and pollution, and in many other places its too expensive or they dont have enough land surface, ergo only countries that are - 1) large in land area; 2) have low wages; 3) don't care about environmental damage; 4) don't care about pollution - can really mine it at a cost that customers will pay for. Western countries could easily supply their own rare earth elements if they were willing to strip mine, we could do it with robots for 10x less cost than China, we just don't want the pollution.
Oh, but China's reputation for sucking is undeserved prior to the 19th century, you say?
Chink forces: 200,000-290,000
China massively outnumbers the enemy in just about every single conflict, then suffers disproportionate casualties, even when they have technological parity with the enemy (ie, not muskets vs spears). And looking at their military history over the last 400 years, they lose more often than not, and their only victories are against other Asians with inferior weaponry that they outnumbered 10 to 1… and still suffered more losses than the enemy, even when they won.
The only thing China is good at in a war is dying in mass quantities.
Jaxson Gomez
Seems like Best Korea also has an almost infinte supply of these minerals as well - $3 Trillion at one estimate.
Nuke Both Koreas & mine the Wasteland.
Jason Roberts
They're going to dig Mount Fuji?
Wyatt Gomez
Sounds like Sun Tzu exerted a profound influence on China.
Noah Cruz
Oh so that's why the NK shit stopped Wait as they now try and target Japan
Blake Morgan
wew
Cameron Ward
OMG THIS, I need my gluten-free dairy-free vegan non-GMO soy-enhanced Liquid Based Diet(TM) to keep functioning
Isaac Nelson
Legitimately enlightening.
Jacob Cook
If they found it near senkaku, that would ignite a war.
