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Tuesday, April 15. 2025

"Rare earths" aren't rare


I was curious about the term. No, they are mostly not rare at all, but are materials that can be difficult to extract.


Perplexity says:  While rare earths are relatively abundant, they are difficult to extract because they are often mixed with other minerals and require complex, costly processes to separate them at usable purity levels. This makes economically exploitable deposits sparse, even though the elements themselves are widespread.


Posted by Bird Dog at 13:39 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

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Yes, the various rare earth metals are extremely difficult to extract from the raw ore. Somebody is going to make a lot of money if they can figure out an easy way to do it.

Description of the Process
#1 snopercod on 2025-04-15 14:09 (Reply)
We have them. Why don't we mine them here?

https://x.com/JohnStossel/status/1911918605458952203

Not really a surprise considering the green authoritarians.
#2 indyjonesouthere on 2025-04-15 17:42 (Reply)
Increased expense in processing rare earths that we need is preferable to suddenly having them cut off completely by a hostile enemy.
#3 RebeccaH on 2025-04-15 19:05 (Reply)

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