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Sumfuc t1_jahatc2 wrote

Reply to comment by lughnasadh in German scientists show a commercially feasible method for cyanobacteria to extract 17 rare earth elements from low-concentration sources. Currently, most of the world's supply of these elements is mined in China. by lughnasadh

Anything that gets the world away from reliance on China is preferable. Leverage is even more crucial than ever.

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AGVann t1_jaheld4 wrote

The reason why China is the major source of rare earth minerals isn't necessarily the fact that China has most of the ore - the US and Australia also have huge reserves - it's the fact that the cost of extraction is very low in China due to low labour costs and crucially the lack of environmental regulations.

In China, the extremely toxic tailings from the ore processing and refining are just dumped into the countryside, creating heavy polluted hellscapes that will probably remained poisoned for thousands of years. This saves so much money that it makes almost all other rare earth operations unprofitable. Here's a gnarly video of the tailings lake at Baotou, China's rare earth mineral capital.

Regardless of the politics, this new development could be a very welcome change for the environment.

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The-Protomolecule t1_jahpi3k wrote

It should be noted, as with oil, the US policy on this stuff is to be the last country with reserves.

Edit: In case it’s unclear, the US prefers to import oil and precious metals instead of digging ours up first. It’s not ONLY environmental or cost, though these are significant factors. We can always extract finite resources in the future when other countries have sold theirs or during wartime.

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jsteph67 t1_jahx6wz wrote

Not sure why you are being downvoted. It makes sense in the long term, to think long term.

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findingdumb t1_jaj8vfw wrote

Because some people still believe the US is the good guys

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pbrand t1_jajcwbj wrote

Bit of a daft point when the US is a net food exporter (depleting its topsoil in the process) and also recently due to a certain European war exports a lot of liquid natural gas. The US strategically holds on to some things, and sells others, just like any other country.

China's hoarded flour and grain the past couple years, and I do not blame them in childish baffling terms such as "good guys" and "bad guys." That's fucking comic book shit. Keep it there.

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Dantheking94 t1_jakq5y1 wrote

China has to hoard food and grain…a population like theirs within such a large country that doesn’t have enough arable land to support itself…they can’t risk starvation.

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findingdumb t1_jajinu6 wrote

If you don't think the US is an active evil, you're either uninformed, misinformed, or a fucking moron.

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bigmac419 t1_jajob9h wrote

Every country is an active evil in someone's narrative. Just depends on who they're paid by.

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Information_High t1_jajwbjd wrote

An active evil compared to whom?

Be specific, please. Which countries are better?

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cowet t1_jak01an wrote

They like the USSR and china lol

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AGVann t1_jal27nm wrote

As a Taiwanese person that would be in a mass grave or a concentration camp next to some Uyhurs right now if it wasn't for the US, I'll take an American world order over a Chinese one, thanks.

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mellowfortherecords t1_jak9j2s wrote

Why saying US is evil means saying Russia is good? Both search their own benefit. In some ways Russia is worse than US and in others US is worse than Russia.

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The-Protomolecule t1_jajzg8d wrote

How does anything I said make the US the good guys? It’s irrelevant to my post about long term resource scarcity planning. If anything it makes the US the bad guys lol.

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Dje4321 t1_jak0wei wrote

The US understands that you can only beat your enemy by simply having more than them.

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JediSwaggins t1_jal98rw wrote

At some point, they can't take you out or it creates a power vacuum they'll kill themselves fighting over anyway.

Don't @ me this is mostly my headcanon if the USA was a mob boss

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VentureQuotes t1_jax099f wrote

this is a fascinating way to look at it, i never heard of this before. can you say more about this? would love to see what government agencies, corporations, academic say about this

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watduhdamhell t1_jahn91u wrote

It's not just lack of environmental regulations.

It's the lack of environmental, labor, safety, and health regulations.

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leoyoung1 t1_jaj9xo3 wrote

So much for being the government for the people. China isn't even remotely communist. It's just a fascist dictatorship in smug clothing.

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tanstaafl90 t1_jajag40 wrote

Authoritarian is the word you are looking for.

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leoyoung1 t1_jajsslk wrote

Could be. The guys at the top are raking in the loot...

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tanstaafl90 t1_jajys0n wrote

That's how authoritarian states operate, regardless of their political rhetoric. It's the concentration of power in the hands of a few or individual that demands submission to that authority at the cost of individual freedom. Both fascism and communism as witnessed in the 20th century can comfortably fit under the header of authoritarian.

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Seen_Unseen t1_jala571 wrote

Like it or not the West has been exporting these problems to China for decades and China gladly accepted that in return for dollars. We are offshoring our pollution at a scale that nobody likes to talk about. Hence why it's so important when we talk about environmental sustainability that we include the global cost of pollution into products. That way it might be interesting to onshore rare elements mining or vice versa China gets forced to work more sustainable. It's a win-win eitherway, though what we do now both the West and China is literally raping our planet.

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Tarynxm t1_jahrxa3 wrote

Interestingly, 2019 study showed that the process was potentially for environmental remediation of toxic heavy metals as well as REE: “Among the various microorganisms studied, also cyanobacterial strains proved to be highly capable to biosorb and accumulate dissolved (heavy) metals as well as REE.” Suggesting that the process could, in addition to pulling out REE from industrial waste spilled into the Rhine River, help bioremediation of other sites, presumably including the whole interconnected biosphere. So all countries could use it to help the planet- even toxic mine tailings flowing into China’s waterways could be tackled. Fischer, C. B., Körsten, S., Rösken, L. M., Cappel, F., Beresko, C., Ankerhold, G., Schönleber, A., Geimer, S., Ecker, D., & Wehner, S. (2019). Cyanobacterial promoted enrichment of rare earth elements europium, samarium and neodymium and intracellular europium particle formation. RSC advances, 9(56), 32581–32593. https://doi.org/10.1039/c9ra06570a

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BigSortzFan t1_jahi51m wrote

Thanks for the nuance.

Extraction, processing, then manufacturing, while keeping transport costs low, and low environmental regulations.

Including the chemicals/dyes required for each step being readily available.

Add in the power costs for powering the buildings and equipment.

It’s a lot to overcome if West wants to create leverage

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artthoumadbrother t1_jahzpps wrote

> it's the fact that the cost of extraction is very low in China due to low labour costs and crucially the lack of environmental regulations.

Probably more important than either of these is that the Chinese government wanted the current state of affairs---they want leverage, and being the world's primary supplier of REM gives them some. To that end, they're fire-hosed low or even zero interest loans at the domestic REM industry so that their suppliers could undercut everyone else. Like a lot of Chinese products, REMs are being sold by Chinese companies for less than it costs to produce them.

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average_asshole t1_jailp34 wrote

I was going to say hahaha, its not like the Asian continent is the only place they can be mined, its just that China does it cheaply enough that the western world is happy to preserve our environment and pay China to wreck theirs.

Even with environmental regulations, mining rare earth elements is especially toxic for the environment

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Firewolf420 t1_jahw18a wrote

What can we - as consumers - do about this stuff, aside from just not buying tech and living like luddites? Is there some kind of sustainably sourced rare earth metals thing we can support?

I already try to make my own electronics and repair broken ones, and I avoid buying new tech when it's unnecessary to do so. Which I argue is likely more than most, but I'd rather find some way to not be involved in this toxic lake (and issues like this) if possible.

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AGVann t1_jai0scd wrote

> What can we - as consumers - do about this stuff

I work in the environmental sciences field, so I'm gonna use this to soap box a bit.

I'm going to give you straight: You cannot avoid it. If you've ever bought a phone, you've financially contributed to the toxic chemical dumps, to the child slaves killed in cobalt mines, to the exploitation of factory workers. This is where the 'ethical capitalism' that's touted by greenwashing corporations falls short. Unless you are willing to live like a Luddite, you have to buy these products to participate in the modern world, and asking people to sacrifice their quality of life for the sake of morals is a tough ask. When it comes to these world-turning industries, boycotts are just rounding errors. Even the companies themselves find it difficult to change due to to tight margins, financial risks, long term contracts, and pressures of profitability.

So what can we do? The realities of this field can be depressing as fuck and I've often had people ask me this. For the average person, I recommend two things: Do the best you can for your conscience, and sometimes the best we can do is to mitigate. This is the reality we're facing now in everything climate and pollution related. We can't stop it. We have to start preparing to deal with it in other ways.

We all want to save the planet, but everyone's got different realities and tolerances. Don't use single use plastics. Stop buying bottled goods. Bring your own reusable mug to the cafe. Cycle or walk to work. Buy Fair Trade or Conflict Free audited goods. Eat vegetarian 2 nights a week. Join a local detrashing community, or tree planting group, or nature conservancy. Learning to repair tech is an excellent idea, and something I've tried to do more this year.

Not everyone is in a situation to do all of this, but at least you can be reassured of the fact that you're trying. It sounds silly, but this little bit of positivity does a lot to help the mentality of climate change being a hopeless but faraway problem, to one that we can work on in our own small ways and actually see a difference. If billions of us do make these little changes (or just dozens in a local community) it does help. In India, a single man started a beach clean up club that snowballed into the biggest beach clean up project in the world, and the beach is clean enough that sea turtles which hadn't been seen in decades came back.

We don't all need to be Gretas or Afrozes and change the world or a nation, but at least we can change a little about how we live.

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gurgelblaster t1_jalh9vl wrote

> So what can we do? The realities of this field can be depressing as fuck and I've often had people ask me this. For the average person, I recommend two things: Do the best you can for your conscience, and sometimes the best we can do is to mitigate. This is the reality we're facing now in everything climate and pollution related. We can't stop it. We have to start preparing to deal with it in other ways.

We can, though, but it requires political organising and active political will, and if enough people pour their energy into those pursuits (i.e. towards circular economies, sustainable societal infrastructure, global solidarity, and anti-capitalist and green socialist political movements) that's going to have an outsized impact. Most of all, we need to drop the pretense that individual action from relatively poor people, even in rich countries, is going to have an impact. Stop the private jets, luxury fast fashion and superyachts and you've a good start going, both because of the direct impact of those industries, but also because that kind of action has symbolic value: your money doesn't protect you, and doesn't mean that you are not responsible and can't be held accountable. Rather the opposite in fact.

Sure, if you can be politically active and do the small-scale individualist consumer-power thing as well, that's good, but only through collective, political, direct action, are we truly going to get anywhere.

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Lost-Otaku t1_jai633y wrote

Well, many are trying to save the planet but i don't think the most cauze as known they are not even literate. Rich are doing only to the sufficient(some are trying hard), middles are doing there level best, lower ones don't even know and don't even care. I think the rich one's are just hoping to migrate the planet (or save enough funds to migrate their generations). They are focusing more on technologies like outer space colonizing through the hope that one day we can use the materials of space to build mega structures (i think that's too futuristic). I literally don't think international unions are taking major strict steps to solve this problems. +++ I can feel the weather changing like cannonball w.r.t previous decade which can be start of a big climate disruptionnnnn. Summary. Helppppp

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AGVann t1_jai7loa wrote

> I think the rich one's are just hoping to migrate the planet

If they can't even overcome their greed to survive on a planet that's already perfect for us, what hope do they have to build an artificial environment where one single mistake or cost-cutting measure can kill everyone?

It's going to go down like Covid: Nothing will happen until we're right in the middle of the crisis. Until there's a resource and climate crisis with millions of refugees and countries on the verge of war, then all the things us scientists and activists have been pushing for decades will happen in the record time.

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NessTheGamer t1_jalb0ea wrote

Well that’s the issue with the climate crisis, by the time we hit the panic button the lion’s share of pain will be irreversible. Large scale population displacement is gonna be a disaster

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MasterCheeef t1_jaijj9q wrote

I'm sure the Chinese are mining in Africa alongside their belt and road projects.

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honorbound93 t1_jalkgbt wrote

I mean really how much more would it cost to just safely get rid of the waste. It would 100% save you on cleaning the water and environment in the future…

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ABoutDeSouffle t1_jallr1f wrote

I can't understand why Western societies aren't implementing tariffs for environmentally destructive products from countries with lax environmental regulations

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[deleted] t1_jai8888 wrote

[deleted]

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AGVann t1_jai8kxq wrote

The consumer is just as culpable, because without that demand there wouldn't be an industry there in the first place. Playing the finger pointing game is a waste of time that solves nothing.

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[deleted] t1_jai949n wrote

[deleted]

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AGVann t1_jai9jk1 wrote

> It's insane to me that you would place equal blame

I didn't say "equal blame", I said "culpable".

> The consumer is largely a passenger in terms of what exists and what doesn't

So you're claiming that consumer demand doesn't exist and has zero measurable impact on market practises? Well buddy, it's not me that's "insane".

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AmazingGrace911 t1_jak7w7c wrote

Jesus wept, wtf is wrong with us? In a little over a hundred years we’ve destroyed the planet. Fuck this dystopian nightmare, do any of them have any conscience at all? Or concern for their descendants??

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Xgio t1_jahpk1v wrote

What shifting work abroad due to greed does to a developing country.

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cosmic_fetus t1_jahwrtz wrote

Half the coin. There are people running those things there. I live in one & I wish the gov cared.

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Tsu-Doh-Nihm t1_jaj2bp5 wrote

"Green" activists do not care about Chinese pollution, since China is already Socialist.

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commentist t1_jahdg24 wrote

If I remember correctly world can switch fairly quickly from China right now if we want to. It is extremely environment unfriendly process so while China doing for reasonable price no one cares.

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Gusdai t1_jai2430 wrote

It takes a couple of years to shift, because it takes a lot of infrastructure (and planning) to mine and refine.

But remember when China talked of export quotas on these minerals, to punish certain countries (Japan at the time)? That was a couple of years ago, and countries started developing their own supply already, because they understood the problem. So China doesn't have the same leverage anymore.

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