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Huge rare earth deposits found in Pacific: Japan experts
Reuters via Yahoo News ^ | 07/04/2011 | Reuters Staff

Posted on 07/03/2011 9:32:09 PM PDT by Enchante

TOKYO (Reuters) – Vast deposits of rare earth minerals, crucial in making high-tech electronics products, have been found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and can be readily extracted, Japanese scientists said on Monday.

(Excerpt) Read more at old.news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Government; Japan; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: business; catastrophism; china; economy; electronics; environment; greens; japan; minamitori; minamitoriisland; minerals; mining; prc; rareearth; rareearthdeposits; rareearthelements; ree; tech; usa
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May help to break the stranglehold that Commie China has on production of these rare earth minerals, if the enviro-whackos don't manage to block development of these deep ocean sites....
1 posted on 07/03/2011 9:32:13 PM PDT by Enchante
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To: Enchante

The main US mine for these rare earth minerals has been blocked by enviro-whackos for years...... the tech economies certainly need an alternative source since the PRC is currently the source of 97% of the world supply.....


2 posted on 07/03/2011 9:33:52 PM PDT by Enchante (May 1, 2011: Death to Bin Laden, Death to Bin Laden..... al Zawahiri is next!)
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To: Enchante

There is a treaty against mining the sea floor- it’s why we don’t go after methane clathrates or sea floor manganese nodules.

Is japan a signatory? Or, who can go after this? We can’t, we signed.


3 posted on 07/03/2011 9:40:04 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: Enchante

Assuming China doesn’t take control of them


4 posted on 07/03/2011 9:41:06 PM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Happiness)
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To: Enchante

“blocked by enviro-whackos for years....”

Be interesting to see which branch of the Chicom government bankrolled this, eh?


5 posted on 07/03/2011 9:41:44 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: DBrow

Glomar Explorer.... lol

mining nuclear missiles off the seafloor.. heh

I remember a picture of that ship in my science book as an example of seafloor mining


6 posted on 07/03/2011 9:42:25 PM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Happiness)
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To: Enchante

It’ll probably be like oil and natural gas: The more they say we’re running out, the more we find.


7 posted on 07/03/2011 9:44:01 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (I'll raise $2million for Gov. Sarah Palin. What'll you do?)
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To: Enchante

Oh, the enviowackos will try to stop it.

There really is no shortage of “rare” earths, just a shortage of places we are allowed to get them.

The oceans will are a future treasure trove of minerals that will be the next tranche of resources if the economics merit. Of course, man will go nuts and squander loads of this gift as well. I am not an enviromentalist but I am a conservationist. It pains me to see such great efforts and energy to pull resources together to make things only to see the resources moved from concentrated “easy” to get sources dumped in landfills where they can never again effectively be reused.

Bing up Nautilus Mining if you are curious about ocean mineral extraction.


8 posted on 07/03/2011 9:49:09 PM PDT by Sequoyah101 (Half the people are below average.)
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To: DBrow

from what I’m reading online the US Senate has never ratified the “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea” so we should not be bound by it?!!?

We signed (executive branch) but never ratified?

Also, a treaty can be renounced if we had the balls to do so...... of course a Democrat admin. would be most unlikely to do so, but for serious enough mineral and oil/gas prospects it could become a good campaign issue to throw them out, or am I dreaming?


9 posted on 07/03/2011 9:57:07 PM PDT by Enchante (May 1, 2011: Death to Bin Laden, Death to Bin Laden..... al Zawahiri is next!)
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To: Enchante

also, from what I”m seeing that UN convention does not prohibit ocean floor mining beyond a country’s territorial limits but has an idiotic provision that seems to require 1/2 (an equal mining plot to the one being mined) going to the frickin’ UN agency in charge, along with “technology transfers” over a 10-20 year period, i.e., anyone mining on the ocean floor beyond a nation’s territorial limit has to give up 1/2 their claim and then all of their technology to a UN agency..... great, what world socialist bozos come up with this crap?


10 posted on 07/03/2011 10:00:38 PM PDT by Enchante (May 1, 2011: Death to Bin Laden, Death to Bin Laden..... al Zawahiri is next!)
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To: 75thOVI; agrace; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; aristotleman; Avoiding_Sulla; ...

Thanks Enchante. Next story, China and Russia try to annex the Pacific Ocean.


11 posted on 07/03/2011 10:03:14 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Yes, as a matter of fact, it is that time again -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: Enchante

We know who “they” are. UN needs an income stream to keep molesting children, don’t you know.

I have a frikking bonehead up the street from me who flies a UN flag and has a UN bumper sticker.

I have this thing, when I see something like that, I want to see the person’s face, to see if they live up to my preconceptions of what a raging liberal looks like.

I saw the guy a few weeks ago...yep. Looked the part.


12 posted on 07/03/2011 10:08:35 PM PDT by rlmorel ("Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions." Gilbert K. Chesterton)
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To: Enchante

“what world socialist bozos come up with this crap?”

Probably jotted down by some dipshit NYU Law professor while sipping a cup of coffee at a Horn and Hardart Automat. He mails it to some State Department flunky in Washington who sneaks it into a 10000 page draft of an international treaty on its way up for a presidential signature.


13 posted on 07/03/2011 10:20:05 PM PDT by haroldeveryman
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To: GeronL
Assuming China doesn’t take control of them

I don't think that will be a problem.

"The deposits are in international waters in an area stretching east and west of Hawaii, as well as east of Tahiti in French Polynesia, he said."

14 posted on 07/03/2011 10:21:06 PM PDT by SC Swamp Fox (Aim small, miss small.)
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To: Enchante
A Heritage Foundation primer on the NEVER ratified LOST.

Just another garden variety GLOBAL redistribution of wealth scheme. General question I've asked a number of times that generates a cricket symphony: Under what authority does the U.S. CONTROL drilling outside of our 12 mile territorial waters???

15 posted on 07/03/2011 10:24:50 PM PDT by ForGod'sSake (You have only two choices: SUBMIT or RESIST with everything you've got!!!)
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To: GeronL
That is the scary part. If China made a move to mine them I don't believe the current US Administration would do anything to stop them or for that matter plan for our own excavation of the rare earths. It would fall under the PC category of raping mother earth for evil profit and empire building. I am sure the Avatar-Eco crowd would be building flotillas to guard them if we decided to mine them.
16 posted on 07/03/2011 10:30:46 PM PDT by Captain Beyond (The Hammer of the gods! (Just a cool line from a Led Zep song))
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To: Enchante

Japan could do “deep sea research” and bring back as much ore as they wished.


17 posted on 07/03/2011 10:33:10 PM PDT by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: Enchante

This should cause some angst in Beijing


18 posted on 07/03/2011 10:46:50 PM PDT by fso301
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To: Enchante

Just read in Friday 7/1 that a rare-earth procesing plant in Malaysia is being blocked by “environmental concerns!” These concerns coming from a country that doesn’t even use catalytic converters!

Could it be their environmental and safety concerns are being financed by a Chi-Com campaign to limit colmpetition?


19 posted on 07/03/2011 10:51:36 PM PDT by Redbob (W.W.J.B.D.: "What Would Jack Bauer Do?")
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To: Enchante
Vast deposits of rare earth minerals, crucial in making high-tech electronics products, have been found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and can be readily extracted

I'm sure the EPA will find that extracting these minerals might threaten the well-being of some bivalve and impose a ban. Maybe we can buy them from the Chinese if they decide we've been good and decide to let us have some.
20 posted on 07/03/2011 10:54:22 PM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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