Damn! This could “create” some jobs!
Someone from the EPA or another .gov agency needs to shut down and stop talk of this at once! Perhaps 0bama will arrange for the Chinese to lease the land.
We’ll have to put something up for collateral when the Chinese demand that the debt be paid back. And if the EPA won’t allow us to develop it, it will be ripe for the picking... for the Chinese. Like most of the undeveloped natural resources in this country.
The problem isn't in mining the ore ~ or in handling processed rare earths. It's instead the question of crushing the ore ~ there is always some residual radiation in the stuff and when you bust the ore bodies to powder to move it on to extraction you release whatever there is.
Human beings are kind of sensitive to it ~ so DOE wants it done right and OSHA will want it done safely.
This will be a new mining operation so it'd be a safe bet they will do everything correctly ~ in older mining operations they simply didn't understand the risk. One large mine has been retrofitted for the purpose of containing the radiation and it should have come back on line this Summer.