“In China, they have an abundance of heavy rare earth elements and it’s easier for the country to extract and concentrate them.”
What they mean is that China doesn’t have to follow strict environmental or health and safety rules. If the greenies REALLY cared about “Mother Earth” they would promote mining in America where we do have strict regulations. I bet they might even be convinced that to promote mining we could reduce our regulations a bit. Going from 5 ppm to 10 ppm allowed here would reduce the 10,000 ppm getting dumped into Chinese rivers.
Underground abandoned burning coal mines in China are rampant due to their poor procedures. They churn out more CO2 in a year than all the cars and trucks in the U.S.
Iirc, we heve large deposits in AK, KS, NE and now maybe ND. WOW.
That is a lot of re.
The United States has a well-known source of rare earths that remain untapped a decade after the island in southern Alaska was explored. While the Pentagon pushes for its mining, the state of Alaska stands in the way.