Quote:
Originally Posted by JasonG
Mining and processing the metals causes environmental damage that China, the biggest producer, is no longer willing to bear.
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This is simply male bovine-sourced organic fertilizer. It's perfectly possible to mine & refine rare earths without causing more environmental damage than is caused by any other materials - like for instance the steel, aluminium, copper & lead that go into a conventional car. The thing is, it's far cheaper to mine anything if you don't clean up after yourself, and China has chosen to allow this. That's how China was able to undercut the rest of the world's prices for rare earths, and cause the cleaner producers to be shut down. Though some are reopening now that China is trying to squeeze the market, for instance MolyCorp's Mountain Pass mine:
Molycorp Minerals - The Rare Earths Company
China's environmental standards WRT rare earth mining are exactly the same as its environmental standards WRT anything else: nonexistent unless Party-connected firms want to squeeze out other players.