Comments by "Theodore Shulman" (@ColonelFredPuntridge) on "Sweden's (Not So) Rare Earth Metals" video.

  1. But not all iron mines are rich in rare earths. Only some are.
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  2. TWO criticisms (I'm sure you won't mind): 1. Rare earths are common, and present in waste from other mines, but not very densely so. Deposits dense enough to be useful are unusual and important. 2. The fact that China has gained control of the industry by subsidizing it so that rare earths are cheaper, doesn't really help us all that much. What I mean is, history is full of situations where making something cheaper makes society more dependent on it even though the guys who make it cheaper are doing us a favor, not hurting us, by doing so. Your argument about this is like saying if the car companies stopped making cars (or started overcharging us for them) we could just go back to using horses and make the car companies back down. OR, like saying if the makers of laparoscopic surgical instruments went on strike, we could just go back to doing heart surgery by cutting people's chests open and breaking their ribs. Sure, we didn't lose anything when the laparoscopic instruments came out, but we would still lose a lot if they were taken away now. Returning to a previous status quo can be much more painful than never having left it would be.
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  3. The most promising recent (2022) development concerning rare-earth markets is the successful bulk-synthesis, in the lab, of tetrataenite, using a phosphorus catalyst. I'd love to hear what effect you think that will have on geopolitics and chemo-economics. (Tetrataenite doesn't contain rare-earths, but it may replace them in many applications.) UPDATE: the reason is tetrataenite can be made into very powerful magnets, competitive in power with magnets made of rare-earth alloys which are the strongest permanent magnets in the world but which require rare earths. Permanent magnets are essential to (almost) any device which converts electrical energy into mechanical energy or vice-versa : motors and turbines. If we can iron the bugs out of the process of making tetrataenite into magnets, instead of using rare-earth alloys for our magnets, then we can reduce our need for rare earths big-time.
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  4. The stockpiles are certainly helpful.
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  5. Precious metals (in catalytic converters) are not the same as rare earths. Platinum, and palladium, are NOT rare earths.
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  6.  @victorcapel2755  Glad to hear it!
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  7. You don't even need a back yard to make fertilizer!
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  8. So the organ grinder is gonna grind the monkey's organs?
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