Rare earth minerals are always found with thorium (a radioactive substance) and that triggers all sorts of environmental protection regulations. The U.S. doesn’t suffer from lack of rare earths deposits (the west is full of mines shut down by onerous regulations). China has a virtual monopoly on rare earths production because they aren’t burdened by the rules. The last thing a coal-burning plant wants is to have to treat ash as a hazardous waste.
In my years’-long browsing on everything “Thorium” , I recall this talk re creating a national Thorium Bank to kickstart a domestic rare earths industry: http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/2012/12/14/why-the-world-needs-a-thorium-bank/
Thorium & coal...hmmm:
Combine 2 technologies that have been proven - thorium reactors and the Fischer-Tropsch process for coal liquification (remember that the Germans did this late in WW2 to fuel their Panzers and the Luftwaffe, as they lost or were about to lose oil fields), and you get the beginnings of complete energy independence. Read about it here: https://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2491667
Oh, and the REE found with the thorium and coal? That’s just a bonus.
I look for President Trump to take advantage of this - he is an innovative and out-of-the-box thinker, someone who will at least CONSIDER every option before making a decision. Given the facts - that we have about 400 years of coal reserves at present production rates, and that the 2 technologies mentioned above are PROVEN to work - I don’t see how we CAN’T make some substantial use of it to put a LOT of our people back to work (the usual coal miners, coal transporters, etc., but also a lot of engineers and construction people - ALL high-paying jobs), and to reduce our balance of payments deficit.
Yes, it will take decades for this to have a very significant impact upon our economy, but business and international markets look ahead. This cannot help but jump-start our economy. Between that, and Fracking 2.0 http://nextbigfuture.com/search?q=fracking+2.0 bringing the cost of fracked oil down to somewhere between $5 and $20/bbl., our economy is going to BOOM as the cost of a major economic input - energy - is tremendously reduced. It will be like a permanent and gigantic tax cut, and adding a few million good jobs for both ends of that massive project will only be cream on the cake.