Posted on 10/04/2009 5:35:33 PM PDT by Dundee
AN obscure, desolate plateau on the southwestern shores of Greenland could transform the future of consumer technology and shift the balance of power in the global supply of rare earth metals.
...beneath the rocks and ice of the Ilimaussaq Intrusion represents the world's largest known reserve of rare earth metals, the "technology" group of lanthanide elements used in products from mobile phones and low-energy light bulbs to hybrid cars and missile guidance systems.
...potential ...to severely dent China's global monopoly over rare earth production, a 95 per cent dominance of total worldwide output that Beijing has strategically nurtured for 15 years and recently has started to treat as a potent trade weapon.
According to the Australian mining company with rights to develop it...
...Studies of the site show that the Ilimaussaq reserves would comfortably meet at least 25 per cent of global rare earth demand for the next half-century.
"...the first big opportunity to represent a monopoly-breaker of Chinese dominance,"...
..site is expected to be able to produce about 50,000 tonnes per year of rare earth-bearing ore by 2014.
...cost of extracting the rare earths will be offset by the profits from extracting uranium from the same site, effectively preventing China from undercutting the operation on price, which is how it obtained its dominance over the world market in the first place...
China has relentlessly slashed its export quotas for rare earths every year since the start of the decade, much to the despair of Japan... Those restrictions have sent the likes of Toyota and Japan's largest trading houses scrambling to secure more supply, with government sources in Tokyo describing a "panic mentality" among some large industrial groups.
...so critical to both military and "green" technologies that the Japanese authorities are drawing-up plans to create a strategic national reserve...
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
Unemployed? In Greenland?
(”The Princess Bride”)
China’s plan was to force global companies that manufacture products that use rare earths to manufacture everything in China. It seems like this scheme has backfired.
You go Greenland!!
issues like diversity and multiculturalism
are more important to the democrats.
Very interesting. Thanks for the post.
Ping.
Interesting.
I thought canada and australia were blessed with rare earths too?
I would guess, due the yield of only 50,000 tons per year, that this site of rare earth metals does not include vanadium or titanium. Do you know if this is the case?
Inconceivable!!!
Fantastic news. I’m surprised China hasn’t cooked up some “concerned environmentalist NGO” to try to prevent Greenland from using its own resources.
Under Obama's vision of the future we will now be dependent on the Saudis and the Red Chinese for criticial energy resources.
The US needs to just buy Greenland.
This is to Greenland what the great oil finds were to Alaska. Something of sufficient value to enable them to have their own honest to gosh economy.
We’d screw it up. Better that Alaska and Greenland form an alliance.
Oz to the rescue? Thanks for the ping.
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