Posted on 04/06/2011 2:22:52 PM PDT by jazusamo
In the middle of California's Mojave Desert about an hour outside of the Las Vegas strip, business is booming -- literally -- as detonations reveal the lifeblood of America's technical security.
Molycorp has begun mining again at its Mountain Pass facility after about a decade of inactivity, extracting valuable and concentrated ore that holds 15 rare earth elements, used in everything from cell phones to U.S. missile systems.
In recent years, the Chinese have flooded, and thus cornered, about 97 percent of the world market of rare earth metals, and now thanks to high-tech demand and new Chinese restrictions on exports, the price of some of these rare earth elements has skyrocketed as much as 500 percent in the last year alone.
“The supply of rare earths predominantly comes from China, and China needs most of the rare earths they produce for their own consumption," Molycorp mine manager Rocky Smith said. "So all of the people of the United States and Europe and Japan, they’re going to have to find another source of these valuable rare earths, and that’s one of the main reasons this operation is so important.”
Molycorp has also developed a better way to extract and then process the elements, doing it in a more affordable and environmentally friendly way. CEO Mark Smith says that the new techniques in mining are allowing them to not only better serve the environment, but at the same time get more minerals than ever before out of the rock. Water, for example, that used to go into storage ponds is now being re-used, and the dirt left over reclaimed.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
You can be sure they are working on it!
“Enviro-NAZI’s” will find a way to betray and subvert America. It’s ‘how they roll’, you know. In times passed, whenever a traitor was found, they were dealt with expeditiously. Hopefully, days passed will become days present and future.
No doubt you’re right. Tortoises, lizards, gila monsters, etc. are their desert favorites.
Don’t forget the Mojave Green Rattlesnake. Those and the Desert Tortoises have close many sqare miles of BLM land...
Don’t forget the Mojave Green Rattlesnake. Those and the Desert Tortoises have closed many sqare miles of BLM land...
Correct. There’s no way I should have left out the Mohave Green, I was almost nailed by one north of Barstow many years ago, it was scary.
The enviro-nazis won’t, because men need those rare earth materials to make “green” energy gizmos for ‘em. But the bipartisan NIMBYs and HOA queens might try to shut the operation down by disguising themselves as enviros (associates/relatives of big corporates—often aging man-haters—most often disguised as enviros in commissioners’ meetings).
We need new leadership at all levels of government, business and academia. Don’t buy anything that you don’t really need (generates revenues for big government). Become more self-sufficient each month. Dialogue with the real greenies (mostly younger folks clueless about politics), and try building some of those “green” energy devices (what men and exceptional women do: invent gadgets).
The desert tortise is in the area...was an issue in Ft Irwin expansion I believe.
Mean little suckers. Do you know if it’s true that they are a crossbreed? While I was out around ‘Vegas I had several locals tell me that the green aren’t native, they were a developed breed that got loose.
About the only N.A. snake I like less is the cottenmouth.
Yes, the desert tortoise was the the enviro’s big thing at Ft. Irwin. I doubt there are desert tortoises around Mountain Pass because of the terrain but am really not sure.
I don’t know if they’re crossbreeds but their venom is supposed to be one of the worst of the rattlesnake family.
When they buzz there’s no mistake it’s a rattlesnake and they’re lively. If I never see one again it’ll be too soon. :-)
Thanks for the link.
Does it matter?
Good point, and no it does matter to the enviro’s, they’ll sue anyway.
First of all, rare earth elements aren’t particularly rare. One of them especially, cerium, is about as abundant as copper. However, they don’t tend to concentrate in economically viable quantities, except in a relatively few places.
And besides the huge mine on the Nevada-California border, the US also has a huge resource of rare earth elements under a lake in Texas.
The problem is, once you have dug the ore, you have to got through an elaborate and polluting process to concentrate it, and an even nastier process to separate the elements from each other.
This is why we were so happy for the Chinese to do this for so long, because it is environmentally filthy, by just about any standard.
But now, prospectors are scouring the globe, looking for other viable ore bodies.
As Clinton did with the world’s largest rare earth mine in Montana(?), Obizmo will turn the area into a National Park...
Sic transit gloria
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