Thanks Enchante. Next story, China and Russia try to annex the Pacific Ocean.
|
Posted on 07/03/2011 9:32:09 PM PDT by Enchante
TOKYO (Reuters) – Vast deposits of rare earth minerals, crucial in making high-tech electronics products, have been found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and can be readily extracted, Japanese scientists said on Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at old.news.yahoo.com ...
The main US mine for these rare earth minerals has been blocked by enviro-whackos for years...... the tech economies certainly need an alternative source since the PRC is currently the source of 97% of the world supply.....
There is a treaty against mining the sea floor- it’s why we don’t go after methane clathrates or sea floor manganese nodules.
Is japan a signatory? Or, who can go after this? We can’t, we signed.
Assuming China doesn’t take control of them
“blocked by enviro-whackos for years....”
Be interesting to see which branch of the Chicom government bankrolled this, eh?
Glomar Explorer.... lol
mining nuclear missiles off the seafloor.. heh
I remember a picture of that ship in my science book as an example of seafloor mining
It’ll probably be like oil and natural gas: The more they say we’re running out, the more we find.
Oh, the enviowackos will try to stop it.
There really is no shortage of “rare” earths, just a shortage of places we are allowed to get them.
The oceans will are a future treasure trove of minerals that will be the next tranche of resources if the economics merit. Of course, man will go nuts and squander loads of this gift as well. I am not an enviromentalist but I am a conservationist. It pains me to see such great efforts and energy to pull resources together to make things only to see the resources moved from concentrated “easy” to get sources dumped in landfills where they can never again effectively be reused.
Bing up Nautilus Mining if you are curious about ocean mineral extraction.
from what I’m reading online the US Senate has never ratified the “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea” so we should not be bound by it?!!?
We signed (executive branch) but never ratified?
Also, a treaty can be renounced if we had the balls to do so...... of course a Democrat admin. would be most unlikely to do so, but for serious enough mineral and oil/gas prospects it could become a good campaign issue to throw them out, or am I dreaming?
also, from what I”m seeing that UN convention does not prohibit ocean floor mining beyond a country’s territorial limits but has an idiotic provision that seems to require 1/2 (an equal mining plot to the one being mined) going to the frickin’ UN agency in charge, along with “technology transfers” over a 10-20 year period, i.e., anyone mining on the ocean floor beyond a nation’s territorial limit has to give up 1/2 their claim and then all of their technology to a UN agency..... great, what world socialist bozos come up with this crap?
|
We know who “they” are. UN needs an income stream to keep molesting children, don’t you know.
I have a frikking bonehead up the street from me who flies a UN flag and has a UN bumper sticker.
I have this thing, when I see something like that, I want to see the person’s face, to see if they live up to my preconceptions of what a raging liberal looks like.
I saw the guy a few weeks ago...yep. Looked the part.
“what world socialist bozos come up with this crap?”
Probably jotted down by some dipshit NYU Law professor while sipping a cup of coffee at a Horn and Hardart Automat. He mails it to some State Department flunky in Washington who sneaks it into a 10000 page draft of an international treaty on its way up for a presidential signature.
I don't think that will be a problem.
"The deposits are in international waters in an area stretching east and west of Hawaii, as well as east of Tahiti in French Polynesia, he said."
Just another garden variety GLOBAL redistribution of wealth scheme. General question I've asked a number of times that generates a cricket symphony: Under what authority does the U.S. CONTROL drilling outside of our 12 mile territorial waters???
Japan could do “deep sea research” and bring back as much ore as they wished.
This should cause some angst in Beijing
Just read in Friday 7/1 that a rare-earth procesing plant in Malaysia is being blocked by “environmental concerns!” These concerns coming from a country that doesn’t even use catalytic converters!
Could it be their environmental and safety concerns are being financed by a Chi-Com campaign to limit colmpetition?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
