U.S. Strengthens Its Rare Earth Supply Chain With New Processing Plant

oilprice.com ^ | 6/11/2020

[Elsie]

DANG!

I guess 'critical' must mean something else than what I assumed: scarce.

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https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/05/18/2018-10667/final-list-of-critical-minerals-2018

[9YearLurker]

And food. We need to relocalize and diversify our food chain as much as possible.

[PIF]

first facility to separate the full range of rare earth elements in the US since 1999 when B. Clinton killed the industry for his buddy in Indonesia

[catnipman]

“Its a very tiny plant, unfortunately.”

it’s a pilot plant ... pilot plant are to get the kinks worked out before building full-scale industrial plants ...

[catnipman]

while elements like iron and aluminum are quite abundant in the earth, most of those elements are bound in minerals that are not refineable and/or very dilute ... for example, there's 20 million pounds of gold suspended in the oceans but it's not practical to extract it ... only concentrated forms in certain ores are useful for obtaining the actual metal ... in the case of aluminum, that form is an ore called bauxite, and give that significant bauxite is found in only a very few locations in the world (none in the U.S.), aluminum is strategic

[Elsie]

Thanks for info!