Posted on 04/10/2025 5:13:36 PM PDT by nickcarraway
So who owns Kazakhstan?
All I remember from Kazakhstan is camels. And vodka.
World’s #1 exporter of potassium....
Borat.........
Funny, I don’t remember any bananas there but good for them!
These “rare earths” don’t seem to be very rare anymore...
Russia covers its northern border, and China is on the east side. Which one will get it?
The U.S. was the first country to recognize them. They have been friendly with the U.S. Because of where they are, they are pretty much obligated to be friends with China and Russia.
Rare earth minerals are actually not that rare.
They are more common than e.g. antimony, cadmium, indium or mercury.
Not even talking about gold or platinum!
Their biggest problem is that they are not found in high concentrations and processing them is tricky.
US used to have virtual monopoly on them, but we let it slip and China took over.
Our problem with them, like usual, are these environmentalists!
They just hate all mining, especially in California. And that’s were these elements are in the US.
“These “rare earths” don’t seem to be very rare anymore...”
They are not rare. That’s a misnomer. The US has plenty, but the mines have been shut down by the EPA. The problem is they are refined by using various extremely caustic acids. The acids used to be dumped on the ground or held in retention ponds. The processing and mining have been greatly cleaned up. But the various EPA’s, state, federal, county and sometime city, all are hell bend that it won’t happen in their back yards.
China has zero environmental regulations. So all the mined minerals went there for processing.
My thoughts, exactly.
Kazakhstan does have some hot chicks.
The US also removed the hated Soviet era nukes soon after they declared independence.
They produced Evgeny Nabokov, a pretty good NHL goalie.
Supposedly they have cities that are a big tourist draw. I think one was Astana.
Now hold on. I thought Nabokov was the name of the chess player the kid on Seinfeld claimed was his favorite. Never did find out what country he was supposed to be from LOL.
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