Source:NewsDailyEditor's Note: At Stratfor, we use geopolitics to understand the constraints and advantages that geography confers on a country and the political, technological and economic decisions it compels. The exercise, taken to its logical conclusion, can extend all the way down to an atomic level. This occasional series examines the ele...
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2019
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Source:The term “rare earth element” has a specific meaning to scientists. Most people focus on the word “rare” and assume it means the 17 so-called rare earth elements are just that — rare. In fact, some of them are more abundant than copper. What makes them rare often has more to do with the relatively few places around the world where they can be found and the difficulty of separating them from other elements in commercially viable quantities. In today’s world, political considerations can also impact the availability of rare earth elements.For instance, much of the ...
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2019
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Source:Atlanta MagazineIn 2016, Georgia State University graduate student Danny Gardner wrote a thesis that called for digging a little deeper into materials mined near the town of Sandersville, the self-proclaimed “Kaolin Capital of the World,” two hours southeast of Atlanta. His professor, Dr. W. Crawford Elliott was curious. Together, they visited the vast white mines, collected samples from their corporate sponsor Thiele Kaolin Company, and returned to their lab in downtown Atlanta. There, they discovered something mixed in the dusty powder and rocks that Elliott describes as remarkable: a...
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2019
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Source:GizmodoOffshore wind power seems to be on the cusp of taking off in the U.S. That’s great news for the climate, but every technology has a cost. As a new study points out, a surge in offshore wind could also mean a surge in our appetite for a rare earth metal that’s mined at a heavy environmental toll.In fact, expanding U.S. offshore wind capacity in line with a recent Department of Energy report could require some 17,000 tons of the rare earth metal neodymium by 2050, according to the paper published recently in Nature Sustainability. This demand, equivalent to that of about 20 million...
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2019
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