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Rare Earth oxides (USDA)

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ZeroHedge reported the following:

Rare Earth Elements And National Security: Reclaiming US Control Amid China’s Monopoly

August 19, 2023

The Center for Strategic and International Studies on July 18 identified China’s control over gallium (a rare earth element) as a national security threat.

Rare earth elements (REEs) are crucial to the U.S. military, but China holds the key. China possesses 36 percent of the world’s known rare earth reserves and controls 70 percent of the world’s extractive capacity and an astonishing 90 percent of the processing capacity. This dominance in extraction and processing gives China a commanding position in the global REE market, raising concerns about resource security and international dependency.

REEs are critical to defense technology as modern weapons can’t be built, repaired, or maintained without them. Everything from F-35 fighter aircraft to cellphones depends on rare earths, as do critical space technologies, electronics, and semiconductors. Of the 50 minerals designated as critical by the U.S. Geological Survey, 17 are considered rare earths. Although the supply of REEs is sufficient to meet defense needs, extracting a small amount of rare earths requires mining a large quantity of waste materials.

In February 2022, the Biden White House issued a statement acknowledging how critical minerals provide the building blocks for many modern technologies and are essential to U.S. national security and economic prosperity. The statement went on to outline steps that the administration was taking to secure the U.S. supply chain. However, the problem remains unresolved.

One of the reasons why the United States and Western nations can’t compete with China in rare earth mining is environmental regulations. The necessity for permits and achieving environmental standards make mining REEs extremely difficult and expensive. The United States only has one REE mine, which is located in Mountain Pass, California.

In 2022, the White House granted $35 million to MP Materials to process REEs from Mountain Pass, but the company still sends its REE feedstock to China for advanced processing. Similarly, the United States provided funding to Australia’s Lynas Corporation for REE mining, but Lynas continues to outsource processing to China.

An apparent contradiction in the environmental regulations on mining REEs is that the same amount of pollution is being added to the Earth’s atmosphere, whether the REEs are mined and processed in the United States or China. Furthermore, green technologies are heavily dependent on REEs. Wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicle motors require REEs. Unless the United States and other nations dramatically increase their REE mining and processing, the world can never achieve the Paris Agreement’s climate change goals. https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/rare-earth-elements-and-national-security-reclaiming-us-control-amid-chinas

The US itself has been looking to get around potential rare earth restriction from China for years:

US Wants to Disrupt China’s Rare Earth Dominance

August 26, 2019

PENTAGON – The U.S. military wants to partner with Australia to disrupt China’s dominance over the global supply of rare earths — the minerals essential to high-tech products from cellphones to sophisticated weapons.

Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord told reporters Monday the Pentagon’s “highest potential avenue” is to build a rare earths processing facility with Australia in order to take care of the Pentagon’s needs and the needs of other international allies.

“The challenge is really the processing of them [rare earths] and having the facilities to do that, because quite often China mines them elsewhere and brings them back to China to process them,” Lord said.

About 80% of rare earth minerals imported by the United States come from China, and in 2017, China accounted for 81% of the world’s rare earth production, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Rare earth minerals are needed in U.S. military jet engines, satellites, missile defense systems and night vision devices.

“We’re concerned about any fragility in the supply chain, especially when an adversary controls the supply,” Lord said.

Earlier this year, China’s state economic planner issued a veiled threat to withhold the strategic minerals as part of the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing.

“If anyone were to use products that are made with the rare earths that we export to curb the development of China, then the Chinese people would be unhappy,” the official said. https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-wants-disrupt-chinas-rare-earth-dominance

Here is some information about rare-earth elements:

A rare-earth element (REE) or rare-earth metal (REM), as defined by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, is one of a set of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, specifically the fifteen lanthanides, as well as scandium and yttrium. Scandium and yttrium are considered rare-earth elements because they tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanides and exhibit similar chemical properties, but have different electronic and magnetic properties. Rarely, a broader definition that includes actinides may be used, since the actinides share some mineralogical, chemical, and physical (especially electron shell configuration) characteristics.

The 17 rare-earth elements are cerium (Ce), dysprosium (Dy), erbium (Er), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), holmium (Ho), lanthanum (La), lutetium (Lu), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), scandium (Sc), terbium (Tb), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), and yttrium (Y). They are often found in minerals with thorium (Th), and less commonly uranium (U).

Despite their name, rare-earth elements are – with the exception of the radioactive promethium – relatively plentiful in Earth’s crust, with cerium being the 25th most abundant element at 68 parts per million, more abundant than copper. However, because of their geochemical properties, rare-earth elements are typically dispersed and not often found concentrated in rare-earth minerals; as a result economically exploitable ore deposits are less common. …

The uses, applications, and demand for rare-earth elements has expanded over the years. Globally, most REEs are used for catalysts and magnets. In USA, more than half of REEs are used for catalysts, and ceramics, glass and polishing are also main uses.

Other important uses of rare-earth elements are applicable to the production of high-performance magnets, alloys, glasses, and electronics. Ce and La are important as catalysts, and are used for petroleum refining and as diesel additives. Nd is important in magnet production in traditional and low-carbon technologies. Rare-earth elements in this category are used in the electric motors of hybrid and electric vehicles, generators in wind turbines, hard disc drives, portable electronics, microphones, speakers.

Ce, La and Nd are important in alloy making, and in the production of fuel cells and Nickel-metal hydride batteries. Ce, Ga and Nd are important in electronics and are used in the production of LCD and plasma screens, fiber optics, lasers, as well as in medical imaging. Additional uses for earth elements are as tracers in medical applications, fertilizers, and in water treatment.

REEs have been used in agriculture to increase plant growth, productivity, and stress resistance seemingly without negative effects for human and animal consumption. REEs are used in agriculture through REE-enriched fertilizers which is a widely used practice in China. In addition, REEs are feed additives for livestock which has resulted in increased production such as larger animals and a higher production of eggs and dairy products. However, this practice has resulted in REE bio-accumulation within livestock and has impacted vegetation and algae growth in these agricultural areas. Additionally while no ill effects have been observed at current low concentrations the effects over the long term and with accumulation over time are unknown prompting some calls for more research into their possible effects.  …

Mining, refining, and recycling of rare earths have serious environmental consequences if not properly managed. (Rare-earth element. Wikipedia, accessed 08/27/19)

One of the reasons that the US became fairly dependent upon China is because of environmental concerns and regulations associated with mining and processing these elements.

Rare-earth elements are not actually super rare. But extracting them is costly plus poses many environmental issues.

Notice the following:

Rare Earth Mining: Sacrificing the Environment to Save the Planet?

August 17, 2023

The Norra Karr deposit of rare earth elements (REE) is situated in the southern part of Sweden, on the picturesque shores of Lake Vattern, one of the largest lakes on the Scandinavian Peninsula. The lake is surrounded by a unique mountain landscape, some of which is protected by the European Union’s Natura 2000 program. Vast reserves of fresh water coexist here with equally immense reserves of rare earth elements, which are now deemed critical for the transition to renewable energy.

According to local resident and activist Carina Gustafsson, Lake Vattern provides drinking water to 500,000 households. Approximately 260 farms and homes located within a two-kilometer radius of the proposed mine are dependent on the lake’s water supply, as well as a rich biodiverse landscape around the lake.

This 110-million-ton mineral deposit is estimated to contain approximately half a million tons of REE comprising both heavy and light elements found in eudialyte and catapleiite minerals embedded in granite. The deposit, located on the edge of a tectonic plate, is a very complex deposit containing more than 80 different minerals, which renders open-pit extraction problematic, according to Gustafsson. Yet, Greena Mineral AB, a Swedish subsidiary of Canadian Leading Materials Ltd., has specified “conventional open-pit drill and blast” as the primary method for extraction.

The development of such a deposit situated 1.5 kilometers from the lake’s shoreline and up to 120 meters above its level, Gustafsson says, poses a threat to the unique Natura 2000 protected ecosystems. Because it takes 60 years for the lake’s water to be completely replaced due to slow water exchange, extraction of the minerals may lead to irreversible pollution of the lake. …

Recent Life Cycle Assessments showed that REE mining is still associated with large quantities of chemicals needed for processing and large amounts of tailings containing toxic radionuclides Th-232 and U-238 and their decay products. …

Sweden has implemented significant environmental legislation, including the Environmental Code, which mandates an environmental impact assessment procedure for mineral exploration projects. This legislation played a pivotal role in halting an earlier REE mining project at the Norra Karr mineral deposit near Lake Vattern.

According to Carina Gustafsson, the company abandoned its extraction plans in 2016 due to its inability to prepare an appropriate Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). In February 2016, the Swedish High Administrative Court revoked the company’s mining concession following an appeal from her organization and others. The company was ordered to submit a comprehensive EIS addressing all environmental impacts, including those on Natura 2000 protected areas. However, the county administrative boards, city councils, and several other stakeholders rejected the company’s slightly updated EIS as insufficient and incomplete. The Swedish Mining Inspectorate then demanded that the EIS be completed, but apparently this had yet to be done.

The situation is expected to change if the new EU Critical Raw Materials Act (EU CRMA) is adopted. Gustafsson is worried that this regulation will open a backdoor for the mining industry, granting easy access to the Norra Karr deposit. This concern arises from the potential simplification of the permitting process in favor of “mining project promoters,” circumventing the existing procedures required by the current national environmental legislation. The proposed legislation states that the extraction of materials from the critical minerals list should be classified as an overriding public interest. “To me, it should definitely be clean freshwater that holds that classification!” says Gustafsson.

Major environmental NGOs, such as Friends of the Earth Europe, consider industrial lobbying the main reason behind the European Commission’s introduction of the new regulation, which facilitates REE mining. According to their July 2023 report, the new CRM Act will allow the industry to self-regulate, a concession to an industry that spends over 21 million euros annually on lobbying.

The motivation behind industrial lobbying stems from industry’s dissatisfaction with current environmental legislation, which diminishes the competitiveness of raw materials mined in the EU, Canada, and the United States compared to those from China and other countries where mining operations are not so strictly regulated. https://fpif.org/rare-earth-mining-sacrificing-the-environment-to-save-the-planet/

Yes, there are major environmental issues associated with the extraction of many rare earth elements.

Actually, that is why more are not extracted in the State of California, which has some of them.

Here is what could be considered as an environmental prophecy:

18 The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come,
And the time of the dead, that they should be judged,
And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints,
And those who fear Your name, small and great,
And should destroy those who destroy the earth (Revelation 11:18).

Thus, God is not pleased when humans abuse the environment.

God will have to intervene.

Yes, humans, in many ways, are destroying the earth.

The quest for certain minerals, doing bioengineering, as well as weapons development all may be factors in the destroying of the earth.

Jesus said:

21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.  (Matthew 24:20-21)

But the good news is that Jesus will return and stop the earth from being destroyed and establish the millennial Kingdom of God.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 20th, 2023 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Prophecy.

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