Rare earths first? Or last?
Oh, thats a bad conundrum. All this Renewable Energy and Electric Vehicle forcing require mountains of rare Earths and the only place where they can be procured in volumes is in China. Not that China has a particularly rich vein of those materials it can easily exploit. Rare Earths are not rare. They are pretty much anywhere. But extracting them from the source rock is very environmentally destructive. Doing it sustainably costs a lot of money. Doing it China’s way – by simply wreaking havoc – is cheaper. So – -will we pay up – or build our green gizmos on the back of the total destruction of a part of China?
Watts Up With That? 
