Shortage of Rare Earth Minerals May Cripple U.S. High-Tech, Scientists Warn Congress

All the more reason to get out into space and begin Asteroid Mining.

If anyone needs less than a billion tons of rare earths, look to New Mexico. There are sand deposits that carry about 1 percent rare earths in massive deposits of black sand bearing sands. At the same time there is a basnisite deposit of unknown size. Once again someone forgets that an increase in scarcity means an increase in price which means a Vast increase in new mineral availability. There is no shortage of rare earths, only a shortage of trust in human adaptability.

We have many more planets around us. Time to put Obama's NASA money to good use for private companies to go out and seek planets from which to extract the minerals. It's only a matter of time.

@tgmac.
Agree entirely .... human adaptability will prevail .... and why mine your own in a depressed market anyhow. Just make sure it's there when its needed and make sure the quantity and grade are known so people don't make the wrong decisions.

42.

I also agree. These are not "rare", just not economical when China is producing and selling them at deflated prices.

There are plenty of deposits throughout North America and the rest of the world. The price wars will begin again when more efficient processing techniques are developed.

There is also the likelihood that shortages will lead to developments in material sciences so we need different materials.

Just because we found one material that works does not mean it is the only one that does.

Look at some of the new thermal energy work done with carbon nanotubes.

Science is some awesome stuff.

Or simply just attack China with all of U.S. military might and take what you need !!!

Something tells me that companies won't be too fond of using powerful magnets in their data centers.

unless they switch to SSD..

anyway, if we would stop deflecting asteroids from crashing into earth then we would have more rare metals/minerals etc. now wouldn't we? ok we haven't really deflected any asteroids have we? then my post is pointless.

harvesting elements from oceanwater, via electrolysis or however else you plan on doing it.. it was in this insanely realistic dream i had, where the flying saucers were chilling in the ocean repairing their hulls with lightweight metals & whatnot. i would imagine that every element in the periodic table is present in oceanwater, except for those that precipitated to the bottom in that massive chemical reaction.

Start tagging and mapping asteroids on the asteroid belt while we work on autonomous mining vehicles to extract the rare earth metals. Higher density asteroids would have the most likelihood for extracting the type of metals we need. Problem solved! next........

thank you very much
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Well, those elements are found on the periodic table but I myself have rarely heard of them that they exist in the world.

sea weed | predators of the blue ringed octopus

@Jeditalian

That was no dream, we abducted you. Welcome to the dark side.

Do you know how extreamly expensive that would be? There are other deposits on Earth that are yet to be utilized.