[HN Gopher] Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discov...
___________________________________________________________________
Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Sweden
Author : daaayum
Score : 472 points
Date : 2023-01-12 11:30 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.cision.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.cision.com)
| fumblebee wrote:
| How fortunate we are that silicon is so abundant.
| daaayum wrote:
| Who's laughing now Norway?
| a3w wrote:
| 800 mio tons in china, 1 mio ton in sweden. So, four years of
| worldwide supply, unless we start building more electric cars.
|
| #fuckcars, IMHO. Trains are nicer and bikes provide exercise, but
| the world seems to rely on two-ton vehicles for mostly one
| occupant, except for kei cars.
| bilekas wrote:
| > No rare earth elements are currently mined in Europe
|
| This is a little crazy fact I learnt today. Given how much we
| use, this news hits harder.
| olivermarks wrote:
| It is going to be an agonizing compromise for Sweden - destroy
| the Kiruna area with extraction (a million tons is a lot) or be
| environmentally friendly.
|
| Currently the Congo and Chile are being torn apart with toxic
| dollar a day child labor extraction.
|
| The Swedes will do a good job of mechanizing/sanitizing the
| process though.
|
| I went to Kiruna once to see the northern lights but they
| didn't show up.
| sorenjan wrote:
| The find is 700 meters deep and in an already established
| mine more than 100 years old.
| hulitu wrote:
| Yes, yes, but they just discover it. /s
| joromero wrote:
| Are you sure you are talking about Chile? As far as I know it
| doesn't have a child labor problem nor is it a big producer
| of rare earth metals.
| olivermarks wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/14/elect
| r...
| aeyes wrote:
| Not one sentence mentions anything close to child labor.
| And environmental activists are going to be activists
| wherever you go.
|
| What is however completely missing from the article is
| them to show actual numbers. If you look at SQMs
| environmental report you get a different picture:
| https://www.sqmlithium.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2022/06/SQM-Re...
|
| Much of what is being done to protect the environment
| isn't voluntary, the government is pushing reductionn of
| water use, use of renewable energy and lowering of
| emissions at mining sites.
|
| It's a mining country and it has been for more than 100
| years, wars have been fought over this. There is no other
| meaningful industry here. So this won't stop anytime
| soon.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Africa is where the child labor disaster is, I think
| everyone who is paying attention knows the methods and
| issues in Atacama/ Chile are very different to Africa in
| the coming tsunamai of extraction at the altar of
| electrification.
|
| https://www.nrdc.org/stories/lithium-mining-leaving-
| chiles-i...
| moloch-hai wrote:
| The value of many "rare earths" suddenly plummeted recently when
| an iron+nitrogen [edit: not "nickel"] alloy/crystallization
| ("allotrope") was discovered that approximates the properties of
| the best lanthanide magnets.
|
| ("Rare-earths" are not, incidentally, needed for
| [edit:batteries], wind turbines, or solar panels, however much
| certain people wish they were, or confidently claim.)
| Laaas wrote:
| Do you have a link, keywords, so I can read further on this
| topic? Thanks beforehand.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| https://arpa-e.energy.gov/technologies/projects/iron-
| nickel-...
|
| You may ignore claims there that they are essential for
| batteries and wind turbines. But they are important in
| electric drones and robots.
| telotortium wrote:
| That's from 2012, are there any further developments?
| moloch-hai wrote:
| I misremembered, the new advance is iron/ _nitrogen_
| magnets.
|
| https://www.nironmagnetics.com
|
| https://hackaday.com/2022/09/01/iron-nitrides-powerful-
| magne...
| telotortium wrote:
| Thanks! Submitted here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34359383
| culi wrote:
| > "Rare-earths" are not, incidentally, needed for electric
| vehicles, wind turbines, or solar panels, however much certain
| people wish they were, or confidently claim.
|
| What exactly does this mean? EVs use a ton more rare earth
| minerals than conventional cars
|
| https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/minerals-used...
|
| Solar panels use silicon, indium, gallium, selenium, cadmium,
| and tellurium. Neodymium and dysprosium are mainly used in the
| permanent magnets of offshore wind turbines
| kragen wrote:
| most solar panels do not currently use indium, gallium,
| selenium, cadmium, or tellurium, none of which are rare earth
| elements (though indium is pretty rare)
|
| the solar panels that used those cannot economically compete
| with silicon pv for utility-scale solar any more (perhaps
| that will change)
|
| silicon is also not a rare earth element (and is not at all
| rare)
|
| evs and wind turbines can use rare earth elements, it's true,
| but it's just a relatively minor engineering tradeoff not to
| use them
| colechristensen wrote:
| Silicon is perhaps the most available element on earth
| after nitrogen hydrogen and oxygen. Over a quarter of all
| rock by mass.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| None of those used in solar panels are lanthanides.
|
| Current EVs use some lanthanides in magnets (soon to be
| displaced, as noted), but not in the batteries.
|
| Permanent magnets are used mainly in the smallest wind
| turbines, where offshore turbines are the biggest.
| culi wrote:
| I see. I didn't realize "rare earth minerals" had a
| specific chemical definition
| moloch-hai wrote:
| "Rare-earth" means lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium.
| But scandium and yttrium are not used in magnets, so they
| would confuse people less by saying "lanthanide magnet"
| instead of "rare-earth magnet".
| culi wrote:
| There's actually 17 rare earth minerals. The Wikipedia
| page for it helpfully lists out common uses for each of
| them:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element
| kragen wrote:
| 17 elements, but many more minerals
|
| in fact, almost all minerals contain trace amounts of
| rare-earth elements (and non-trace amounts are very rare)
| moloch-hai wrote:
| 15 of the 17 "rare-earth" elements are lanthanides. The
| remaining scandium and yttrium are not lanthanides.
| culi wrote:
| ah makes sense, thanks
| a3w wrote:
| It's just a name. They are not necessarily rare. It
| should be "certain transition metals", but transition is
| not what it seems in regard to "changing" in the common
| sense, either.
| a3w wrote:
| It's just a name. They are not necessarily rare. It
| should be "certain transition metals", but transition is
| not what it seems in regard to "changing" in the common
| sense, either. So, certain metals, it is.
| a3w wrote:
| It's just a name. They are not necessarily rare. It
| should be "certain transition metals", but transition is
| not what it seems in regard to "changing" in the common
| sense, either. So, certain metal ores, it is.
| _ph_ wrote:
| The graph you linked shows that this is not true. See the
| tiny purple graph at the right side of the bar? That's the
| rare earth minerals and their amount in an electric car is
| tiny.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| Right, says "0.5 kg 'rare-earths'" per vehicle. A biggish
| camera drone uses more.
| aeyes wrote:
| What is so special about a drone?
| moloch-hai wrote:
| Weight matters. They are all electric. They have electric
| motors made with permanent magnets.
| culi wrote:
| Isn't 0.5kg per vehicle a _lot_ for rare earth minerals??
| Sure it looks tiny compared to the amount of copper,
| nickel, manganese, etc used, but the whole point is that
| they 're rare...
|
| 0.5kg of neodymium is around $200 and it's probably the
| cheapest of the rare earths
|
| 0.5kg of europium is around $3,750
|
| Obviously lots of variation there, but maybe ratio of how
| much it costs vs the total cost of all the other minerals
| is a better metric to use here than pure weight
| kragen wrote:
| ferrocerium is the cheapest of the rare earths, but if
| we're talking about purified elements, cerium and yttrium
| are probably cheaper than neodymium
|
| the reason the purified elements are expensive is that
| they're so hard to separate from each other
|
| rare earth elements aren't actually rare
|
| they're called that because we've inherited alchemical
| terminology from the 18th century when alchemists were
| first starting to discover that there were more than four
| elements, and that in particular there were several
| different kinds of earth, such as magnesia, silex, etc.,
| and as it turns out things like thoria are in fact quite
| a bit rarer than silex
| culi wrote:
| > Because of their geochemical properties, rare-earth
| elements are typically dispersed and not often found
| concentrated in rare-earth minerals. Consequently,
| economically exploitable ore deposits are sparse (i.e.
| "rare").
|
| For the purposes of this conversation, which is about
| economics not geochemistry, they are in fact rare. At
| least the minerals are
| moloch-hai wrote:
| > "point is that they're rare..."
|
| They are not, in fact, rare, as is almost always pointed
| out when they are mentioned.
| culi wrote:
| > Because of their geochemical properties, rare-earth
| elements are typically dispersed and not often found
| concentrated in rare-earth minerals. Consequently,
| economically exploitable ore deposits are sparse (i.e.
| "rare").
|
| Regardless, they never show up in a pure form in nature
| so what we should really be looking at is how common
| minerals that they're easy to extract from are not how
| common the atom itself is. And the useful rare-earth
| minerals are indeed "rare"
| sophacles wrote:
| That's not a particulary strong argument...
|
| The amount of magnesium in the human body is .1% by weight.
| That's not too far different from the amount of rare-earths
| in an EV.
|
| In the case of a human, i would not wish magnesium
| deficiency on them, it is not fun, can have severe long-
| term consequences (such as death), and generally is
| something that medical professionals will find concerning.
|
| In the case of an EV I don't know what the consequences of
| removing rare-earths would be, but the fact that it's a
| tiny percentage of total mass doesn't imply that they can
| just be dismissed.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| It means you don't need very much of it. And, now that
| iron-nitrogen magnets can be used in place of the
| lanthanide magnets, much less will be needed.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| "Rare" earth metals are actually not that rare.
|
| The reason we (in the west) don't mine much is that they are very
| dirty to refine. We don't want pools of toxic waste left over
| from refining all over the place but China etc will tolerate
| those.
|
| Given the ore itself is (ironically) quite common, all the mining
| happens where the refining happens because why would you bother
| shipping tonnes of ore there when is so common.
| defrost wrote:
| The Mt Weld rare earths mine located in the Goldfields Region
| of Western Australia is one of the highest grade rare earth
| mines operating in the world [1].
|
| The ore is initially drilled and blasted and the blasted ore is
| excavated and loaded on to trucks. The trucks transport the
| mined ore to the concentration plant located 1.5km away from
| the mine.
|
| The ore at the concentration plant is crushed before being fed
| to the ball bill, after which it undergoes flotation. The
| flotation concentrate is thickened and filtered and the final
| concentrate is subsequently shipped to the east coast of
| Malaysia to the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant in Kuantan,
| where the concentrate is processed [2] to produce separated
| Rare Earths Oxide (REO) products.
|
| Step [2] is the significantly nasty step and typically occurs
| awy from mine sites that produce concentrates for input.
|
| For further overview, see (for example): _Rare Earth Elements:
| Overview of Mining, Mineralogy, Uses, Sustainability and
| Environmental Impact_ [3]
|
| [1] https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/projects/mt-weld-rare-
| earth...
|
| [2] https://lynasrareearths.com/about-us/locations/kuantan-
| malay...
|
| [3] https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/3/4/614
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I weirdly think Aus would be one of the best places to do
| this sort of work. There are huge (truly gigantic) areas of
| the outback where pollution would not bother anyone. A trade
| oriented, democratic country etc could provide refined metals
| for densely populated areas to use.
| defrost wrote:
| > There are huge (truly gigantic) areas of the outback
| where pollution would not bother anyone.
|
| That's exactly what the British colonisers said when they
| engaged in a bit of atomic testing at Maralinga, leaving
| Aboriginal people blinded, affected by radiation poisoning
| and left with an ongoing legacy of radiation-related health
| problems.
|
| I expect we're less in favour of a repeat of that kind of
| dumping of the side effects of first world problems on
| indigenous people than you seem to be.
|
| Or .. you reckon we should agree to be rounded up and
| shipped off to the reservation again?
|
| [1] https://genius.com/Paul-kelly-and-the-messengers-
| maralinga-r...
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Well that escalated quickly...
| defrost wrote:
| Not at all, I'm in Western Australia and we've already
| agreed to build a commercial heavy rare earths (HRE)
| separation facility in Texas for the US DoD [1].
|
| This is ideal, as central north americans that seek the
| upside of acres of thin film TV sets and excess
| consumption also get the toxic waste that comes with it
| while no longer having to complain about the Chinese
| having all the rare earths and associated waste.
|
| I like that a lot better than having to tell Jill [2]
| that a bunch of people from across the planet want to
| fart and shit in her back yard (as you proposed).
|
| Poor woman has seen her family through enough already.
|
| [1] https://www.mining-technology.com/news/lynas-heavy-
| rare-eart...
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UKu3bCbFck
| culi wrote:
| > Because of their geochemical properties, rare-earth elements
| are typically dispersed and not often found concentrated in
| rare-earth minerals. Consequently, economically exploitable ore
| deposits are sparse (i.e. "rare")
|
| https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2002/fs087-02/fs087-02.pdf
|
| For all intents and purposes, they are in fact "rare"
| guerrilla wrote:
| No, that's not the only reason. It's also just currently a lot
| cheaper in China, so European mines can't afford to operate (I
| believe due to the very low density of deposits), so we keep
| the closed in reserve. There's awareness that this is probably
| a strategic mistake but as far as I know nobody's doing
| anything about that yet.
| noselasd wrote:
| It's more about China being strategic. They subsidies rare
| earth mining enough that very few others are able to compete
| and set up sustainable mining operations.
| ElectricalUnion wrote:
| > this is probably a strategic mistake
|
| A larger strategic mistake would be having lots of very large
| and both military and natural disaster vulnerable tailings
| ponds everywhere in your country "just because there is the
| possibility of a strategic mistake if we don't mine stuff".
|
| It doesn't take more that a dozen of those Tailings dam
| failures to completely ruin a small country.
| pvaldes wrote:
| They are also rich in death metal components, but sadly nobody
| thinks about naming their band Iced Thorium or ThugSten.
| nielsbosma wrote:
| Given that it's in Sweden it's probably never be mined. We rather
| save some frogs.
| steele wrote:
| We must liberate Sweden with Democracy!
| wuiheerfoj wrote:
| ,metals which are essential for, among other applications, the
| manufacture of electric vehicles and wind turbines'
|
| Great way to frame mining as eco-friendly haha. Is my take too
| skeptical? Are these very specific metals to eco-friendly
| production?
| smcl wrote:
| I think they're more trying to say that this is good for the
| local economy, since these will be growth industries. However
| yeah it's a bit of an unfortunate conundrum that we end up
| doing a bit more of some "bad" things to do good or at least
| better things
| [deleted]
| Mrdarknezz wrote:
| The company that owns the mine LKAB are together with swedish
| Steel producer SSAB producing fossilfree steel. They are
| working with Volvo to build their electric cars with this steel
| https://www.ssab.com/en/news/2021/08/the-worlds-first-fossil...
| raspberry1337 wrote:
| It's a completely hypothetical process that has 0 proven
| results and already involved shady deadlings with government,
| where government officials are chatting with CEO's about how
| to hide details:
|
| ' _" As you probably know, it is almost never possible to
| hide entire documents," she writes apologetically.'_ [0]
|
| [0]https://www.svd.se/a/pQnQaw/hybrit-har-blivit-ett-klagg
| hannob wrote:
| The Hybrit pilot plant is already operational and producing
| steel, although in small quantities. That sounds like a
| proven result to me, do you disagree?
|
| Can you summarize what the linked article (unfortunately
| paywalled and in swedish) says? I am quite interested in
| this project.
| mongol wrote:
| It is unproven that it can be done profitably at scale.
| baybal2 wrote:
| [dead]
| kzrdude wrote:
| LKAB is 100% owned by the Swedish state. 2021 the dividend
| was pretty large and apparently around 1000 SEK per swede.
| Well if it would have been paid that way, it's going into the
| govt balance sheet of course.
| Someone wrote:
| For reference: 1000 SEK is about EUR90/$95
| nebalee wrote:
| Funny, for me it's exactly the opposite. I feel it frames eco-
| friendly technologies as something dirty, polluting.
| AstixAndBelix wrote:
| You can mine to produce nice stuff, or you can mine to produce
| bad stuff. But mining you do, and you will for the rest of the
| life of the universe
| jamil7 wrote:
| > Great way to frame mining as eco-friendly
|
| What's the alternative? If we want to electrify, it means more
| resource discovery and mining than we're already doing, plus
| likely mining more non-renewable fuels to power the
| intermediate infrastructure we will need to mine or recycle
| metals for renewables or EVs.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > What's the alternative?
|
| Degrowth, using less of everything, only keeping what we
| truly need instead of producing insane amount of next to
| useless junk, stop shipping bananas to the other side of the
| planet to have half of them end up in a trash anyways, &c.
| Basic common sense stuff that we won't do because we need
| that sweet sweet "growth" at all cost.
| jamil7 wrote:
| Producing less and electrifying a grid are not mutually
| exclusive, ideally we will do both. Even in a "degrowth"
| future, we have to power critical infrastructure, which
| means large infrastructural changes and a bunch of raw
| materials.
| elihu wrote:
| One use of rare earths is for permanent magnet motors.
| Induction motors don't use permanent magnets, but they tend
| to be significantly less efficient.
|
| Permanent magnets can also be made without rare earths, but I
| expect the result would be a physically larger/heavier and/or
| less powerful motor. So, it's a trade-off.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| "Rare-earths" are essential neither for electric vehicle
| batteries nor wind turbines. (Nor solar panels, either.)
|
| Though it's a popular lie.
| icemelt8 wrote:
| wow this is great news, the Earth keeps surprising us with its
| riches!
| Nomentatus wrote:
| But note that, overall, the ores we're using now are much less
| rich than the ores we used up a generation or two ago. Cheaper
| energy costs have kept commodity prices about the same.
| esel2k wrote:
| Kiruna has a long history about mining incl world war II
| importance for iron.
|
| Also due execessive minig the whole town needed to be moved:
|
| "In 2004, it was decided that the present centre of the
| municipality would have to be relocated to counter mining-related
| subsidence.[29] The relocation would be made gradually over the
| coming decade. On January 8, 2007, a new location was proposed,
| northwest to the foot of the Luossavaara mountain, by the lake of
| Luossajarvi.[30]"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiruna
| tokai wrote:
| Yeah the Swedes helped Nazi Germany immensely selling them high
| quality iron. There were invasion plans drawn up going from
| German controlled Narvik to Kiruna, but the Swedes was so
| accommodating that it wasn't needed.
| LeonB wrote:
| The Swedes helped the Allies also.
| tokai wrote:
| Whats your point? Kiruna, mining, and ww2 is linked with
| Germany. HN posts are not the place for thorough
| disseminationof Sweden during ww2, and it is also off
| topic.
| monotux wrote:
| Why did _you_ bring it up in the first place, then?
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Honestly, okay and? To understand context, Germany was like
| USA back then. A LOT of media, books, philisophy, goods came
| from there. German was read and spoken as a language like
| English is now.
|
| We did it so we would not get bombed, rolled and smoked.
|
| Sweden was dirt poor after the wars of 1600s. In the 1800s
| and early 1900s people emigrated to the USA as people where
| so poor and the government actually had to stop it for a
| while. It was only after WW2 we really started to prosper.
| First due to natural resources, still important exports for
| us, enabled us to renovate cities, but making the right
| choices, we also invested in a knowledge based society,
| government laid phone cables and fibre, had a tax programme
| for home computers in the 90s/early 00s, school was mandatory
| early on, collage was free from the start etc etc etc
|
| We are a country of 10milion and we built 3 jets of our own
| design, JAS Gripen is one of the best currently flying, we
| design our own submarines, worldwide tech companies like
| Ericsson for phones, 3/4/5G, Software companies like Spotify,
| Gaming like Minecraft, Battlefield, Division, SAAB/Scania for
| trucks all over.
|
| Imagine the city of New York doing that, cant imagine.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| Interestingly, the Brits had drawn up their own 'preemptive
| invasion' plans for Norway and Sweden to 'discourage' Germany
| from doing the same, which was then 'pre-pre-empted' by the
| German invasion of Norway:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_R_4
| CydeWeys wrote:
| There's a big difference between planning something and
| actually going through with it. The military makes all
| sorts of contingency plans that never have a serious shot
| of seeing use. Per the linked article, the Allies were
| expecting some level of cooperation from the countries in
| question, which they never got, thus the plan never
| executed. It was not supposed to be a full-on violent
| invasion like the Nazis' actions.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Also sold ball bearings for the Spitfire to the UK, and
| trained tens of thousands of Norwegian "police" in exile
| during the Nazi occupation of Norway. Gotta hedge your bets.
| (Or make the best of being between a rock and hard place.)
|
| Churchill famously quipped when Sweden started to build
| atomic shelters during the 1950s something along the lines of
| - _" why? who are you going to fight"_
| LarryMullins wrote:
| At that time, Sweden had a secret program to acquire
| nuclear weapons. They intended to either buy them from
| America or manufacture their own, with the intent of
| defending themselves from the Soviet Union. America decided
| not to support this, so Sweden wound down the program in
| the 60s and 70s and exported the plutonium they had
| produced to America.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| That seems pretty short-sighted of him - atomic shelters
| come in useful if you're trying to survive your neighbors
| fighting without getting involved!
| belorn wrote:
| It is a bit more complicated than that. Sweden was selling to
| both sides but then Germany invaded Norway in order to secure
| the shipping lane from Norway to Germany and also stopping
| the allies from buying ore from Sweden. They did draft up
| more plans in case Sweden would stop selling, but all the
| primary goals was already completed by the invasion of
| Norway.
| bjornsing wrote:
| I think it has happened several times actually. The town keeps
| moving as the mine expands.
| michaelleland wrote:
| Yes, it has been an ongoing thing for several years. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2021/03/23/kiruna
| -a-...
| bdhcuidbebe wrote:
| No.
| u320 wrote:
| This deposit has been known for a long time. The news is that
| they have a better estimate how much rare earths are actually in
| there now. You don't just stumble upon something like this right
| next to one of the most important iron mines in Europe.
| kossTKR wrote:
| What effect will this have economically? GDP surge or invisible
| in broader scope?
| bradhe wrote:
| Wonder what the practical implications of a million tonnes is?
| For industry, is a million tonnes really that much?
| defrost wrote:
| It's a guesstimated million tonne of rare earth oxides .. it
| doesn't say in what kind of volume that million tonnes is
| diffused through (ie. how much has to be removed and sorted
| through) and then the oxides need to be processed to extract
| the actual rare earth elements.
|
| What you won't see for a few years yet is an industry standard
| Economic Feasibility Technical Report - which outlines over a
| thousand pages or so the model of the ore, the exploration
| techniques used to create that model, various alternative
| costed plans to extract that target ore (and the value of any
| other material also extracted) and the expected value of the
| ore over the lifetime of the mining operation.
|
| The key to this report is whether or not it's actually worth
| while to extract or whether it would cost more in earth movin
| and processing than the value of the result.
|
| As for the tonnage;
|
| > In 2019, Kiruna produced 14.7Mt of iron ore products [1]
|
| this is the adjacent current mine and the location from which a
| drift is being driven. Iron ore would be the co-product.
|
| For comparison;
|
| > Western Australia's iron ore output for 2020-21 was 838.7
| million tonnes, the second-highest figure after 2017-18.
|
| ie: big iron regions (all of WA iron mines are in the Pilbara)
| produce ~ 57x the mass.
|
| Bear in mind that this million tonne of rare earth oxides would
| extracted over a decade or more, it's not going to be a fast
| hit all in a year.
|
| [1] https://www.mining-technology.com/projects/kiruna/
| fl_ciq wrote:
| Rare earths aren't really that rare, so probably not. Everyone
| has lots of rare earths, the rare thing is an environmental
| policy that allows them to be mined economically.
| Jensson wrote:
| Not everyone has lots of rare earths... USA for example has
| just 1.8 million tonnes, and Europe currently has no
| significant rare earth mines. Rare earths are everywhere,
| true, but it is very rare to find them in high enough
| concentrations to be worth mining.
|
| https://investingnews.com/daily/resource-
| investing/critical-...
| fmajid wrote:
| The reason why China dominates supply is their willingness to
| operate the incredibly dirty refining process.
| detrites wrote:
| That's what I was going to ask: can anyone comment as to
| whether this is a disruptive event? Or is Europe so ordinarily
| devoid of such metals that it's comparatively little versus
| world supply?
| amarant wrote:
| About 3% of rare earth metals mined globally are mined in
| Europe currently. About 30% of the global supply is used in
| Europe tho.
|
| That doesn't really indicate how much is available in the
| ground, but only what's being actively mined.
|
| Someone else wondered about concentrations of rare earth
| metals in the ground in this finding, and it's "unusually
| high: 0.18%"
|
| My source is both paywalled and in Swedish, sorry about that,
| but here it is: https://www.dn.se/ekonomi/jattefynd-av-
| sallsynta-jordartsmet...
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Doesn't seem to be pay-walled at the moment although DN
| does encourage you to log in.
|
| I archived it on the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.o
| rg/web/20230112191438/https://www.dn.se...
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| According to a quick google, there are approximately 120
| million metric tons of rare earths in the world. So that's not
| a minuscule amount, but also not earth-shattering.
| detrites wrote:
| Seems about 200-300k is mined per year worldwide [0], so
| maybe it is a large amount if it could account for 3-4 years
| worth of the worlds mined supply.
|
| [0] - https://www.kitco.com/news/2022-02-07/Global-rare-
| earth-meta...
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Those are "reserves" means proven deposits. There's generally
| no point of searching for more if you have proven deposits
| for decades ahead.
|
| That's why all the early predictions for peak oil have
| failed, the proponents assumed "proven oil reserves" are all
| that's left, while we still continue to search and find more.
| US ratio of "proven reserves" to production is stable for
| around 100 years.
| moonchrome wrote:
| > If we look at how other permit processes have worked within our
| industry, it will be at least 10-15 years before we can actually
| begin mining and deliver raw materials to the market.
|
| Meh ?
| [deleted]
| capableweb wrote:
| Maybe not super familiar for speed/"velocity" addicted software
| engineers working on web apps, but things like mining,
| construction and other huge operations take some time to
| complete, and safety in modern countries is a huge factor when
| doing things like this, which adds a lot of time as well.
| moonchrome wrote:
| Ok but why is this news worthy ? Predicting industry demand
| in 15 years is pointless. I mean I remember 15 years ago
| everyone was talking about "peak oil imminent collapse". This
| seems irrelevant for problems of today so framing it as a
| solution to these is ridiculous. By the time these start
| producing most of Europe has already proposed ICE bans.
| capableweb wrote:
| Even though "News" is in the name of "Hacker News" it's not
| just for "News" or "New Things", it's for everything
| hackers find interesting. This story, evidently, is
| interesting enough to gather 133 points in less than 1 hour
| so it is "Hacker News Worthy" even if it maybe isn't "news
| worthy".
| daaayum wrote:
| This is going to have a mayor impact on Swedish politics. A new
| government is recently installed and this is the first mayor
| (public) opportunity for them to make a big impact on Europe
| from a sustainability, financial and political perspective.
| Expect A LOT faster result than 10-15 years.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| There's some legal hurdles to this.
|
| It would be unconstitutional for a Swedish government to
| meddle in individual decisions of its agencies (including
| courts), and they in turn are required to act impartially.
| u320 wrote:
| Yes but the parliament can change the law however they see
| fit, to exempt this mine from environmental law. This has
| already happened twice in the last few years (cement
| production and hydro power).
| WinstonSmith84 wrote:
| Quite "surprising" indeed for something critical. It's not just
| simply coal or so after all ...
|
| I'd be curious to compare with China, how long it took them to
| exploit their rare earths mines.
| labrador wrote:
| I enjoyed a TV show set in Kiruna with many scenes inside the
| mines. I like Nordic Noir type shows for the entertainment but I
| also enjoy the geography of my ancestors. It's really pretty
| country.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnattssol
| redsummer wrote:
| [dead]
| rurban wrote:
| Just hematite, apatite and phosphorus, which is mined there for
| over hundred years already. What is new that they decided to use
| the new other minerals than iron ore from apatite, mainly Titan,
| and they'd need phosporus for fertilisers. There's also lot of V
| (Vanadium) needed for steel.
|
| This Per Geijer deposite (already mined since the late 1800's) is
| close to the old and new Kiirunavaara mine.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sketch-map-of-the-geolog...
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| hopefully Sweden is smart enough to go "cool. leave them there "
| =/
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Why?
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| <waves hands at literally every strip mine on the planet and
| the insane amounts of pollution and environmental devastation
| they wreaked>
|
| Because we care about the environment a bit more in Europe
| and Scandinavia than we used to. Part of responsible planet
| ownership is foregoing short term gain for a nice planet to
| live on long term.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Is strip mining the only way? Can mining be done
| responsibly?
| marvin wrote:
| Mining lots of various minerals is necessary to transition
| the world to a net-neutral climate gas economy that has
| similar standard of living as today. Huge increases in
| production of batteries, wind turbines, solar panels,
| synthetic fuel production and so on.
|
| And this is necessary because the people of the world are
| not willing to reduce their standard of living to a level
| where net neutral climate gas emissions are possible
| without a similarly huge economic development. Some dream
| that this is possible, but it's plainly politically
| impossible. (Or in so many words, the people of less
| developed nations will kill their leaders if they try to
| force it on them, democracies will vote their politicians
| out).
|
| So essentially, the choice is between some local
| environmental damage due to mining and new industry, or
| indefinitely continuing climate gas emissions and the
| corresponding climate change, which will hit poorer people
| disproportionately and continue causing war and mass
| extinction.
|
| I'll vote for the local environmental damage.
| nixass wrote:
| While they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most
| likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to
| more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is
| really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high
| content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to
| make me a bit skeptical that they hadn't misplaced a decimal in
| the press release.
|
| The major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area,
| Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-
| oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden,
| including central Sweden, Grangesberg, Blotberget to name a
| couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well
| as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus.
| Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of
| a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These
| deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite,
| allanite.
|
| Now why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a
| hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in
| transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech
| uses. The currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next
| door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but
| they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores,
| but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is
| high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of
| European REE independance.
|
| Now, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when
| the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste
| sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to
| the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE
| rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out.
|
| Just the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million
| tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain
| 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new
| deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area,
| it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just
| sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and
| crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they
| were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects
| working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.
|
| But they don't get splashy international headlines because like I
| said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is
| because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process
| iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to
| sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and
| wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the
| environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.
| michaelleland wrote:
| Fun to see Kiruna here on Hacker News! My wife and I lived there
| for a year in 2014/2015. The mine is the _reason_ for the town,
| and it's exciting for my friends that live there to see
| additional minerals other than the high-quality iron ore they
| currently are mining.
|
| As some other comments have mentioned, the town is being moved as
| the mine follows the iron ore under the current town. It's a
| relatively small town (~22,0000 people) but it's still a huge
| project to move.
|
| The new deposit is under the town's ski slope on Luossavaara,
| which is the site of a now-abandoned iron ore mine. Luossavaara
| is the "L" in the mining company's LKAB name (Fully, Luossavaara
| Kiruna AB), so good that it's going to be working again under
| that same played-out deposit. It's also almost directly under my
| sister-in-law's house--which means they're probably slated to
| move too!
| SahAssar wrote:
| > It's a relatively small town (~22,0000 people)
|
| Just so no-one gets the wrong idea: there was an additional 0
| accidentally added there, the real number is ~22,000.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Isn't rare earth metals mining insanely pollutive? I've heard
| they can be found all over the world but only China mines them
| massively because nobody else is willing to destroy their
| ecology.
| Jensson wrote:
| They say they have a way to do it without being very pollutive,
| that is why they started looking for large deposits to mine and
| why they now found this one. Likely they will find many more
| large deposits in the near future.
|
| > The Norwegian company has developed an innovative and
| sustainable technology to separate rare earth metals that can
| compete with China's dominating production of these materials,
| the LKAB press release reads.
|
| https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/norwegian-swedish-cooperati...
| mcv wrote:
| This is the main reason I'd like to see asteroid mining take
| off. Let's tear some uninhabited asteroids apart, instead of
| the only planet we can live on.
| kube-system wrote:
| Unfortunately, getting to an asteroid requires emitting quite
| a bit of pollution on our own planet first.
| aa-jv wrote:
| Psyche 16 for life!
| dsign wrote:
| Gasp! We must preserve the asteroids, none of that human
| destructiveness over there! /s
| papito wrote:
| Humans will always $hit where they eat, so I say, go full
| hog on the Universe. We are less than a rounding error in
| time and space in terms of the damage we can do to it. It's
| like peeing in the ocean.
|
| The Earth is unique and precious, but the vast out there -
| we cannot do our worst even if we tried.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Humans will always $hit where they eat_
|
| So does every other living thing, in fact. It's not like
| every animal and plant is a nature conservationist and
| humans are the mindless exploiters - it's actually the
| other way around. We talk about restraining ourselves
| because, unlike the rest of the nature, we _can_ choose
| to be selfless, or at least thing longer-term and at
| ecosystem scale.
|
| Also, you're absolutely correct. Earth is a gem.
| Everything else in space we know of is just rocks and
| deserts and clumps of gases. And there's so much of it
| that we aren't going to make a dent even if we rode the
| exponential growth for a while longer.
| [deleted]
| mcv wrote:
| In the past I've also wondered if it wouldn't be too
| destructive to mine asteroids, but it makes no sense to
| worry about that while we continue to destroy our planet.
| This is the only place we can live, with vibrant,
| complex, diverse ecosystems, and we're causing a massive
| extinction event here, while making this one habitable
| planet less habitable for ourselves.
|
| Meanwhile asteroids are completely uninhabited and dead,
| and there's millions of them. They have all the same
| minerals the Earth has, and often much closer to the
| surface. We could even just mine a few and easily replace
| all the destructive mining on Earth.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Believe it or not, I discussed mining the moon with people,
| and they were horrified. Way more than mining Africa.
| eyko wrote:
| I just can't imagine mining the moon being in any way shape
| or form easier than mining the earth. The list of workplace
| hazards would be impressive. I imagine we're talking
| surface mines to keep the logistics manageable, but then:
|
| 1. How do you get astrominers there and back safely and on
| a regular basis whilst still keeping costs down?
|
| 2. What would it cost to keep your astrominers well fed and
| rested in a comfortable environment (warm, enough water,
| entertainment, etc)
|
| 3. How much more in bonuses (danger of hazard, long way
| from home, etc) do you even have to pay an astrominer vs a
| terraminer?
|
| 4. Most mines have some form of processing on site, e.g.
| break down rocks and sift through shit. How do you get
| those massive machines up there on the cheap and service
| them frequently on the cheap? Do we even have the machines
| that can work in those conditions?
|
| 5. Gravity is weak on the moon, I can imagine rocks of
| considerable mass flying or tumbling about being an issue.
| Sifting doesn't work as it does on earth without normal
| gravity and abundant water.
|
| 6. etc. etc. etc.?
|
| I mean I think it'd be cool if we could pull it off as a
| civilisation but I just can't imagine how out there in
| scope and complexity moon mining would be.
| belorn wrote:
| The underground mine has been operating for 70 years, and is
| according to the company the largest iron mine in the world.
| The location itself has been a place for top mining since 1642.
| The site has grown so much that the mining town that was built
| next to it has been forced to physically relocate their old
| buildings in order to extend the mine.
| scythe wrote:
| Mining generally pollutes in relation to the price. You can
| usually immobilize anything by conversion to sulfides and
| carbonates, but that may not be economical.
| alkonaut wrote:
| It often is as I understand it. But it's also helping reduce
| pollution through electrification so it's a balance. I (being
| not far from there) feel it's better to have polluting
| operations like this in heavily regulated and modern economies
| where there is a good chance the damage can be minimized at
| least.
| olivermarks wrote:
| It's important to understand that electrification does not
| reduce pollution.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Depends on two things 1) what is being electrified - it's
| not just about cars and 2) how the power is generated.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Also 3) the pollution created by unrecyclable end use
| electronic devices of all sizes.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > unrecyclable end use electronic devices
|
| Surely most electronic devices are recyclable as far as
| the metallic parts are concerned.
| olivermarks wrote:
| https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-
| minerals-in...
| standardUser wrote:
| Electrification is the only way to curtail climate change.
| dfghjkjhg wrote:
| [flagged]
| standardUser wrote:
| Is everything an elaborate conspiracy, or do you just
| apply cynicism lazily without worrying about the details?
| olivermarks wrote:
| Not sure who you are talking about or to here,
| @standarduser?
| olivermarks wrote:
| Brawndo's got what plants crave: It's got electrolytes!
|
| https://youtu.be/kAqIJZeeXEc
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| The slag from refining is horribly toxic. Mineral deposits are
| also high in Actinides (the bottom row of the periodic table)
| which makes them radioactively unsafe.
| 323 wrote:
| One could argue that it's so cold in Sweden there isn't really
| an ecology there.
| le_zonzon wrote:
| Actually it is quite the reverse, environmental damage in
| colder area takes much longer to recover.
| dahfizz wrote:
| This is the town where the deposit was found:
| https://cdn.britannica.com/85/117985-050-36D70897/Kiruna-
| Swe...
| jksk61 wrote:
| As one could argue that the earth is flat and nothing is
| real.
| bl0rg wrote:
| Yep, it's possible to argue completely incorrect things.
| aliswe wrote:
| Good one!
| lm28469 wrote:
| Earth is mostly uninhabited anyways, we can go at it!
| kzrdude wrote:
| It is true that these colder areas have less biodiversity. It
| feels like a simplified nature, less species to learn to get
| an overview of what you're likely to find. It's still a long
| list of course..
| keewee7 wrote:
| Maybe it's time for the rest of the world to do sustainable
| rare earth metal mining or end up being more geopolitically
| subjugated by China and Russia.
| culi wrote:
| What exactly does "sustainable rare earth metal mining" mean
| and look like? Are there any actual examples of it?
|
| Also not all minerals are so evenly spread. For example, it's
| estimated that half of all cobalt reserves is in little old
| Democratic Republic of the Congo
| daneel_w wrote:
| It certainly depends on the industrial process as a whole. But
| it's worth pointing out that nobody ever had a complaint about
| gold, silver, platinum or diamond mining, nor about the
| unimaginable volumes of ore processed to acquire iron and
| copper. But somehow these days everyone likes to think that
| they know that rare earth metals are "the devil".
| dewey wrote:
| Not really sure what you are trying to say here.
|
| Criticizing gold and diamond mining isn't uncommon. A popular
| example coming to mind is the "Dirty Money" Netflix
| documentary series (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11947154/).
| The existence of "Blood diamonds" is also a pretty commonly
| known fact.
|
| > But somehow these days everyone likes to think that they
| know that rare earth metals are "the devil".
|
| Many years ago people also thought smoking is healthy and
| asbestos are a great material to use in construction.
| daneel_w wrote:
| _" Not really sure what you are trying to say here."_
|
| That there's an ongoing movement with common people and the
| media, almost a fashion, of yapping about the perils of
| lithium extraction from ore, despite most of it coming from
| brine evaporation.
|
| _" Criticizing gold and diamond mining isn't uncommon."_
|
| Yeah it is.
| zirgs wrote:
| Diamond mining is absolutely idiotic. We can grow them in a
| lab without any problems. And so much of them that we can put
| them on angle grinders and sell them at ordinary hardware
| stores.
|
| So why would anyone want a "real" diamond these days?
| Engagement/wedding ring is just not the same if it's made
| without spilling some poor African's blood or something?
| anononaut wrote:
| Gold, silver, and platinum are largely by products of zinc
| mining etc in recent decades.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Fun fact: 0.16% of global zinc mined in 2020 went to making
| US pennies.
|
| Source: 7,596,400,000 pennies made @ 2.5g each divided by
| 12.1Mt worldwide zinc production.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Surely it is time to abandon the US cent. They have been
| next to worthless for many years.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _But somehow these days everyone knows that rare earth
| metals are "the devil"._
|
| Of course. Everyone knows that rare-earth metal extraction
| involves ugly, environmentally destructive strip mining, and
| the metals themselves are primarily used to build components
| for first-world toys and gadgets, such as electronics and
| batteries in mobile phones, computers, or electric cars.
|
| In contrast, gold, silver, platinum and diamonds are
| extracted through perfectly ordinary environmentally
| destructive strip mining, and they have important
| applications such as jewelry, tax evasion and more jewelry,
| much of it critical to important industries such as the
| wedding industry.
| culi wrote:
| > nobody ever had a complaint about gold, silver, platinum or
| diamond mining
|
| In what world? NGOs, academics, journalists, and non-profits
| have been speaking out about these and the blood diamond
| industries around them for decades at least
|
| > Gold mining is one of the most destructive industries in
| the world. It can displace communities, contaminate drinking
| water, hurt workers, and destroy pristine environments
|
| https://earthworks.org/issues/environmental-impacts-of-
| gold-...
|
| > Most silver production results in large emissions of
| mercury to air, soil, and water. Where silver is extracted by
| small-scale miners, large quantities of mercury are used,
| resulting in large health and environmental damages.
|
| http://www.env-health.org/IMG/pdf/silver_fact_sheet.pdf
|
| > The mining, metal extraction and beneficiation phases are
| accompanied by air and water pollution, the generation of
| solid waste deposited on tailings dams and waste rock
| stockpiles, the abstraction of vast quantities of water and
| the use of huge quantities of energy
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223232620_The_envir.
| ..
|
| > Mineral resource exploitation also causes irreversible
| damage to the natural environment including deforestation,
| soil disturbance, air emissions, surface water pollution,
| groundwater contamination, dust, noise, workplace health and
| safety, and others.
|
| http://www.imperial-consultants.co.uk/wp-
| content/uploads/202...
| daneel_w wrote:
| I know there's a "clique" criticizing this. That's not my
| point, but thanks for trying to balance the needle on its
| tip. Ask common people and the media about gold, silver and
| platinum mining, and you'll get a careless shrug on the
| shoulders in return.
| culi wrote:
| I don't think academics, journalists, and NGOs formulate
| a "clique". I think the matter is just those that are
| informed and those that aren't. The simple fact of the
| matter is most people simply aren't aware of the
| environmental and ethical impacts of the production of
| our everyday electronics.
|
| I really doubt more people are aware/making noise about
| rare earth minerals as they have been about the impacts
| of the sort of mining used to get gold, silver, etc
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Wouldn't 'most people' also shrug if you mentioned mining
| of rare earth minerals? I don't think there is a
| distinction except 'most people' know what gold and
| diamonds and platinum are.
| hnarn wrote:
| https://archive.ph/CDbRf
| fbergen wrote:
| I'm sorry, does this article say which metals were discovered?
| edwinjm wrote:
| Maybe better announce this _after_ Sweden joins NATO?
| rejectfinite wrote:
| We have stood against Russia before...
| type0 wrote:
| How so? Turkey will not allow it to join, until Erdogan is in
| power.
| htkibar wrote:
| They will be made to allow it. And hopefully that guys reign
| is nearing its end.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"They will be made to allow it."
|
| I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| I've wondered how that works - I'm sure Biden isn't
| calling Erdogan and saying that directly, right? How does
| the "you will fall into line, we are the hegemon" message
| get conveyed in 2022?
|
| I don't think Erdogan is even that opposed, I think he
| wants to be seen as a player.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"I've wondered how that works"
|
| Nice country you've got here. Will be a real shame if
| anything happens to it.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| But the problem with this approach is that NATO actually
| _needs_ Turkey, it 's in a vital position and is locally
| a major player.
|
| Ideally, NATO members need Turkey to be truly
| cooperative. (You know, discuss, compromise, that old
| thing.)
|
| What NATO _really_ needs is for Turkey to be not directly
| hostile. That would be incredibly costly. We already got
| a tiny tiny preview of that by Turkey turning a blind eye
| to ISIS.
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| Correct. Turkey has one of the best - maybe the best?
| Singapore could be better - positions on the planet. The
| straits alone are a remarkable advantage, much less the
| direct path along the new Silk Road, the warm water
| ports, the vast Anatolian plain, etc.
|
| Turkey is one of the most important NATO members, and
| they know it.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Turks overplayed their hand, the ridiculous demand made it so
| they got nothing from Swedes and Finns and rest of alliance
| is even more mad at them.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > If we look at how other permit processes have worked within our
| industry, it will be at least 10-15 years...
|
| When it takes 15 years simply to get permission to do something,
| you know that your country will never be competitive globally.
|
| Either the benefits outweigh the downsides, or vice versa. A
| group of 10 of the right experts ought to be able to decide that
| in a week.
|
| Spending 15 years paper-pushing, doing court battles, public
| enquiries, etc. just delays the process. At the end of the day,
| you will end up either doing it or not doing it, and whatever you
| choose is best decided quickly (with the right expertise).
|
| Perhaps we should adopt a system like for the choosing of popes -
| we lock the experts in a room till they come up with a consensus
| conclusion.
| Someone wrote:
| FTA: _"LKAB has already started to prepare a drift, several
| kilometres long, at a depth of approximately 700 metres in the
| existing Kiruna mine towards the new deposit in order to be
| able to investigate it at depth and in detail."_
| estomagordo wrote:
| TIL Sweden never has been competitive.
| loxdalen wrote:
| There is also the sami peoples reindeer herding, safety,
| environmental impact, relocating, buying land. You could not
| decide things like this in a week if you have a system where
| human and ecological rights are respected.
| krona wrote:
| The environmental impact would be net positive. If it isn't,
| then there's little to discuss in Sweden, it simply won't
| happen.
|
| Everything else is just details.
| ElectricalUnion wrote:
| > Worldwide, the environmental impact might end up being
| net positive.
|
| FTFY.
|
| Mining never ends well for the local mine environment.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| >When it takes 15 years simply to get permission to do
| something, you know that your country will never be competitive
| globally.
|
| Low IQ alert
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Sweden
|
| Sweden is also only 10mil people.
| chmod775 wrote:
| You are aware we're talking about a large scale mining
| operation here?
|
| That doesn't just mean surveying and analysis, but may also
| involve such things as resettling people, planning new routes
| for existing rivers and other water, as well as figuring out
| externalities that will remain after mining is done, but still
| should be accounted for.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Doing those things will take time, sure.
|
| But making the decision _whether_ those things should be done
| should not take long.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| I'm sure that's based on your long experience setting up
| mining operations?
| Jensson wrote:
| The area is already planned for mining and nobody lives
| there, it is right next to the largest iron ore mining
| operation in Europe. Wouldn't even need to move workers,
| since they already live next to it.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Yes, the problem with your reasoning is those are all
| things any non-expert could think of. That doesn't mean
| there aren't concerns that are more complicated than what
| some programmer on a forum can think of in 2 minutes.
| [deleted]
| raspberry1337 wrote:
| I used to think that the 40K universe was ridicolous when it
| states that the human empire is hamstringed, outright decaying,
| through 'bureaucracy' - I don't think that anymore.
| ojl wrote:
| > When it takes 15 years simply to get permission to do
| something, you know that your country will never be competitive
| globally.
|
| I think Sweden is quite competitive in general. Also, as others
| have said, it could have pretty big impact on various things.
| But I guess if Sweden was a dictatorship the government could
| just decide to start digging and not care about the people
| living there or the environment. 10-15 years sounds very long
| though, but a week.. I don't know in which country that would
| happen.
| saneehaf wrote:
| [flagged]
| pkphilip wrote:
| Seems like Sweden will need more democracy very soon
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| Rare earth elements aren't actually rare.
| defrost wrote:
| Not exactly news.
|
| A HN worthy comment might expand on _why_ they 're called
| 'rare' and _why_ they 're hard (in the sense of effort and
| resources) to extract and deliver in a ready to use state.
|
| Any ideas?
| olddustytrail wrote:
| It seems to be news to a fair number of commentators here.
| It's a useful comment for every one of these discussions I
| think.
| [deleted]
| capableweb wrote:
| > Because of their geochemical properties, rare earth elements
| are typically dispersed. This means they are not often found in
| concentrated enough clusters to make them viable to mine. It
| was the scarcity of these minerals that led to them being
| called rare earths.
|
| https://lynasrareearths.com/products/what-are-rare-earths/
| daaayum wrote:
| Over 1 millon metric tonnes of rare earth minerals found in
| Kiruna, Sweden.
| smcl wrote:
| That's the town they had to move due to mining, wasn't it? I
| hope this doesn't mean they have to move it again :)
| luckylion wrote:
| Who needs dowsing rods when you can just move a town and see
| where it goes to find the next big deposit.
| smcl wrote:
| Haha yeah, like Chief White Halfoat in Catch 22
| noduerme wrote:
| Just follow that town and buy the biggest parking lots you
| can find
| m_eiman wrote:
| Shouldn't have to, the rare earth minerals are in an area
| already designated for iron extraction. The new metals are
| just a nice bonus, I suppose.
| monotux wrote:
| I think this deposit is under Mt Luossavaara, which is close
| to the main iron ore body currently being mined. The old city
| core is currently being moved and/or torn down anyways, so it
| shouldn't affect much...
|
| ...other than the houses already transferred to the slopes of
| Luossavaara, I guess. :)
| [deleted]
| ciconia wrote:
| > "This is good news, not only for LKAB, the region and the
| Swedish people, but also for Europe and the climate...
|
| No, this is not good news. Mining is one of the most polluting
| human activities there is. In addition, all those machines used
| for digging and pulverizing the minerals, they run on petrol.
|
| In fact, the entire value chain from raw mineral to finished
| product, be it solar panels, wind turbine, or the latest iPhone,
| is totally dependent on fossil fuels: coal for making steel,
| petrol for the all the rest: mining, refining, transporting,
| installing.
|
| This is the hard truth about so called "renewables" - they would
| not have existed without the use of fossil fuels. Anyone telling
| you otherwise is simply _greenwashing_. If we really care about
| our future a whole different approach is needed.
| pastage wrote:
| With that logic anything we do for the climate is green
| washing. While your thoughts are catching on, Sweden has always
| been a nation of mining.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > With that logic anything we do for the climate is green
| washing
|
| If the goal is to stay in our "growth forever and ever and
| ever" scheme then yes
| ovi256 wrote:
| > a whole different approach is needed Why not tell us
| something about this approach ?
|
| Unless it's doing nothing.
| ajross wrote:
| Almost none of that is correct, except in the specious sense
| that most of those technologies run on electricity and
| electricity is still made from fossil sources in most areas. In
| some cases it's sort of laughable: solar panels are just
| semiconductors, _everything_ about that industry is electrified
| (most of the power input is in growing the wafer out of molten
| silicon).
|
| Basically your argument is circular: you're saying that
| renewable electrification can't happen because electricity is
| made from carbon. But as electrification proceeds that becomes
| untrue by definition.
| bjornsing wrote:
| But isn't this a feature of every technological improvement?
| You need fossil fuel energy to be able to extract renewable
| energy, yes, but there's no reason to believe you couldn't
| replace it with renewable energy down the line.
|
| It's sort of like how you bootstrap a compiler: the first
| version of a new language tool chain needs to be implemented in
| some other language. But then you can make it "self-hosted" by
| implementing it in itself.
| ciconia wrote:
| > yes, but there's no reason to believe you couldn't replace
| it with renewable energy down the line.
|
| Is there any chance of this happening by, say, 2050? I don't
| think so. The whole "energy transition" idea is a fallacy.
| Today we burn more coal, petrol and gas than ever before. We
| simply don't know how to manufacture solar panels and wine
| turbines without fossil fuels.
| otikik wrote:
| > a whole different approach is needed
|
| I would like to know more about this different approach. I
| don't think we can make a change that doesn't involve using
| what we are currently using (fossil fuels) but diminishing over
| time.
| ciconia wrote:
| In my mind the only thing that can work to mitigate climate
| change (any way we cannot reverse it) and stop damaging our
| ecosystem, the planet earth, is to practice sobriety, reduce
| our economic activity voluntarily, and thus reduce the
| burning of fossil fuels and emissions in general. This is the
| hard truth, but how many of us are ready to do this? How many
| of the people reading this are ready to make a material
| sacrifice in order to ensure the future of their offspring?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "If we really care about our future a whole different approach
| is needed."
|
| Well yes, the current econony (and mining) mostly runs on
| fossil fuels, that doesn't mean it has to stay that way.
|
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/2290944-how-electrifica...
|
| But since there is no magic spell bringing them into existence
| just like that, yes, the transition is powered by fossil fuels.
| How else could it work?
| monotux wrote:
| > In fact, the entire value chain from raw mineral to finished
| product, be it solar panels, wind turbine, or the latest
| iPhone, is totally dependent on fossil fuels: coal for making
| steel, petrol for the all the rest: mining, refining,
| transporting, installing.
|
| Well, LKAB has partnered with some other local industrial
| giants to make the steel making process fossil free, called
| project HYBRIT. It will just take some 20 years. :)
| prox wrote:
| A friend mine is doing research in solar to simplify production
| and making parts more green so to rely less on these practices.
| Each component is being intensely studied. Just adding this to
| the conversation. Also by upping the yield and longevity, costs
| go down.
| tunnuz wrote:
| I have been there, as far as I know it's already a mineral mining
| town. So convenient!
| rmm wrote:
| Looks promising but still only a mineral resource as opposed to a
| mineral reserve. Which means it may not be economical to mine
| amongst other the things.
|
| Lot easier to publish/announce resources and most don't go
| anywhere. (Been a mining/mech engineer for a while now)
| yxhuvud wrote:
| The good part is that it is located in an area that is already
| planned for iron mining (with LOTS of existingt and past iron
| mining in the greater area), so the infrastructure needed is
| mostly there already.
| akiselev wrote:
| They already have infrastructure for moving the bulk material
| from the mines, but certainly not for extracting rare earth
| elements.
|
| It's an iron mine dating to pre-WWII so if they process the
| ore on site they're probably using either direct reduction or
| the newer electrolytic process. Neither of which have much in
| common with the liquid-liquid extraction process used for
| rare earth elements. It requires mixing the ore with an
| extractant (see D2EHPA or PC88A) into a nasty acidic slurry
| which is then separated into a aqueous layer containing the
| waste and a nonpolar solvent that strips the rare earth
| elements bound up with the extractant. All the different rare
| earth elements then have to be separated out of the nonpolar
| solvent.
|
| The process resembles uranium mining far more than iron
| mining.
| mikaeluman wrote:
| Very important to start mining these to get away from dependence
| on questionable activities in China and Kongo.
|
| We just have to hope that the "greens" don't stand in the way as
| they usually do.
| rileymat2 wrote:
| I am ignorant on the topic, but strategical, wouldn't it be
| better to wait until supply disruptions, while keeping the
| reserves accessible quickly.
| mikaeluman wrote:
| All depends but mining operations are complex to setup, not
| only operationally but legally.
|
| When doing this, you get the know-how and research on how to
| do it properly and efficiently.
|
| Plus, we want to - to the extent possible - rely more on
| metals than oil, so seems logical enough.
| strangescript wrote:
| Its not something you spin up over night.
| fragmede wrote:
| > The Kiruna mine is the largest and most modern underground
| iron ore mine in the world. The mine is located in Kiruna in
| Norrbotten County, Lapland, Sweden
|
| Sweden's possibly the country most serious about the
| environment, but money talks.
| barbegal wrote:
| There are larger open-pit iron ore mines in Australia. This
| mine produces around 1% of global output.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| 1 mine producing 1% of global output seems insane no?
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| There are comparable statistics for other commodities:
| Ukraine produces 3% of the worlds wheat.
| marsven_422 wrote:
| [dead]
| littlestymaar wrote:
| I find it suprising that two posts talking about this topic are
| currently on the front page, although it's not the typical HN
| material.
|
| Maybe it's just a coincidence, or maybe there's something worth
| investigating for dang.
| Delk wrote:
| Since AFAIK most of the current production of rare earth metals
| is in China and (to an extent) the United States, large
| deposits being found in Europe would be interesting from a
| general technology point of view, IMO.
|
| Kiruna also has some of the largest mines in Europe, so the
| headline might catch some people's attention.
|
| Of course multiple posts linking to a company press release
| might seem a bit curious.
| defrost wrote:
| HN cares about IT and there being conditions suitable for IT.
|
| This means an interest in metals for electronics and suitable
| for climate related tech.
|
| Ergo you'll see news about copper, rare earths, battery
| technology advances, hydrogen, etc all hit the front page and
| often rise.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Why not, as many other niches, but 2 different links on the
| same topic, in a 5 minutes interval it's the kind of things
| that doesn't occurs that frequently, and it's usually for big
| news (either general world events or programming/tech world
| announcements).
|
| It could be a coincidence of course, but I find it suspicious
| nonetheless.
| Jensson wrote:
| Swedes are fairly prevalent in technical forums. Can see
| the HN poll here, Sweden is at spot 6 if you exclude the US
| regions:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210378
|
| So news about Sweden are probably more likely to be posted
| than for example news about Chile.
| fragmede wrote:
| It's also currently 4pm there. Prime HN posting hours.
| wyuenho wrote:
| For a block that won't even grant a rocket launchpad permit, I'd
| say this timeline is probably optimistic. If we
| look at how other permit processes have worked within our
| industry, it will be at least 10-15 years before we can actually
| begin mining and deliver raw materials to the market.
| yread wrote:
| it is important to check that the stuff is really there, what
| grade in which place, how to design the mine so that it hits
| all the high grade places but doesn't collapse and machinery
| can get in, if it can be extracted without risks to outsiders,
| how to process it, where to get power, water, how to transport
| stuff there and back, what will be waste products, what to do
| with those, how much can be recycled, etc. Preliminary
| feasibility study & definitive feasibility study.
|
| All this "studying" costs real money (as it involves drilling,
| chemistry experiments and so on) that needs to be raised first,
| too
| aliswe wrote:
| Politically motivated comment?
| kaled54321 wrote:
| [flagged]
| robin_reala wrote:
| Not exactly surprising that it's in Sweden, as many rare earth
| metals were first discovered here and are named after Swedish
| things:
|
| - Scandium from Scandinavia
|
| - Yttrium, Terbium, Erbium and Ytterbium from the village of
| Ytterby
|
| - Holmium from Stockholm
|
| - Thulium from Thule
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Isn't Thule on Greenland (or are there multiple Thule around?)
| jeltz wrote:
| Thule comes from a Greek cartographer, Pytheas. Thule was
| supposed to be an island to the north of Britain, but nobody
| knows what he referred to or if whatever place he referred to
| even was real. Some people, especially 19th century
| Scandinavian nationalists, associate Thule with Scandinavia.
| coremoff wrote:
| this is possibly in reference to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland
| jeltz wrote:
| Unlikely. Thule was supposed to exist in 330 BC, long
| after Doggerland had disappeared. There are many other
| candidates which would make more sense and fit better
| with his descriptions, including Norway.
| capableweb wrote:
| There seems to be multiple Thule, but none of them in Sweden:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_(disambiguation),
| although there seems to be a Swedish brand with the name as
| well, but unrelated to the location as far as I can tell
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Group
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| Multiple I think. I believe Thule was the capital of the
| Greenland Norse civilization, but it's also a local story
| about a high culture that disappeared.
| rafaelmelhem wrote:
| Would Thorium be part of that list as well?
|
| Edit: I kinda know that because I have some weird passion about
| the elements of periodic table and because I'm reading
| "Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of The Elements From
| Arsenic To Zinc" which I really recommend!
| Majestic121 wrote:
| Indeed, good catch : > Thorium was discovered in 1828 by the
| Norwegian amateur mineralogist Morten Thrane Esmark and
| identified by the Swedish chemist Jons Jacob Berzelius, who
| named it after Thor, the Norse god of thunder.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium
| robin_reala wrote:
| There's also tungsten: "tung" is heavy, and "sten" stone in
| Swedish.
| jeltz wrote:
| Which interestingly is called Volfram in Swedish.
| [deleted]
| u320 wrote:
| Tungsten refers to the rock where the element is found.
| The english language reused the name for the actual
| element.
| [deleted]
| User23 wrote:
| And in English we use both Tungsten and Wolfram. The
| former is more popular, but the latter is still the basis
| of the element's symbol.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| I don't know anyone who refers to the element as wolfram
| in English. The abbreviations are internationally
| standardized and many don't stand for the English words
| anyway (Latin is quite common, e.g. Pb means plumbum, for
| lead).
| nostoc wrote:
| I also don't know anyone who refers to it as wolfram, but
| wolfram is all over the tungsten wikipedia page.
| Maursault wrote:
| The symbol is W, which stands for Wolfram. So everyone
| refers to it that way, at least initially.
| jagaerglad wrote:
| There's also Gadolinium after Johan Gadolin
| juhanima wrote:
| But he was Finnish
| flakeoil wrote:
| But a Swedish speaking Finn and it seems he made his
| discoveries while living in Sweden.
|
| From wikipedia:
|
| "Johan Gadolin was born in Abo (Finnish name Turku),
| Finland (then a part of Sweden)." [0]
|
| "In 1779 Gadolin moved to Uppsala University."
|
| Uppsala is in Sweden.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Gadolin
| nine_k wrote:
| > _Finland (then a part of Sweden)_
|
| If Gadolin is Finnish, then, by the same logic, Immanuel
| Kant is Russian, because his birthplace, Koenigsberg, is
| a Russian exclave now.
| juhanima wrote:
| Gadolin was Finnish by the same logic Benjamin Franklin
| was American. Or would you consider him an Englishman? He
| was born in the British colony, after all.
| Erikun wrote:
| Also most of todays Finland was under Swedish rule until
| 1809.
| mongol wrote:
| Was any part of todays Finland not under Swedish rule
| 1809?
| Erikun wrote:
| The area around Viborg was lost to the russians in 1721
| and 1743. The western part of that, Lappeenranta and part
| of Kymenlaakso, are part of Finland today.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Finland
| heywhatupboys wrote:
| > But a Swedish speaking Finn
|
| this is the argument Russia has used to invade Ukraine...
| 2000UltraDeluxe wrote:
| That Finland has a sizable Swedish-speaking minority? The
| guy was considered Swedish back then; Finland was simply
| the Eastern half of the Swedish kingdom.
|
| There's plenty of Finnish speaking Swedes too. Is that
| also an argument for invasion?
| heywhatupboys wrote:
| No, that speaking Swedish means you are not Finnish or,
| in any remote way, makes you "closer to being Swedish"
| 2000UltraDeluxe wrote:
| What's your opinion on Belgians and the Swiss?
| xxs wrote:
| Swedish is an official language in Finland nowadays. Back
| then, it was just a part of Sweden (Finland was not
| independent)
| 2000UltraDeluxe wrote:
| Also, Tungsten.
| hrnnnnnn wrote:
| Annoyingly, even though tungsten literally means "heavy
| stone" in Swedish, the name of the element in Swedish is
| "volfram".
| excitom wrote:
| Thus the chemical symbol W (Wolfram) for tungsten.
| iSnow wrote:
| But "Wolfram" comes from German, as it was described in
| the 16th century already. The isolation of pure tungsten
| then was done by Spanish scientists.
| MasterYoda wrote:
| Quite impressive that little Sweden has found the second most
| elements in the world, 19 of them.
|
| https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/legac...
| nine_k wrote:
| Sweden has been an industrial powerhouse for centuries, due
| to its rich deposits of various ores in its relatively young
| mountains, and excellent access to the rest of Europe by sea.
|
| No wonder chemistry was in high regard there for quite some
| time.
| plussed_reader wrote:
| The Nova program 'Race to Zero'(I think) has a great overview
| on Bohr and his contemporaries to induce liquid phase of the
| lowest elements.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Bohr was Danish though, so how is this related? Other than
| Sweden being a boat trip away?
| User23 wrote:
| Sweden has produced a great chemist or two for sure.
| counttheforks wrote:
| Geographic luck is impressive?
| mclightning wrote:
| It is called Nobel Prize for a reason. Look it up.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| _Nobel Price is an inventor whose only inventions are
| either of no use or have already been invented. He first
| appeared on Sesame Street in 1980 and remained on the
| show until 1987. He often appeared in Sesame Street News
| Flash segments, showing off his latest inventions to
| Kermit the Frog._
|
| https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Dr._Nobel_Price
|
| Edit: the parent comment used to say Nobel Price
| rejectfinite wrote:
| You sound upset. Guess I got lucky. But don't forget, we
| don't owe you any.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| It's not geographic luck.
|
| It's a combination of historical industrial strategy, a
| culture with love of learning and individuals with a great
| love of learning who happened to be creative and innovative
| enough to discover these elements.
|
| It's not like these elements are nowhere else. In fact, I
| don't think any yttrium, ytteribum, etc. is mined in Sweden
| at all.
| microtherion wrote:
| What may be impressive about is that Sweden has all these
| natural resources without falling prey to the resource
| curse.
| spoiler wrote:
| I think they used impressive colloquially. I guess more
| fitting would be "interesting/amusing"
|
| Although, I think yours is a far bigger offence: being
| intentionally ignorant for the purpose of being an asshole
| online
| endisneigh wrote:
| i'm genuinely curious what about their comment makes them
| an asshole. the comment is a bit dismissive, but hardly
| assholish
| tomrod wrote:
| Collapse of the behavioral wave function due to
| observation?
| spoiler wrote:
| Others have pointed out what struck me as assholeish:
| perceived snarky tone, seems antagonistic for no reason,
| and completely unproductive. Like, why did they make that
| comment? I can't see any point other than criticizing and
| demeaning the other person for their statement (which
| also seems to be intentionally misinterpreted).
|
| Of course, there could be a language barrier (which I
| didn't think of immediately), in which case I'm the
| asshole
| dcow wrote:
| I actually find it quite interesting that people are
| jumping to the conclusion that the comment is
| _demeaning_. Ambiguous and lacking a particular effort to
| be explicitly positive, sure. But where is the
| "criticizing and demeaning" the author part? The comment
| is bare and terse, questioning whether it's really that
| impressive when you factor in geography or whether it's
| more or less to be expected. There is no ad hominem
| attack.
|
| For instance, Japan has good sea food cuisine. Sure
| that's awesome and nothing to disparage, but neither is
| it especially impressive considering they're an island. I
| think this is the point the comment is attempting to
| communicate.
| User23 wrote:
| It's also stupid and insulting, because those discoveries
| have far more to do with the capability of Swedish
| chemists than they do with geography.
| null_object wrote:
| [flagged]
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Hall kaften blattehora
| bdhcuidbebe wrote:
| ta ock nu sueidi sat din sist potatis
| BigJ1211 wrote:
| It just reads as a snarky comment for me, doesn't really
| add value as everybody with a modicum of english
| knowledge should be able to understand.
| pdpi wrote:
| The combination of being dismissive and adding nothing to
| the conversation is what makes it assholish. Their only
| contribution was to shoot down what was an interesting
| aside.
| dcow wrote:
| I don't particularly like the way the comment was
| delivered either, but it _does_ add to the conversation
| (as evidenced by the other comments that respond to its
| content and not its tone). The comment in question is
| bringing up the point that geography may have something
| to do with the reported stats, which is another
| interesting thing to keep in mind.
| Thiez wrote:
| Some of those elements they discovered (e.g. chlorine,
| silicon) hardly require geographic luck to discover, just a
| beach. Could it be that Sweden just had some enterprising
| chemists at the right time, rather than just hand-waving
| their discoveries away as geographic luck?
| [deleted]
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| The word's definition doesn't exclude it.
| [deleted]
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Aluminum (American pronunciation) _not_ being 'from/ of the
| Earth', or 'of Scandinavia', it would appear.
| jabthedang wrote:
| [dead]
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