rare earths

[khazalid]

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth

so i was having a gander through this t'other day. bbc worldwide is periodically blocked and unblocked in china based on what seems to be political whim; it's that and the guardian online (fighting the right-on fight - fair play but god, if it isn't fucking tedious to read). i had no idea that rare earth minerals were deposited largely uniformly within the earth's crust, but reading about the methods required to extract and refine the ore , i can't say i'm in the least surprised that China is the only major producer thereof. I live about an hour from this lake, btw.

something to chew on while you're queuing for your new i-phones, generals.

[riskllama]

did you go for a swim? you and mrswdk could go for a picnic and make a day of it there...

[KoolBak]

*fires up new phone*

[JBlombier]

I was preparing a post of carelessness for this topic, but somehow this article has hit me. You'll have to take my word for it that it really shocked me, eventhough I try to be aware of the awfulness this world creates.

But... then I realized I am not going to do anything about it. And that goes for everyone on this forum. As long as we're not inhaling sulphur, we won't see the necessity. Or perhaps the thought "glad the Chinese do that, not us, so we can benefit" keeps us on a distance.

What your article mostly did, was putting shame on all us. It won't change anything, though. People need iPhones (at least, so I've heard).

[waauw]

if u think that's bad, check out the rare earths thread. i'd say that japanese reactor is doing way more damage than an artificial island ever could, tho...

I know. Rare earth mines are extremely dangerous and toxic for the environment. For this reason the US, formerly the biggest producer or REE's , shut down all of its mines. And now China owns about 97% of the production and could literally squeeze western markets. There used to be quite a stock market hype around these elements a couple of years back.

Question is, why are the chinese massively extracting REE's? Simply said, to attract technology. Under pressure of fear that China might one day close off REE-export, businesses have moved many of their high-tech products to China to secure the future of their businesses. And of course it's a lot cheaper being close to the source. The Chinese in return grow closer towards their 2020 objectif of becoming an innovation-based economy by having a lot of technology flux into the country. Ecologically a disaster, but economically brilliant.

Click image to enlarge.

This being said of course, REE's aren't the only danger to the environment. The entire mining sector is heading towards disaster. For centuries companies and governments have been mining the cheapest metals. Meaning, not only those that are dug up the easiest but also those that are refined more easily and safely. Usually when extracting metals from the ground, they are extracted as molecular compounds binded with either oxides or sulfides. Until now miners have been mining the oxides prefering them over sulfides because of said safety and costs. However, because of increasing prices and decreasing underground reserves more and more sulfide compounds are now being extracted. In western nations this is of course not a problem, because of high safety standards. This is however not always the case in less wealthy nations. It only takes one mistake to cause a disaster.

Another sector that could herald trouble is the petrochemical sector(much more dangerous as it's a liquid). To extract oil, companies have been digging ever more deeper. Nowadays, the US has started to dig ultra-deep oil wells. The most infamous one being BP's mexican gulf oil spill. The problem for oil extraction is that the deeper you dig, the more different the oil composition will be. Pumping up the oil will automatically drag up many other compounds, some of them being extremely toxic. So if ever a disaster occurs with these ultra-deep oil wells, the potential detrimental consequences are much vaster than they were in the past with the more conventional oil-wells.

[Metsfanmax]

Not really sure why we should be ashamed of this. OK, so it's a giant "toxic lake" in a place that people aren't living in anyway. Who cares? Presumably people don't object to the fact that there are landfills that take our residential trash away for us. Landfills are disgusting places that no one would want to live in, but it is necessary to cordon off certain sections of land for waste disposal so that society can function. Why is this fundamentally any different?

[khazalid]

Not really sure why we should be ashamed of this. OK, so it's a giant "toxic lake" in a place that people aren't living in anyway. Who cares? Presumably people don't object to the fact that there are landfills that take our residential trash away for us. Landfills are disgusting places that no one would want to live in, but it is necessary to cordon off certain sections of land for waste disposal so that society can function. Why is this fundamentally any different?

clearly you didn't read the article. 2.5 million people live there, and many millions more in the surrounding area.

i can take your point to an extent re: landfills, but there is a difference between waste borne of necessity and this extremely toxic waste (so bad that no other country in the world will go near it even in the midst of the sharpest economic downturn since yadda yadda), which has basically been fueled by rapacious, unthinking consumerism of the absolute worst kind. nobody needs a new phone every 6-12 months.

it's a shocking image, and one which has been largely ignored and unreported elsewhere, and given that a picture is worth a thousand words, I will happily stand by the re-post.

[Metsfanmax]

Not really sure why we should be ashamed of this. OK, so it's a giant "toxic lake" in a place that people aren't living in anyway. Who cares? Presumably people don't object to the fact that there are landfills that take our residential trash away for us. Landfills are disgusting places that no one would want to live in, but it is necessary to cordon off certain sections of land for waste disposal so that society can function. Why is this fundamentally any different?

clearly you didn't read the article. 2.5 million people live there, and many millions more in the surrounding area.

I did read the article. As I recall, the guy had to drive for 20 minutes from the city to get to the lake. Where I grew up, there was a giant landfill about a quarter of a mile from a main business strip.

i can take your point to an extent re: landfills, but there is a difference between waste borne of necessity and this extremely toxic waste (so bad that no other country in the world will go near it even in the midst of the sharpest economic downturn since yadda yadda), which has basically been fueled by rapacious, unthinking consumerism of the absolute worst kind. nobody needs a new phone every 6-12 months.

What about a new phone every 24 months? 36 months? At what new phone rate am I free from consumerist sin?

it's a shocking image, and one which has been largely ignored and unreported elsewhere, and given that a picture is worth a thousand words, I will happily stand by the re-post.

Not everything which is "shocking" to human emotions is obviously bad, if you take the time to reflect on it.

[nietzsche]

I think his point is a more philosophical one?

I find your position a little bit cynical Mets, and anything cynical comes from some sort of pesimism at the core.

I find his outragement (if such a word exist) like one of those we all often have but later decide we can't do anything about it and move on.

I have no point. Carry on.

[Metsfanmax]

I find your position a little bit cynical Mets, and anything cynical comes from some sort of pesimism at the core.

I find his outragement (if such a word exist) like one of those we all often have but later decide we can't do anything about it and move on.

I contend that you have it exactly backwards.

I look at that article and I am overjoyed. I am overjoyed because we have collectively figured out how to build giant, dazzling cities of steel and chemicals to produce aesthetically amazing products that immensely improve human productivity and quality of life. I see it as a testament to the human spirit that we figured it out. The author got the story all wrong: it was the plants themselves that were the story, not the landfill out in the back. If a "toxic lake" somewhere out in the desert is the cost we collectively pay to have smartphones, I am not only ok with it, I am glad about it, because it is such a small cost in the grand scheme of things.

khazalid, meanwhile, pulls up that article and becomes despaired about the fact that we all want to buy and have nice things, and wallows in his belief that surely we can do better as humans, if we all just figure out now. But he provides no solution; he just bitches about how a new phone once or twice per year is too much. Notice how also there are clear villains in this story. It is essentially porn for environmentalists because they can get off to the idea that we should just blame those evil folks who can't think long enough to realize that their insatiable greed is destroying the planet. That is why I think it is lazy and cynical: blame the iPhone users instead of recognizing that this is something that's intrinsically tied to a market economy.

That is the pessimism you were looking for. khazalid lives in a world where we humans are too evil and lazy and gluttonous to just cut back and figure out how to get by with fewer nice things. I live in a world where we should all want to have nice things, and shouldn't feel bad about the fact that we are human and like nice things. Stop worrying about the toxic lakes and think about the bigger problems: global warming, droughts, ocean acidification, overfishing. Those are the real costs we are paying, and for those things there is no clear enemy. We are the source of our own problems, collectively, but we can fix them too, if we have the will to do so.

[hotfire]

smart phones are nerd crack....everyone quit trying to mess with the sanctity of thou most holy

[khazalid]

I find your position a little bit cynical Mets, and anything cynical comes from some sort of pesimism at the core.

I find his outragement (if such a word exist) like one of those we all often have but later decide we can't do anything about it and move on.

I contend that you have it exactly backwards.

I look at that article and I am overjoyed. I am overjoyed because we have collectively figured out how to build giant, dazzling cities of steel and chemicals to produce aesthetically amazing products that immensely improve human productivity and quality of life. I see it as a testament to the human spirit that we figured it out. The author got the story all wrong: it was the plants themselves that were the story, not the landfill out in the back. If a "toxic lake" somewhere out in the desert is the cost we collectively pay to have smartphones, I am not only ok with it, I am glad about it, because it is such a small cost in the grand scheme of things.

khazalid, meanwhile, pulls up that article and becomes despaired about the fact that we all want to buy and have nice things, and wallows in his belief that surely we can do better as humans, if we all just figure out now. But he provides no solution; he just bitches about how a new phone once or twice per year is too much. Notice how also there are clear villains in this story. It is essentially porn for environmentalists because they can get off to the idea that we should just blame those evil folks who can't think long enough to realize that their insatiable greed is destroying the planet. That is why I think it is lazy and cynical: blame the iPhone users instead of recognizing that this is something that's intrinsically tied to a market economy.

That is the pessimism you were looking for. khazalid lives in a world where we humans are too evil and lazy and gluttonous to just cut back and figure out how to get by with fewer nice things. I live in a world where we should all want to have nice things, and shouldn't feel bad about the fact that we are human and like nice things. Stop worrying about the toxic lakes and think about the bigger problems: global warming, droughts, ocean acidification, overfishing. Those are the real costs we are paying, and for those things there is no clear enemy. We are the source of our own problems, collectively, but we can fix them too, if we have the will to do so.

actually, we can do better as humans. that statement is simple objectivity.

of course the intrinsic ties to a market economy are to blame for incidences like this. the rapid social, technological and moral advances of the past centuries are also attributable to this same force, although to what extent is a shade of grey. there is good and bad in everything. to claim otherwise is anathema to reason.

either way, i am not foolish enough to think that the solution to any of our collective ills lies solely in the realms of the individual; but by the same token, you should not be so foolish as to discount the efficacy of individual action. you talk about 'will' as if it is solely a collective phenomena. it is far from it.

please carry on procreating, meat-eating, voting republican, and queueing at your local apple store if it's your bag, baby.

[nietzsche]

I find your position a little bit cynical Mets, and anything cynical comes from some sort of pesimism at the core.

I find his outragement (if such a word exist) like one of those we all often have but later decide we can't do anything about it and move on.

I contend that you have it exactly backwards.

I look at that article and I am overjoyed. I am overjoyed because we have collectively figured out how to build giant, dazzling cities of steel and chemicals to produce aesthetically amazing products that immensely improve human productivity and quality of life. I see it as a testament to the human spirit that we figured it out. The author got the story all wrong: it was the plants themselves that were the story, not the landfill out in the back. If a "toxic lake" somewhere out in the desert is the cost we collectively pay to have smartphones, I am not only ok with it, I am glad about it, because it is such a small cost in the grand scheme of things.

You sound like the preaching in the atheists books that got popular a few years ago. The authors seem to have lost something early in their lives and they they found a replacement in civilization's progress. They seem to not want to see that they still yearn for what they lost and that they're fooling themselves. The "overjoyed" sentiment is not different from the overjoy religious people feel when they "find" Jesus.

It's the free market system at work. People would do anything for money including converting their land in toxic waste fields. And while you say it better civilizarions to buy a new phone every 6 months I say they are not that neccesary. It's not a basic need. But it becomes one do to our consumist way of thinking.

I know that you have no frame of reference, but I can tell you it's a shock, a smaller one now, when I go to the US for a week or so and everything becomes buying, buying, buying, wherever you go it's spending money, all the time. Even if you go camping, you first buy a ton of shit to go camping. This doesn't happen everywhere, and you feel some sort of relaxing calm when you find yourself in other countries where people's lives don't revolve about buying stuff 24/7.

So clearly it doesn't have to be that way. And what's best is up to debate, and not set in stone like you seem to point out.

Theoretically we would be best in a world that fullfilled all our needs, from physiologicall to basic to self-realization, and that doesn't neccesarily include having gadgets that have as by-product heavily toxic waste.

It's a situation that needs a solution, and getting outraged is part of the solution, because one of the impediments to the solution is to think "everything is ok folks, move on".

[Metsfanmax]

please carry on procreating, meat-eating, voting republican, and queueing at your local apple store if it's your bag, baby.

I don't want to have any children; I don't eat any animal products; I don't vote Republican; and, I despise Apple products. It is possible for someone to be liberal and still recognize, and be in awe of, the power of a market economy.

[khazalid]

please carry on procreating, meat-eating, voting republican, and queueing at your local apple store if it's your bag, baby.

I don't want to have any children; I don't eat any animal products; I don't vote Republican; and, I despise Apple products. It is possible for someone to be liberal and still recognize, and be in awe of, the power of a market economy.

sure, but there's no need to be in thrall to it.

honestly, you sound confused. or at least conflicted.

[2dimes]

... If a "toxic lake" somewhere out in the desert is the cost we collectively pay to have smartphones, I am not only ok with it, I am glad about it, because it is such a small cost in the grand scheme of things...


...Stop worrying about the toxic lakes and think about the bigger problems: global warming, droughts, ocean acidification, overfishing. Those are the real costs we are paying, and for those things there is no clear enemy. We are the source of our own problems, collectively, but we can fix them too, if we have the will to do so.

Is the same industrial carelessness/greed not the cause of 2 of those "real costs"? Possibly 3.

That lake will likely make it to the ocean at some point. If it does not drain off somewhere it should not, it might evaporate and the relocate via acid rain.

Anywho I don't know what generation this iPad is but we never qued for it or any other computer/device, I have pro created only a replacement for myself and the baby maker as for delicious flame broiled beef? Guilty.

[Metsfanmax]

please carry on procreating, meat-eating, voting republican, and queueing at your local apple store if it's your bag, baby.

I don't want to have any children; I don't eat any animal products; I don't vote Republican; and, I despise Apple products. It is possible for someone to be liberal and still recognize, and be in awe of, the power of a market economy.

sure, but there's no need to be in thrall to it.

honestly, you sound confused. or at least conflicted.

Yes. Welcome to the real world, where there are no absolutes. Sometimes the market is a good thing, and sometimes it does some not so good things. It is not always a simple either/or, where we either have to despise capitalism or love it. Capitalism does some good things for the world, and it is silly to reject this as a matter of philosophy because you don't want to admit that the world is complicated. If the cost of 700 million iPhones and countless other technological improvements is a toxic lake here and there, this is a cost we should gladly pay. We can want to improve the situation and still admit that actually the current situation is pretty great.

[Dukasaur]

please carry on procreating, meat-eating, voting republican, and queueing at your local apple store if it's your bag, baby.

I don't want to have any children; I don't eat any animal products; I don't vote Republican; and, I despise Apple products. It is possible for someone to be liberal and still recognize, and be in awe of, the power of a market economy.

Indeed that is true. And yet, the benefits of a market economy would be no less if it was rolling along at one-tenth the speed, or one-thousandth the s[eed. If instead of people buying a new phone every year, they bought a new phone every ten years, the (scaled) benefits would be no less. If instead of 10 billion people turning every square inch of the planet into an ashphalt desert there were 10 million people living in small, sustainable communities, they could still engage in a market economy and reap all its benefits.

[2dimes]

I would like to build a nice low resource home in a small sustainable community. My wife says, "Get a job there first." I sigh and go for Whoppers in her Avalanche.

[Metsfanmax]

please carry on procreating, meat-eating, voting republican, and queueing at your local apple store if it's your bag, baby.

I don't want to have any children; I don't eat any animal products; I don't vote Republican; and, I despise Apple products. It is possible for someone to be liberal and still recognize, and be in awe of, the power of a market economy.

Indeed that is true. And yet, the benefits of a market economy would be no less if it was rolling along at one-tenth the speed, or one-thousandth the s[eed. If instead of people buying a new phone every year, they bought a new phone every ten years, the (scaled) benefits would be no less. If instead of 10 billion people turning every square inch of the planet into an ashphalt desert there were 10 million people living in small, sustainable communities, they could still engage in a market economy and reap all its benefits.

The power of innovation and development is proportional to the number of people there are. If humanity had capped out at 10 million, would we have developed to the point we are today? It seems basically impossible. The development of the modern digital economy required immense amounts of global trade and cooperation, and the story of the rare earths is just one of many such examples. Through the power of comparative advantage, the more people there are to trade with, the better off I am (all else being equal), because it allows increasing amounts of specialization. If you want to live in a world where we've only made it 1/1000 of the way to where we are now (somewhere back around the time of Jesus, I guess), I guess that's up to you.

But even if this was true, it would be irrelevant, because barring a global nuclear war we're going to have several billion people living here for quite a while. Might as well accept that and find the best way to live in this circumstance.

[2dimes]

I think part of the perceived problem with the toxic lake is it might affect a vast majority of the world population that does not yet strive for smartphones, more than the minority buying, disposing and replacing them on the other side of the planet.

[Metsfanmax]

I think part of the perceived problem with the toxic lake is it might affect a vast majority of the world population that does not yet strive for smartphones, more than the minority buying, disposing and replacing them on the other side of the planet.

Economic growing pains. Unfortunate but unavoidable. As the author of the original article mentioned, the city of Baotou probably looks today not too dissimilar from how Detroit looked 100 years ago. The Chinese probably gladly make this trade if this is what is required to build an advanced industrial economy.

[2dimes]

And I agree that the coal fired industrial revolution must have been something nasty to behold. I had a buddy regale me with tales of parts of England with visible air and soot on his mom's laundry into the 1970s.

I have visited Cairo and watched as the smog changed wether or not I could see the pyramids of Giza from our hotel balcony or not.

I believe humans in some places (possibly more than not) still live much like they did 2000 years ago. I also think many in the new world did less than a century ago. (my grandparents and father for example) only 71-55 years ago, no electricity, had to get water with a bucket, separate building for pooping.

Even though I am part of it, those who have crossed either of the big oceans are still a minority, granted a much larger group of people than when it took several days riding a boat.

[Dukasaur]

please carry on procreating, meat-eating, voting republican, and queueing at your local apple store if it's your bag, baby.

I don't want to have any children; I don't eat any animal products; I don't vote Republican; and, I despise Apple products. It is possible for someone to be liberal and still recognize, and be in awe of, the power of a market economy.

Indeed that is true. And yet, the benefits of a market economy would be no less if it was rolling along at one-tenth the speed, or one-thousandth the s[eed. If instead of people buying a new phone every year, they bought a new phone every ten years, the (scaled) benefits would be no less. If instead of 10 billion people turning every square inch of the planet into an ashphalt desert there were 10 million people living in small, sustainable communities, they could still engage in a market economy and reap all its benefits.

The power of innovation and development is proportional to the number of people there are. If humanity had capped out at 10 million, would we have developed to the point we are today? It seems basically impossible. The development of the modern digital economy required immense amounts of global trade and cooperation, and the story of the rare earths is just one of many such examples. Through the power of comparative advantage, the more people there are to trade with, the better off I am (all else being equal), because it allows increasing amounts of specialization. If you want to live in a world where we've only made it 1/1000 of the way to where we are now (somewhere back around the time of Jesus, I guess), I guess that's up to you.

But even if this was true, it would be irrelevant, because barring a global nuclear war we're going to have several billion people living here for quite a while. Might as well accept that and find the best way to live in this circumstance.

A network needs a certain minimum number of participants before it becomes efficient. After a certain point, adding more participants doesn't give you much of anything. There's a law of diminishing returns to everything, and a network of a billion doesn't necessarily do anything that a network of a million wouldn't.

As far as population decline, I understand that nobody wants to be the first to die. I'm not asking for anyone to be killed. We just need to make childbearing unfashionable. When I was a kid it was unthinkable for a house not to have an ashtray in every room. Even if the the owner of the house didn't smoke, he had friends and relatives who did, and it was unthinkable rudeness to not accommodate them or to ask them to put out their cigarette. Today the unthinkable has happened: not only is smoking on the decline, but even the remaining smokers have stopped smoking in their own house and are taking it outside. A relatively small change in the zeitgeist accomplished that, and a similar change can do the same for childbirthing. Everyone needs to be aware that every extra human represents a patch of beautiful forest that will be bulldozed and turned into a filthy patch of ashphalt.

[Metsfanmax]

A network needs a certain minimum number of participants before it becomes efficient. After a certain point, adding more participants doesn't give you much of anything. There's a law of diminishing returns to everything, and a network of a billion doesn't necessarily do anything that a network of a million wouldn't.

Again, I disagree. There is power in absolute numbers in many regards. One example is innovation -- for our purposes, we can accept that brilliant ideas like general relativity are the result of an essentially random process generating brilliant people. There are more brilliant people* when there are more people in general. Economics is clearly one of those areas where you can't just make a claim like "a billion people are no better off than a million people" without justifying it with evidence.

*You might argue that the ratio of brilliant to non-brilliant remains the same, which is what justifies your claim. I would still disagree, in part because we have seen a general rise in IQ levels over time, and in part because the development of modern genetics will potentially allow us to rapidly increase the intelligence level of the population. But even if it was true, it would still be true to say that we wouldn't be where we are today (in absolute terms) without the same number of people.