Live data from Hacker News

Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Sweden

news.cision.com

21–30 of 341 posts

Re: Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Sweden

#21
post #11

Wonder what the practical implications of a million tonnes is? For industry, is a million tonnes really that much?

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?

Re: Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Sweden

#22

‚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?

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

Re: Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Sweden

#23
post #11

Wonder what the practical implications of a million tonnes is? For industry, is a million tonnes really that much?

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.

Re: Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Sweden

#25
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

Who needs dowsing rods when you can just move a town and see where it goes to find the next big deposit.

Just follow that town and buy the biggest parking lots you can find

Re: Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Sweden

#26

‚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?

> 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.

Re: Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Sweden

#27

Rare earth elements aren't actually rare.

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?

Re: Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Sweden

#28

> 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 ?

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.

Re: Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Sweden

#30

Rare earth elements aren't actually rare.

> 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/

Post reply on HN