Monday, July 4, 2011

Bye-bye Pacific Ocean!

Last year, China caused a minor international incident when they announced that China will be severely decreasing the exports of rare earth minerals. This caused terror in the international scene as China account for about 90% of the rare earth minerals in the world market. Great pressure was exerted on China and an annoyed Chinese government basically told the world that if they are not happy with the decision, they can extract rare earths from their own countries.

Countries like the U.S. and Japan have been trying to get other countries like Mongolia to set up a rare earth mining industry but so far, there have been no takers. It seems that rare earths minerals aren’t actually rare but few countries mined it because the industry cause great pollution to the environment. It says a lot when even the China government, not a lover of the environment by any standard, are so worried about pollution that they intend to cut production of the minerals.

Well, the U.S. and Japan now have a lifeline as vast deposits of rare earth minerals have been found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Japanese scientists who found the site says that the world can readily extracted the minerals as the deposits sits in international waters. He can say that because as the deposits sits in international waters, no one will give a damn about pollution in the area!

And there goes the sea life of the Pacific Ocean.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

nope your incorrect...ye great neigbour Malaysia is building rare earth process plant in time for world consumtion...Lynas rare earth plant in Gebeng Pahang..
well not sure people are comfortable but foe me is a NO no..
We had Bkt Merah Perak to grapple on after factory closure for 20years..

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing about this. Glad there are still some people like you who value our world's oceans. http://youtu.be/qQUECrYE2bY

Ghost said...

Actually I beleive the rare earth plant in Malaysia is still under the planning stage. They haven't started building yet.

online dating said...

Well, I don't actually think this is likely to have effect.