rare earth metals; is this as big a deal as I think it is?

It's probably a significant find, but the costs of underwater extraction could make it hard to be competitive from a price-standpoint.
 
5500 meter deep according to the chart. I am not a mining guy, but i don’t think that’s going to be easy to mine.
 
Old97 said:
5500 meter deep according to the chart. I am not a mining guy, but i don’t think that’s going to be easy to mine.
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Yeah no kidding! Nearly 4 miles underwater in some places. Amazing how they even discover those kinds of things at such depths.
 
Rare Earth metals are found everywhere. You can mine them anywhere, but it makes a mess. That's why most of their extraction occurs in places that don't have big time environmental regulations. I suspect it would be cost effective to mine them form the Moon sooner than it would to do so in 5K feet of water.
 
Ryanb said:
Yeah no kidding! Nearly 4 miles underwater in some places. Amazing how they even discover those kinds of things at such depths.
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Folks have been driving boats around and digging holes in the sea floor for decades. The technology isn’t particularly difficult at this point in the game.
 
Clark1961 said:
Folks have been driving boats around and digging holes in the sea floor for decades. The technology isn’t particularly difficult at this point in the game.
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I can always count on you for a humorous response! :lol:
 
Ryanb said:
I can always count on you for a humorous response! :lol:
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some of the purely scientific side of things can be found by googling Ocean Drilling Program and Integrated Ocean Drilling Program.
 
Ryanb said:
I can always count on you for a humorous response! :lol:
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In another life I was involved in several Pilot Undersea Mining tests, and also the Ocean Drilling Program, mentioned in another post (takes core samples
for scientific research). The technology exists to do it - but to mine the seabed and make a profit? Probably not.

Dave
 
cessna182b said:
In another life I was involved in several Pilot Undersea Mining tests, and also the Ocean Drilling Program, mentioned in another post (takes core samples
for scientific research). The technology exists to do it - but to mine the seabed and make a profit? Probably not.

Dave
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Exactly. It’s not that we can’t do it, it’s just that it probably isn’t cost-effective at current prices for rare earth minerals when you’re competing against on shore strip mining performed by low-wage workers in China.


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Rare earths are not rare. I don’t think this means much.

The problem with rare earth is the expense of clean processing, and the Chinese will continue to do it cheaply by polluting their soil and water.
 
steingar said:
Rare Earth metals are found everywhere. You can mine them anywhere, but it makes a mess. That's why most of their extraction occurs in places that don't have big time environmental regulations. I suspect it would be cost effective to mine them form the Moon sooner than it would to do so in 5K feet of water.
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Meters, not feet. 5000 feet is 16,400 feet.

But if it's worth enough, someone will figure a way to extract the stuff.
 
Mining generally involves moving mass quantities of earth in order to extract from it a small quantity of ore. Then the ore has to be processed/refined, often in multiple steps, to extract the metal(s) of interest.

Rare earth metals from the deep ocean seems more a science project than a commercially viable venture.
 
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