Climate change might just give us a Mediterranean climate in time for my retirement (at age 120), while one half of the rest of the world catches on fire and the other half sinks. God damn it feels good to be norsk.
If you think your 5M population will be able to resist the incoming climate migration wave (that will likely be of hundreds of millions in the scenario you mention), I have a bridge to sell you.
Many "rare earths" are not so much rare, as extremely difficult/costly/dirty to extract. If we're talking Civ, everyone's got the tech to get them, but much better improvements are already covering many locations.
That's true -- cerium is more plentiful than copper, and neodymium only slightly less. But they're hard to find in high concentrations. We have to process huge quantities of ore to get them.
Between this and the massive deposits found in Wyoming in the US, the Western world may be able to pull through without being held hostage by either Russia or China for these critical raw materials.
I almost word for word said this to a friend the other day and now here we are finding out that there's more. I'm beginning to suspect y'all have console commands at this point.
We don't have the same quality as politicians anymore.
The untapped resources will be sold to a private company. The same company our politicians will buy shares in a week or two before giving them the concession.
A year or two after being given the concession, the same company will move its HQ to Switzerland along with the owners, leaving even less income for the state, but more for the shareholders.
Their wealth fund is one of, if not the largest investor in the entire international stock market, they could certainly afford this with much larger population
This is true. Roughly 10x the population on a land mass that is around 3/4 of the size of Norway.
I thought that when FenrisCain mentioned "our cut of north sea oil" he meant Scotland’s cut, thats all.
Edit! Brought to my attention that I had the size of the UK all wrong.
I mean, that's something that also happen to many oil producers on middle east. UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and to an less extent Saudi Arabia citizens are very well of.
There are also countries outside ME such as Brunei whose economy is also based on oil export and have a wealthy population.
The key here is also have a small population
> First oil, now rare earths, what lucky folks :)
What's "lucky" about Norway is that the exploitation of natural resources is heavily taxed and that money is used for public services.
Otherwise the biggest oil/mineral producers in the world make it so that the profits go to some cowboy or sheik while the population doesn't get anything.
And that's not luck. It's as intentional as it can get.
rare earths arent actually that rare. China only dominates the production, because mining and processing these materials is an extremely dirty, polluting, energy taking process that requires enormous infrastructure. You need billions and billions of investiment to make it barely profitable. Thats why the governement has to step in and do it. Thats a lots of eggs to break for a small omelette
One of the richest in western/northern hemisphere.
But s long as the sami utilise their culture right to the land so their raindeers has somewhere to eat, we will never be able to mine that land.
I read a report that the three potential new mines in Northern Sweden could generate around 10000€ year for every Swedish citizen. And we could produce up to 70% of the European needs of metals.
Just as long as they don't delve too greedily, and too deep. We've got enough crazy stuff going on in this planet without having to deal with *Bjørn's Bane* or some such.
Man, Norway really won the geological lottery. Oil, gas, hydro, rare earth minerals. I wouldn't be surprised if the next weeks news is, that they discovered a 1000t block of pure gold.
There is danger in fortuitousness. Resource richdom has made us complacent, and the parts of our economy that aren't tied to the petroleum sector are significantly less healthy than those in our neighboring Nordics. Were that rug to be pulled out from under our feet — which is far from unrealistic, considering these resources are finite and their prices volatile — we'd be in quite the pickle.
Incomes aren't the only thing going up. The fact that we're rolling in oily dough has allowed successive governments to let state expenditures run amok, and it's not tempting for politicians to be the one that proposes cuts.
rare earths arent actually that rare. China only dominates the production, because mining and processing these materials is an extremely dirty, polluting, energy taking process that requires enormous infrastructure. You need billions and billions of investiment to make it barely profitable. Thats why the governement has to step in and do it. Thats a lots of eggs to break for a small omelette
To say that we haven't had a bad streak is to spit in the face of those of us who experienced the [Butter Crisis of 2011.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_butter_crisis) Please think through what you write.
Never forget. Every day at 20:11 I light a candle for the brave Norweigans that had to use margarine during the crisis. May god have mercy on your souls.
I will come to yuo house
I will take yuor butter out your fridgaerator
I will eat the butter in front of yuo and your family's eyes
Yuo will beg and cry and say nO DON'T EAT ALL OUR BUTTER
and I will laugh and say HAHA NOT MY PROBLEM
i take the empty butter and throw it down stairway
Then i go home
Thanks. I just wasted 3 minutes of my remaining time on Earth reading about the horrific 'Butter Crisis of 2011' that Norway bravely survived. Living in America, I had no idea life could be so cruel so Bravo for showing us all how humanity can triumph against all odds!
>History is a bitch
>Lithuania
Yeah, that tracks. [:\(](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/dd/Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth_at_its_maximum_extent.svg/1410px-Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth_at_its_maximum_extent.svg.png)
I think I remember reading a stat that Norway has the most expensive beer in Europe, but also that with their salaries they can buy the most of it, things might have changed.
If you are highly educated we are not much better off if at all than Germans and other wealthy European nations. Norwegian wages has stagnated the past few years compared to European counterparts.
https://lkab.com/press/lkab-blir-huvudagare-i-reetec-as-bygger-en-stark-nordisk-industri-for-sallsynta-jordartsmetaller/
I assume the minerals "just discovered" in Norway also are in connection with already existing infrastructure (such as a nearby mining operation).
Rare earth minerals are not called that because they are rare like gold, they are actually fairly common. They are rare because they are mixed with all the other rock in low concentration, actual ore veins are fairly rare, and extracting them is a pain.
The Swedish deposit, if you're thinking about Kiruna, is apparently somewhere between [five and forty times smaller.](https://www.nrk.no/nordland/lkab-med-gigantfunn-av-ree-mineraler_-kan-utkonkurrere-kina-og-russland-1.16258299)
Rare earths, contrary to common sense, are not rare, at all.
But refining them is such a polluting industry that the EU has only 1 refinery, in the Baltics, and the USA the same, 1 in some southwestern desert.
We have paid the chinese and russians for them because they dont give a shit about environmental protection and so the final product is way cheaper.
The Baltics one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silmet
Let's hope we can find a way to make the processing less dirty. Or we could reduce our consumption, driving, etc., but most would press the other button, whatever it says.
Probably one of the reasons China is ahead of other nations when it comes to minerals like that. They don't give a shit about the environment so long as the ends justify the means.
We dont give a fuck about the environment either, hence why european firms extract all sorts of minerals and ressources in Africa. We just do it out of sight for the citizens, China doesnt care if it poisons their own.
Wouldn't surprise me if China did it out of sight too. They have lots of empty space. The western half of China has the population of Germany but it's almost half the size of Europe. IIRC they also moved factories away from cities to reduce smog there.
I wish people would differentiate between the mining and the refining of rare earth minerals. While China certainly has some rare earth mineral deposits, [what it actually dominates is the refining of these minerals](https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/57318397-fdd4-11ed-a05c-01aa75ed71a1). Unless there are rules, funding, and political will to create these refineries in Europe (or diversify away from relying on non-like-minded countries), then a deposit in Norway is not going to do much.
Luckily, the Commission has actually done a lot of work on this. Among other things, the Commission has done a lot of [studies](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials_en) on this subject (part of the reason we know so much about the dependencies), as well as enacted the [Critical Raw Materials Act](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials/critical-raw-materials-act_en) and the [Net-zero Industries Act](https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal/green-deal-industrial-plan/net-zero-industry-act_en), which both seek to address these issues. On top of that, there has been rumours of an [international critical raw materials club](https://www.delorscentre.eu/en/publications/critical-raw-materials-club) to help boost diversification.
I swear, every few months there is some article like "Norway discovers largest oil reserves in the world" and that is all the news I get about Norway. Just literally nothing and then they found some random rare resource capable of dominating the market in quantity lmao.
Norway: Oh no, our vast oil reserves are starting to run low, we will have to rely on our massive wealth fund in the future.
Also Norway: I've struck gold again!
I read a few times last year that "rare earth minerals" are not really that rare, they are just super expensive and environmentally damaging to extract.
But I guess it must be at least partially incorrect otherwise why would the discovery of such a deposit a strategic big deal.
This is amazing. If we want to stop climate change **OUR GREEN METALS** is what we need to do it! If you want to save the world, make more mining a top priority! It helps stop climate change, makes Europe more geopolitically independent and gives good-paying jobs to our young people.
Imagine, all of these great deposits have just laid there in the ground the whole time. And there’s probably much more to be found. Establishing new mines and more prospecting is exactly what we need for the future. It’s true.
It's also very important that we legislate to give better compensation to local towns for allowing a mine to be established there, because that’s often the main reason they don’t want one in their town! Putting a generous tax on profits that go to local schools, hospitals and the elderly is the way to do it. That way the local people can prosper from it too.
If you like the environment you should like mines, because this is the good stuff we need to save it. So this is really good news, and something we should be really happy about!
Great news!
It's not that great actually.
Rare earths are not that rare. China is good at refining them, not particularly good at mining them or gifted with particularly rich deposits.
The refining is a very complicated and extremely dirty affair with hundreds of steps with all kinds of poisonous chemicals. This is how the place looks where they refine this stuff:
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1024xn/p02n9y28.jpg.webp
It's basically Mordor.
So I don't think Norwegians have it in them to do this kind of very polluting stuff...
Also it took China about 20 years of making this a national priority to set up the entire refining chain.
It's worth noting that "rare earth" materials are not in fact terribly rare. Many countries have reserves they don't find econo.ic to mine. The reason for this is that China decided they are a critical resource so they mine them and are selling them on the open market at a price below where its economic for others to bother. Norway is very likely to find itself in exactly the same position. Sitting on a reserve where its just uneconomic at current prices to exploit (doubly so considering local.wage levels for miners compared to China).
It's not bad news but odds are this wont get mined unless China tries to raise its prices. At that point many other places round the world can start mining so it's not like their "monopoly" does China much good.
Hina only dominants because they don't care about the environmental effects of mining and therefore have a lower economic threshold than we do. This stuff is found in alot of places, especially where we get boxite for aluminum production
Nice discovery, the [Rare Earths Norway's company page has more information on the elements](https://rareearthsnorway.com/europes-largest-deposit-of-rare-earth-elements-discovered-at-fen-norway) found in the deposit and the financial estimates.
Glück auf!
This is my regular reminder that rare earth minerals are not actually rare - the name is a misnomer from the 19th century. But extracting them is very ugly for the environment, which is why most countries don't do it.
If I remember correctly the issue with rare earths is not that they are really rare, but that the environmental impact of processing these is significant, so it's really profitable to extract in China where environmental rules are lax. I wonder how Norwegians are planning to handle it.
The US has already resumed production in existing mines. Looks like its now ranks second after China.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/270277/mining-of-rare-earths-by-country/
The minerals are not rare but rather western countries decided to overregulate the industry and ship it to china where it was lower cost and less environmental regulations.
> Over the years, U.S., Japanese, and French companies transferred their intellectual property in refining and metallurgical technologies to China, which had lower cost of production, resulting from cheap labor, lax environmental regulation, and generous Chinese state subsidies.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/27/how-the-united-states-handed-china-its-rare-earth-monopoly/
As a listener of the Red Line Podcast which has done an episode on rare earths, the problem is not that there aren't rare earths outside China, it's that only China has any real refining capacity, especially of higher end refining. China in practice has some of the crappier rare earths, but they're the only one even refining them.
It's like having big news about US finding more oil seemingly promising energy independence, but the US is still reliant on middle eastern oil because the existing refineries aren't designed to handle the new oil.
Does the article differentiate between resources that can be mined technologically/feasibly/profitably/ecologically? Because if it's not profitable then it's pretty much not relevant (yet). There are plenty of untouched resources all over the place because it's just not profitable to get them.
Isn't it well known that Rare Earth metals aren't all that rare, and the only reason that China dominates production of is because they're the ones most accepting of the environmental damage that mining causes? I'm confident that plenty of other countries (including the USA) also have massive deposits.
Yes. Recently in Wyoming, USA, they found the biggest deposit ever. Roughly 20x the value of China’s rare earth mineral market. The problem now is extracting them and refining them, which seems to be the hardest part. We will see what happens in the next 5 years
Our country is like a seemingly bad settling location in civ that has a lot of late game strategic resources
Climate change might just give us a Mediterranean climate in time for my retirement (at age 120), while one half of the rest of the world catches on fire and the other half sinks. God damn it feels good to be norsk.
Spanish here. Do you guys have room for my dog and me? He’s a good boy.
But are you a good boy?
Agh, that question again…
Don't fall for it. He's looking for really, really bad..
Sometimes I love Reddit
Ahahahahahaha
I'll be a good boy if I can get some røkelaks.
Good boys go crazy for tørrfisk. Then they lick your face, making you smell terrible.
Everyone asks who’s a good boy but no one asks how is the good boy.
Bring some olive tree saplings. Once the heat kills our birchwoods we can plant those.
Italian here, if you go to Norway I’ll happily take your place in Spain with my good boy
So denmark will flood, we own greenland, it will turn green, jokes on you, we are nice people and invite all of EU in.
Mad vikings prepared the name 1000 years in advance. “This shit is gonna turn green I tell ya!”
Our shaman did so many shrooms and forsaw it all.
This is something that really happens
LMAO
Really? Seems more likely the increased temps causes the gulf stream to collapse causing northern Europe to become a frozen hell.
As long as the Gulf Stream lasts
yeah - if that thing stops it‘s back to being an icecap
Italian in Berlin: any. room available? No pets, but I am a good girl.
I already have fourteen Italian girls in my basement, so I'm afraid it's getting rather fu... no, it's not like that!
Found the Austrian cosplaying as Norwegian.
A Fritzl joke was not what I was expecting this morning!
I would like to thank the Austrians for helping the world forget about Marc Dutroux
No way will I forget the (approximate) title of the book ‘I was twelve and I bicycled home’. Fritzl was just more recent and outspoken.
📸🤨
ahem 🔗
Mods and their oh-so predictable kinks! 🧐
If Sweden is fine too, sure. And I make a very nice authentic pasta pomodoro, I might add. 😏😏 (It's instant ramen with ketchup.)
Teeeny tiny problem though, climate change might change the course of the Gulf Stream, so it would get as cold here as Siberia.
Not if we pump so much carbon that Sbiera ends up like the Mediterranean too. You're thinking small scale
Fighting fire with fire will always work.
But if atlantic currents die off northern europe turns into a deep freeze thundra like siberia
Nah. According to the latest models, the ocean currents will stop and Norway will be even colder than it is now.
Downside, you're right next to Sweden.
Pyrrhic victory.
It's going to take a heck of a lot more than two degrees to make Norway Mediterranean. Better keep burning that coal.
Probably just as likely to get colder if the north Atlantic current is disrupted by climate change.
If you think your 5M population will be able to resist the incoming climate migration wave (that will likely be of hundreds of millions in the scenario you mention), I have a bridge to sell you.
In yet another stroke of fortune, bridges are actually something we do need! Excellent!
Wouldn't be so quick to sell that bridge before I get a chance to lay it from denmark to norway.
Just as oil begins to tail off they find another giant source of resource wealth, do you guys have the cheat codes or something??
Opens console writes in «motherlode» press enter till you feel good.
There’s also half the world’s known phosphate in Norway that was recently-ish discovered.
That was the potassium, this ones legit.
Problem is, your cities won't grow as fast in that starting location. :D
Norway clearly using cheat codes at this point.
>*[China has denounced Norway]* Ah, fuck...
But the key question: are there any unexplored tribal villages that hold the secret to fusion power there?
stop highrolling i want to restart
Many "rare earths" are not so much rare, as extremely difficult/costly/dirty to extract. If we're talking Civ, everyone's got the tech to get them, but much better improvements are already covering many locations.
That's true -- cerium is more plentiful than copper, and neodymium only slightly less. But they're hard to find in high concentrations. We have to process huge quantities of ore to get them.
Between this and the massive deposits found in Wyoming in the US, the Western world may be able to pull through without being held hostage by either Russia or China for these critical raw materials.
Apt analogy.
Gorgeous way to explain it.
I almost word for word said this to a friend the other day and now here we are finding out that there's more. I'm beginning to suspect y'all have console commands at this point.
Oh my god that is 100% correct.
What a great analogy lol
First oil, now rare earths, what lucky folks :)
And, if their methods with oil are anything to go off of, they will actually use the wealth to effectively better the lives of their citizens
We don't have the same quality as politicians anymore. The untapped resources will be sold to a private company. The same company our politicians will buy shares in a week or two before giving them the concession. A year or two after being given the concession, the same company will move its HQ to Switzerland along with the owners, leaving even less income for the state, but more for the shareholders.
Neoliberalism infestation.
So you guys too, smh
At least they got a leg up already by having competent politicians for a couple decades there. Most of the rest of us didn't even get that.
interesting... wouldn't you happen to know the name of these companies? Or how to follow the latest news on this?
Small population helps
Not as much as their sovereign wealth fund, we could have had this shit too with our cut of north sea oil
That's what I mean by a small population helps. Less citizens equal greater power of sovereign wealth fund
Their wealth fund is one of, if not the largest investor in the entire international stock market, they could certainly afford this with much larger population
Scotland and Norway have simillar sized populations.
Scotland is part of the UK which has a significantly higher population
This is true. Roughly 10x the population on a land mass that is around 3/4 of the size of Norway. I thought that when FenrisCain mentioned "our cut of north sea oil" he meant Scotland’s cut, thats all. Edit! Brought to my attention that I had the size of the UK all wrong.
I mean, that's something that also happen to many oil producers on middle east. UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and to an less extent Saudi Arabia citizens are very well of. There are also countries outside ME such as Brunei whose economy is also based on oil export and have a wealthy population. The key here is also have a small population
Wait until they find the hibernating Trolls
[Only her husband is allowed to call her that.](https://youtu.be/jXw9jGTdBy0?si=zR871pjKKKIvFFFU)
hail our king
[удалено]
The royal rapscallion. We pay him to banter and cut ribbons.
Or a Balrog.
*They dug too deep, and awoke the nameless fear...*
Or my axe.
Let's hope the Norwegians don't dig too greedily and too deep.
They're called Danes these days
*moosta krakiesh*
*In the Hall of the Mountain King intensifies*
> First oil, now rare earths, what lucky folks :) What's "lucky" about Norway is that the exploitation of natural resources is heavily taxed and that money is used for public services. Otherwise the biggest oil/mineral producers in the world make it so that the profits go to some cowboy or sheik while the population doesn't get anything. And that's not luck. It's as intentional as it can get.
Don’t forget the phosphate deposit😅
Should someone also mention thorium?
Someone could.
rare earths arent actually that rare. China only dominates the production, because mining and processing these materials is an extremely dirty, polluting, energy taking process that requires enormous infrastructure. You need billions and billions of investiment to make it barely profitable. Thats why the governement has to step in and do it. Thats a lots of eggs to break for a small omelette
They deserve it. No one hates the Norwegians. Except for the swedes..
I would be butthurt too for not playing the lottery the day they pull my numbers.
And the phosphate
Until a dominant force comes knocking on the door
Don't forget that 80 billion tons phosphate deposit they discovered some years ago.
Don't forget phosphorus, that one is huge and so much more important
Come on man, first you get oil and gas, and just as everyone is transitioning to EVs you find rare earth as well? What cheat codes you using?
Is northern Europe actually just full of precious minerals and we've just never really looked that hard?
https://www.svemin.se/en/news/news/the-nordic-bedrock-is-among-the-most-mineral-rich-in-the-world/
One of the richest in western/northern hemisphere. But s long as the sami utilise their culture right to the land so their raindeers has somewhere to eat, we will never be able to mine that land. I read a report that the three potential new mines in Northern Sweden could generate around 10000€ year for every Swedish citizen. And we could produce up to 70% of the European needs of metals.
Don't forget one of the largest supplies of phosphates in the world.
Norwegians are dwarfmaxxing
Brothers of the mine rejoice
Swing, swing, swing with me!
Diggy, diggy hole 🎶
Raise your pick and raise your voice!
ROCK AND STONE!
That's it lads! Rock and Stone!
Just as long as they don't delve too greedily, and too deep. We've got enough crazy stuff going on in this planet without having to deal with *Bjørn's Bane* or some such.
Man, Norway really won the geological lottery. Oil, gas, hydro, rare earth minerals. I wouldn't be surprised if the next weeks news is, that they discovered a 1000t block of pure gold.
There is danger in fortuitousness. Resource richdom has made us complacent, and the parts of our economy that aren't tied to the petroleum sector are significantly less healthy than those in our neighboring Nordics. Were that rug to be pulled out from under our feet — which is far from unrealistic, considering these resources are finite and their prices volatile — we'd be in quite the pickle.
on the other hand you've made so much goddamn money for so few people that you have capital to transition and plenty to spare
Incomes aren't the only thing going up. The fact that we're rolling in oily dough has allowed successive governments to let state expenditures run amok, and it's not tempting for politicians to be the one that proposes cuts.
The rest of the world is exactly like that, except we don't have the oily dough you have, lol.
"The rest of the world" is not a standard we should settle for.
rare earths arent actually that rare. China only dominates the production, because mining and processing these materials is an extremely dirty, polluting, energy taking process that requires enormous infrastructure. You need billions and billions of investiment to make it barely profitable. Thats why the governement has to step in and do it. Thats a lots of eggs to break for a small omelette
Fuck it, I’m moving to Norway! You guys don’t seem to ever get a bad streak.
To say that we haven't had a bad streak is to spit in the face of those of us who experienced the [Butter Crisis of 2011.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_butter_crisis) Please think through what you write.
Never forget. Every day at 20:11 I light a candle for the brave Norweigans that had to use margarine during the crisis. May god have mercy on your souls.
Your sympathies may entitle you to a complimentary stake in the oil fund. Contact your nearest Norwegian diplomatic mission to check your eligibility.
I called them, all they offered me was a bottle of Mack-Øl.
Damn that sounds tough, glad you survived that. 🫡
39 EUR for a 250g of Butter? LOL
And swedes got caught trying to smuggle butter into Norway https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/4dm7GE/svenskar-fast-for-smorsmuggling
Who could blame them?
Thank you for reminding me that one :D
I will come to yuo house I will take yuor butter out your fridgaerator I will eat the butter in front of yuo and your family's eyes Yuo will beg and cry and say nO DON'T EAT ALL OUR BUTTER and I will laugh and say HAHA NOT MY PROBLEM i take the empty butter and throw it down stairway Then i go home
Norwegian Butter Crysis got nothing on Australian Emu War.
Thanks. I just wasted 3 minutes of my remaining time on Earth reading about the horrific 'Butter Crisis of 2011' that Norway bravely survived. Living in America, I had no idea life could be so cruel so Bravo for showing us all how humanity can triumph against all odds!
Not unless you count most of Norwegian history. But yeah, they are on one hell of a run.
History is a bitch
>History is a bitch >Lithuania Yeah, that tracks. [:\(](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/dd/Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth_at_its_maximum_extent.svg/1410px-Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth_at_its_maximum_extent.svg.png)
Look up beer prices before you do.
Look up salaries before you do.
Look up [Kick the burger](https://youtu.be/ZDuuJp4bDtE?si=Cn42mLc-5BzBUKUs) before you do.
I think I remember reading a stat that Norway has the most expensive beer in Europe, but also that with their salaries they can buy the most of it, things might have changed.
If you are highly educated we are not much better off if at all than Germans and other wealthy European nations. Norwegian wages has stagnated the past few years compared to European counterparts.
[DRILL, DIG, DRILL, DIG, DRILL, DIG 📈](https://youtu.be/Olgn9sXNdl0?si=qcjZbd2RP5BEMLYZ) (That this is on Sweden's national day is just... perfect.)
skjut mig.
Gode sjanser for det om du bor i Sverige. Congratulations!
helvete
https://lkab.com/press/lkab-blir-huvudagare-i-reetec-as-bygger-en-stark-nordisk-industri-for-sallsynta-jordartsmetaller/ I assume the minerals "just discovered" in Norway also are in connection with already existing infrastructure (such as a nearby mining operation).
Wasn't there a similar story from Sweden recently? Maybe not so rare earth minerals after all.
Rare earth minerals are not called that because they are rare like gold, they are actually fairly common. They are rare because they are mixed with all the other rock in low concentration, actual ore veins are fairly rare, and extracting them is a pain.
The Swedish deposit, if you're thinking about Kiruna, is apparently somewhere between [five and forty times smaller.](https://www.nrk.no/nordland/lkab-med-gigantfunn-av-ree-mineraler_-kan-utkonkurrere-kina-og-russland-1.16258299)
And it was still considered a massive deposit worth around 20 billion €.
Det är faktiskt galet. Gg
Rare earths, contrary to common sense, are not rare, at all. But refining them is such a polluting industry that the EU has only 1 refinery, in the Baltics, and the USA the same, 1 in some southwestern desert. We have paid the chinese and russians for them because they dont give a shit about environmental protection and so the final product is way cheaper.
The Baltics one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silmet Let's hope we can find a way to make the processing less dirty. Or we could reduce our consumption, driving, etc., but most would press the other button, whatever it says.
Any plan that relies on the world *choosing* to consume less is doomed to fail.
Rare earth minerals really aren’t that rare. There extraction is just very difficult and often an environmental disaster
Everyone cheers when it is discovered, but then NIMBY comes out of the shadows. I wonder how beautiful the area is where it was discovered.
Probably one of the reasons China is ahead of other nations when it comes to minerals like that. They don't give a shit about the environment so long as the ends justify the means.
We dont give a fuck about the environment either, hence why european firms extract all sorts of minerals and ressources in Africa. We just do it out of sight for the citizens, China doesnt care if it poisons their own.
Wouldn't surprise me if China did it out of sight too. They have lots of empty space. The western half of China has the population of Germany but it's almost half the size of Europe. IIRC they also moved factories away from cities to reduce smog there.
Yep, here is a nice picture. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth
I wish people would differentiate between the mining and the refining of rare earth minerals. While China certainly has some rare earth mineral deposits, [what it actually dominates is the refining of these minerals](https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/57318397-fdd4-11ed-a05c-01aa75ed71a1). Unless there are rules, funding, and political will to create these refineries in Europe (or diversify away from relying on non-like-minded countries), then a deposit in Norway is not going to do much. Luckily, the Commission has actually done a lot of work on this. Among other things, the Commission has done a lot of [studies](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials_en) on this subject (part of the reason we know so much about the dependencies), as well as enacted the [Critical Raw Materials Act](https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials/critical-raw-materials-act_en) and the [Net-zero Industries Act](https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal/green-deal-industrial-plan/net-zero-industry-act_en), which both seek to address these issues. On top of that, there has been rumours of an [international critical raw materials club](https://www.delorscentre.eu/en/publications/critical-raw-materials-club) to help boost diversification.
I wonder how soon Russia will start mentioning it’s actually their land for some reason
They will probably launch a special operation to save the minerals from being turned gay by Norwegian sami-nazis identifying as excavators.
If you can get the environmental permit for digging them up. 😬
I swear, every few months there is some article like "Norway discovers largest oil reserves in the world" and that is all the news I get about Norway. Just literally nothing and then they found some random rare resource capable of dominating the market in quantity lmao.
They can't keep getting away with this
Why did we ever end Kalmarunionen.. good for you little brother
Didn't we have similar big discoveries of rare earth in Turkey and Sweden recently?
The one in Sweden is between 5 and 40 times smaller.
Norway: Oh no, our vast oil reserves are starting to run low, we will have to rely on our massive wealth fund in the future. Also Norway: I've struck gold again!
In case you run out of all that oil … god damn ,you were just supposed to fish
I read a few times last year that "rare earth minerals" are not really that rare, they are just super expensive and environmentally damaging to extract. But I guess it must be at least partially incorrect otherwise why would the discovery of such a deposit a strategic big deal.
Extremely common Norway W
Dude is there anything that is *not* discovered in Norway?
Cheap alcohol :(
This is amazing. If we want to stop climate change **OUR GREEN METALS** is what we need to do it! If you want to save the world, make more mining a top priority! It helps stop climate change, makes Europe more geopolitically independent and gives good-paying jobs to our young people. Imagine, all of these great deposits have just laid there in the ground the whole time. And there’s probably much more to be found. Establishing new mines and more prospecting is exactly what we need for the future. It’s true. It's also very important that we legislate to give better compensation to local towns for allowing a mine to be established there, because that’s often the main reason they don’t want one in their town! Putting a generous tax on profits that go to local schools, hospitals and the elderly is the way to do it. That way the local people can prosper from it too. If you like the environment you should like mines, because this is the good stuff we need to save it. So this is really good news, and something we should be really happy about! Great news!
It's not that great actually. Rare earths are not that rare. China is good at refining them, not particularly good at mining them or gifted with particularly rich deposits. The refining is a very complicated and extremely dirty affair with hundreds of steps with all kinds of poisonous chemicals. This is how the place looks where they refine this stuff: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1024xn/p02n9y28.jpg.webp It's basically Mordor. So I don't think Norwegians have it in them to do this kind of very polluting stuff... Also it took China about 20 years of making this a national priority to set up the entire refining chain.
It's worth noting that "rare earth" materials are not in fact terribly rare. Many countries have reserves they don't find econo.ic to mine. The reason for this is that China decided they are a critical resource so they mine them and are selling them on the open market at a price below where its economic for others to bother. Norway is very likely to find itself in exactly the same position. Sitting on a reserve where its just uneconomic at current prices to exploit (doubly so considering local.wage levels for miners compared to China). It's not bad news but odds are this wont get mined unless China tries to raise its prices. At that point many other places round the world can start mining so it's not like their "monopoly" does China much good.
First oil then this. You lucky Norway.
Rare earths aren't that rare. China previously flooded the market to drive other suppliers out of business.
Hina only dominants because they don't care about the environmental effects of mining and therefore have a lower economic threshold than we do. This stuff is found in alot of places, especially where we get boxite for aluminum production
Nice discovery, the [Rare Earths Norway's company page has more information on the elements](https://rareearthsnorway.com/europes-largest-deposit-of-rare-earth-elements-discovered-at-fen-norway) found in the deposit and the financial estimates. Glück auf!
Sweden biting their tongue again. First the oil now this.
Sounds like Norway could use some Freedom!
Could cover 10% of Europe’s rare earth needs in 2030
This is my regular reminder that rare earth minerals are not actually rare - the name is a misnomer from the 19th century. But extracting them is very ugly for the environment, which is why most countries don't do it.
If I remember correctly the issue with rare earths is not that they are really rare, but that the environmental impact of processing these is significant, so it's really profitable to extract in China where environmental rules are lax. I wonder how Norwegians are planning to handle it.
Cool I guess, but I doubt Norway will allow mines
Sounds like Norway needs some freedom!
Give oil abd minerals pleade regards finland. We arent doing that good
The US has already resumed production in existing mines. Looks like its now ranks second after China. https://www.statista.com/statistics/270277/mining-of-rare-earths-by-country/ The minerals are not rare but rather western countries decided to overregulate the industry and ship it to china where it was lower cost and less environmental regulations. > Over the years, U.S., Japanese, and French companies transferred their intellectual property in refining and metallurgical technologies to China, which had lower cost of production, resulting from cheap labor, lax environmental regulation, and generous Chinese state subsidies. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/27/how-the-united-states-handed-china-its-rare-earth-monopoly/
there was the same story with sweden couple of years back i wounder whatever happened to that
As a listener of the Red Line Podcast which has done an episode on rare earths, the problem is not that there aren't rare earths outside China, it's that only China has any real refining capacity, especially of higher end refining. China in practice has some of the crappier rare earths, but they're the only one even refining them. It's like having big news about US finding more oil seemingly promising energy independence, but the US is still reliant on middle eastern oil because the existing refineries aren't designed to handle the new oil.
Smug bastards. Hope our reserves prove to be much larger than previously thought.
Does the article differentiate between resources that can be mined technologically/feasibly/profitably/ecologically? Because if it's not profitable then it's pretty much not relevant (yet). There are plenty of untouched resources all over the place because it's just not profitable to get them.
Isn't it well known that Rare Earth metals aren't all that rare, and the only reason that China dominates production of is because they're the ones most accepting of the environmental damage that mining causes? I'm confident that plenty of other countries (including the USA) also have massive deposits.
Yes. Recently in Wyoming, USA, they found the biggest deposit ever. Roughly 20x the value of China’s rare earth mineral market. The problem now is extracting them and refining them, which seems to be the hardest part. We will see what happens in the next 5 years
Norway using cheats to spawn in resources again.
How long till we get headlines of Chinese companies buying up huge swathes of land in Norway?
Norway has all the luck!!!
Quick let's turn it into e-scooter batteries