Japan breaks China's stranglehold on rare metals with sea-mud bonanza - Telegraph

Rare earths without thorium. Sounds like good news, but it is not clear why thorium is a problem. It is radioactive, but only mildly so. It won't hurt anybody.  There's a lot of fear out there of thorium, but that is hard to understand.

There was a lot of coverage on the subject of thorium in prior posts.  My recollection was that thorium is found with rare earths.  Thus, the monopoly is entirely avoidable.  Makes me wonder why the monopoly was allowed to exist in the first place.


Summary:

Japan breaks China's stranglehold on rare metals with sea-mud bonanza - Telegraph. Japanese scientists have found vast reserves of rare earth metals on the Pacific seabed that can be mined cheaply, a discovery that may break the Chinese monopoly on a crucial raw material needed in hi-tech industries and advanced weapons systems.