It bears repeating, even at the risk of being tiresome. The speaker here is distinguishing between two different types of ores. There's an ore with Thorium in it, which also holds all of the Rare Earths we're looking for, and another without Thorium. This other kind is preferred for some strange reason, and consequently, we do not obtain the Rare Earths. It isn't from the lack of Monazite ore, in which the Thorium resides, it is because the regulators are prohibiting it due to the TINY amount of radiation that Thorium emits.
Pretty silly, eh? It isn't any more dangerous than all kinds of other things we already do, but it is prohibited as if it were some of the most dangerous substances out there.
A banana has more radioactivity in it than a equal mass of Thorium. It's dumb policy. The talk above is over 10 years old. Evidently, the policy still exists. But we can buy it from Ukraine! What nonsense.
3/2/25:
With all the talk about rare earths these days, it seemed well to remind everyone that there is no shortage of rare earths in America. Instead, the shortage is in the brain power. Wherever you find Thorium, you find rare earths. There's a lot of thorium deposits in America. So all the talk is wrong anyway. Quick update: It should be mentioned that any offer to purchase any such thing from Ukraine is a total gift. One has to wonder why the offer was even made at all. There are two optional explanations: 1) stupidity, or 2) treason. Either one is not good.
5/28/13:
On vivid display in the Jim Kennedy talk at TEAC4 last year. By the way, I'm going through each of these in sequence and this is the fifth of the series. Anyway, he closes with this one, enough to get this old man's blood pressure up through the roof. It should get yours up too if you care anything at all about our future.
 |
| link to financial times.com article |
 |
| link to Washington Times article |
No comments:
Post a Comment