The world has been discussing for the 3 years the war in Ukraine and suddenly and unexpectedly, towards the end, the US authorities start talking about some of the rear-earths minerals that they are going to extract in Ukraine to compensate for their military aid expence for Ukraine.
Today's readers are not able to list the so-called rare earth minerals and have a poor idea of what they are needed for.
The rare earth minerals were detailed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries due to the rapid development of science and industry, Many of these minerals were found to have interesting properties.
So what are these rare earth metals?
This is the name given to 17 elements of the periodic table, of which, 15 belong to the group of so-called lanthanides plus yttrium and scandium.
If we look at open sources on the use of these so-called rare earth metals, we will find that they are used very sparcely.
From what we managed to find out in open sources, there is a more or less good demand for neonym, used for powerful magnets that can significantly change our lives, since magnets are very widely used.
The rest are used in extremely narrow areas; for example, aerospace manufacturing of some electronic components and scientific research. The usage is highly dependent on the decisions of a small number of people.
As their use is in extremely narrow areas and limited, it is not surprising that most of the population does not know about them.
THhey used for research as their application in aerospace technologies which are also rarely used in reality. Although there are many publications in the media about supposed achievements in them, it allows to manipulate the significance of these rare earth metals. a
The rare earth metals themselves, as it turns out, are not so rare and are spread well over the earth, and their extraction is usually an accompanying process from the waste heaps of other mineral rocks.
That is, in fact, they can be mined almost anywhere. And their cost is very volatile and it is impossible to predict which of them minerals will really be needed in the next 5-10 years and whether they will be needed at all.
The situation is more like Ukraine, which has nothing in resourses, but a large territory in Europe, has nothing else to offer the US, and the US really wants to take something in exchange for the 500 billion in aid they have provided over the past 3 years.
A more interesting situation was written in the press about 10 years ago.
The fact is that the US suddenly became concerned about China occupying the production and consumption of rare earth materials and even imposed a ban on their export, thereby making some important American sectors of the economy vulnerable.
The solution however was found interesting the USA decided to stimulate Vietnam to develop production of rare earth metals Although as Wikipedia information shows this can be done in almost any large country.
However, despite the fact that the US concern about rare earth metals appeared about 10 years ago, according to the data available in the press, the situation has not changed in the main.
China continues to be the world leader in the production and consumption of rare earth metals and the rest is mined in countries that also mine a lot of metals, such as the USA, Australia and Canada.
If we speak literally then in fact much rarer and much more important and useful for the industry metals are not called rare they are called noble.
The only problem is that these noble metals or so-called platinum group metals are concentrated in only two large deposits on the entire globe, one of them is in Russia, Norilsk Nickel, and the other is in Canada.
Since Ukraine, has nothing else of interest for Europe, exept her territory which is relatively large, rare earth metals, are found there in small quantities.
Despite the fact that the Americans claim that they helped Ukraine with 500 billion dollars, the entire market of rear earth metals year to year was only 6 billion dollars.
However, in big politics, few people count the numbers. If it were necessary to help Ukraine with 500 trillion dollars, it would most likely be carried out in the same way. If they were to find incredibly important rare earth metals there wouldn't be a market.