Japanese geologists have, at the bottom of the pacific large reserves of ‘rare earths’ found. The 100 billion tons of estimated inventories for the high-tech industry high priority lwa le raw materials would be at depths up to 6km.
The Japanese researchers from the University of Tokyo, that their findings in the British journal Nature Geoscience published, at various locations, two thousand sediment samples collected taken from the ocean floor. They conclude that there are, scattered over an enormous area, large quantities of rare earths in the mud on the ocean floor.
Except in a strip that stretches from the east to the west of Hawaii, there are also metals found in the ocean around the island of Tahiti. It would go to an area of more than 11 million square kilometers. According to the researchers, there would be approximately 100 billion tonnes of rare earths to win. The largest part would also be in international waters, at depths between 3.5 and 6 kilometers. According to the researchers, houses 1 square kilometer in area, sufficient raw material for a fifth of the annual global demand for such metals.
Rare earths, raw materials that are essential for the high-tech industry, in spite of their naming are far from rare. In the last few years, however, the lion’s share won in China and the Chinese government has, partly from political considerations, decided to increase the export of metals as neodymium and dysprosium to reduce. Because of this, the prices on the world market shot up.
Despite the dominant position of China and the high prices for metals, it is still the question of whether the huge resources on the ocean floor is currently commercially interesting. Interested parties should expensive technology for the rare earth metals at great depths to win. In addition, there would be the necessary dangers for the environment.