June 17, 2022 • 56 mins
It may sound hard to believe, but a great deal of Earth's modern electronics -- everything from jets to your smartphone -- depend on just a few substances, things called rare earth metals, or rare earth elements. While you might not hear about them too often, they're one of the hottest commodities on the planet. As you check out today's episode, countries, companies, and a few very powerful people across the world are scrambling to get a piece of the profits -- and they're increasingly less concerned with who might get hurt along the way.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer,
all mission control decond Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realist, this is a
metal episode, and not the same sort of metal as
(00:46):
in our church burning episode, but literal metals, minerals, materials,
all the boring stuff that made your eyes glaze over
in chemistry class um. But let's make it more impactful.
Right from the jump, think about how you're hearing today's show.
You might be listening via your phone, maybe on a laptop,
maybe a smart device, maybe even a radio in your vehicle,
(01:09):
regardless of how we got to you. Thanks for listening.
We'd also like to thank a little thing called Rare
Earth Elements for, in a very real way, of making
this show possible, and before too long, we all might
also have to thank these minerals and metals for much
more disturbing things. But first, here are the facts. What
(01:30):
are rare earth metals or rare earth elements or are
ease um there. They're the big reason modern civilization exists.
There are seventeen elements roughly depending on which list you
look at and how they're categorized, but seventeen medals that
(01:52):
are rare earth elements. And really, interestingly enough, guys, I
didn't know this, they were called Earth's back in the
day because you couldn't break them down. They're just like
they're strong as Earth. They are Earth. They don't go away.
They just are earth, fire, water, heart, heart. It's like
(02:16):
the last last priority here, actually a monkey. I got
really excited. I actually got excited about chemistry again with this.
The properties of these rare earth metals are fascinating. They
really are kind of like magical materials. They very much are,
and there are other equally important metal and mineral resources,
(02:37):
but these are ease are particularly tricky. Still, don't let
the name fool you. Rare earth metals are actually not rare.
In fact, they're they're they're kind of plentiful, depending on
which one you're looking at throughout Earth's crust. Like if
you look at syrium, that's a that's one of these substances.
(02:58):
It is more a bund didn't than copper. It's just
dispersed in what we could diplomatically call a challenging wave
for mining interests because you don't don't find like a
rich vein as syriam. You find exactly as part of
a as part of a combo meal that's all messed
up together, you know, like like if you were at
(03:19):
Chick fil A and you've got the combo meal and
all you really wanted was the coal slaw and you
have to figure out a way to extract the coal
slaw and it's very, very expensive. It's more expensive than
getting the actual combo or like you buy thousands of
boxes of like breakfast cereal and the hopes that you
get the magical golden prize, you know, the the exclusive
(03:40):
Yeah sure. And and what you said been about syrium
being more plentiful, I didn't realize that these things are
more plentiful, at least most of them, than silver, platinum, gold,
all of those. They're just like hanging out. But like
you said, tough to get, so tough to get. And
this is old beans for humanity. They knew about these
(04:01):
things for several centuries. The first one was got a lynite.
This was a This is a mineral. It's a black
looking mineral that's composed of syrium, utrium, iron, silicon, and
a few other elements, but those are the important ones.
This mineral was found back in sev seven in a
mine at a village called yetter B or yet Theater
(04:24):
be Sweden. And fun fact, because of that discovery, four
of these rare earth elements got their name from just
that little village. So go Sweden, Yeah, go Sweden. Go
um sweets. They're good at like, you know, uh, prefab
kind of flat pack furniture, electronic music, and rare earth
(04:47):
minerals apparently, and ava they're Swedish, right, Oh yeah, they're
got lots of stuff. I'm just I'm being selective here,
but it is fascinating. I did not know that. And
uh yeah, it is the wise silent. Is it atrium
or is it definitely atrium atrium? I like leaning into
the y entirely because why not. It feels like the
(05:11):
HP Lovecraft thing, you know, totally like the sound that
you make when you're possessed by the elder elden lords
whatever it is. Wait, let me let me give a
quick show just when we're still in in the element world.
If you head over to your periodic table and you
check out just the way it looks, there's a fun
(05:32):
little usually kind of pink. It's pinkish purple, and it's on.
If you're looking at it on the left hand side,
you'll see l a dash l u and it's atomic
numbers fifty seven to seventy one. And that's our little
grouping of elements that we're talking about, including and I
think there are two others that are just above them,
scandium and yeah, those are the lanthanid's plus scandium and
(05:57):
e trium. And if you are a fan of online
quizzes and obsessively learning stuff once again, want a shout
out Sparkle, which has a free quiz to help you
memorize the all the known elements of the human periodic
table in case whatever comes up. Um it gives you
(06:18):
ten minutes, it counts down, it doesn't. I mean, it's
easy to cheat if you want, but you know, if
you can get away from elden ring long enough. And
also fun fact, Sporkle is also a Swedish export. Yes,
it's true. They're known for their sparkles. Uh. The this
(06:38):
is the question that comes up when you hear about
when you hear this sort of talk about resources and
elements and chemistry. First question, why do these things matter?
I'm already put off, you might say, because the name
is misleading. They're not actually rare, They're just inconvenient we
should call them inconvenient earth metals or whatever. It turns out,
(07:01):
they are super important. They are key to current civilization
and will continue to be key to this civilization as
a matter of fact. Spoiler, towards the end of today's episode,
you may ask yourself whether there is in some sense
blood on your smartphone. But for happier things, Yeah, let's
(07:22):
go to the U S Geological Survey. They have a
great summary of the situation. And this quotation is a
little lengthy, but I think I think it drives the
need for these things home. Absolutely it does so. Uh.
The rare earth metals are essentially according to the US
Geological Survey UM. They're often reverted as R E or E.
(07:43):
They are necessary components of more than two hundred products
across a wide range of applications, especially high tech consumer
products such as cellular telephones, computer hard drives, electric and
hybrid vehicles, and flat screen monitors and televisions. Look around, boys,
you see any of these items in your immediate purview?
I should do without having to look around, just opening
(08:03):
my eyes and looking in front of me. Oh yeah, Oh,
there's there's a ton of things. L E d s
should be included in there. Uh, there's all kinds of things.
The Geological survey goes on. Significant defense applications include electronic displays,
guidance systems, lasers and radar, and so in our systems.
Although the amount of r E used in a product
(08:25):
may not be a significant part of that product by weight, value,
or volume, the r E can be necessary for the
device to function. For example, magnets made of r often
represent only a small fraction of the total weight. Without them,
the spindle motors and voice coils of desktops and laptops
would not be possible. So, in other words, there's just
no substitute for the damn stuff right at this point,
(08:49):
And of course people are trying to figure out something
that might be an alternative, but the problem is getting
those same capabilities for a comparable cost. Think of it
this way. You know, everybody knows what cars are vehicles
if we're the first people to introduce you to that concept.
(09:09):
Awesome and also very weird. But think of a car.
Wheels make up a relatively small amount of your cars
mass and a small amount of its weight. But without them,
you your car doesn't work. It becomes a sculpture. Are
Ease can make up a small piece of a given
(09:29):
electronic or industrial device, but without that small component, the
thing is bricked. And if you like, stick with the
car comparison. Let's make it literal instead of an analogy. Neodymium,
one of the most highly prized metals, is used for
those magnets like you described nol in motors. Lanthanum is
(09:51):
used in electric car batteries. The average Toyota Prius has
twenty five pounds of rare earth metals WUR in its
hybrid engine, in every single car. And without these modern
civilization not a thing. And it's weird. That's such a huge,
huge issue. Humanities present and its future could hinge on
(10:16):
these surprisingly humble little elements. It to me, you guys,
it is like discovering extraterrestrial technology. Or something, but it
was just here the whole time. But we just found
you know, that discovery where oh my god, these things
that were here the whole time could do this really
special thing. Um. But it feels like, you know, I'm
(10:36):
looking at all the screens, all the flat screens that
around me. It does feel like we stumbled on some
magical thing that now just allows our life to continue.
I think about that too pretty often. You know, it's
always the mental exercise. What would most impressive time traveler
from the past who made it to Um, It's really
(10:57):
tough to guess. I think screens and technology. You one
be one of the big ones, but so it airplanes
and also stuff like the availability of pepper or saffron,
you know what I mean speaking, did you guys hear
Sarascha isn't taking any more orders? No, not for a time.
(11:17):
It's not SATs the company that makes it, I can't
remember the name, but the fung something fun fun, it's
something foods. But also it's a small operation, like I
think the main plant where they make it. People that
live around there are always complaining that their eyes are burning.
Peers by the way, for for time travel impressing uh flexes.
(11:42):
I would also argue industrial laser would be cool. Absolutely,
are you kidding? Nice shoes might do freaking snippers man.
They would be like, what, I don't trust it. It's
devil is always a red flag and time travel movies
when no one immediately murders the heretic. It's just all
(12:05):
of a sudden, like in their world wearing weird magic clothes.
You know, they learn improv and they're like, there's tell
us more about your situation. So it's hohifung foods. Yes, yes,
I said that was very wrong. Always sound in the
(12:26):
nfan m hmm. So here's the deal. This stuff and
as useful as it is, as grateful as we are
that the person at the mine in Sweden didn't just
throw this black rock away. It doesn't exist in a vacuum.
It's not just nifty stuff for gadgets. It's known to
(12:46):
be very important. It's mission critical for this species, humanity.
The global landscape is changing. Back in the US and
China were the biggest producers of these substances. China about
thirty eight percent of everything the U s made, Australia
made twelve percent, and the other seventeen percent. Came from India, Malaysia, Brazil, Canada,
(13:10):
South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand. But that has changed rapidly
in and it's by design, as we'll find. In two
thousand eight, China went from making thirty eight percent of
stuff to make a ent of it, and then by
two thousand eleven that number rose to seven percent. China
(13:30):
touches in some way even if it's not mined there.
And ever since the nineties, the government of China has
become increasingly protective of these substances, of these reads and
they limit out a smart move, and they limit how
much can be produced, and uh they've also at times
(13:51):
limited how much can be exported. It's a very rational move.
It makes sense any government would do that if they had,
you know, unless they were like being victimized by longer
foreign powers as we'll see. But you can understand how
entities and other parts of the world, governments and corporations
they might not vibe with it. Well, I know, I
know we're gonna get into this uh later, but it's
(14:11):
like you'll you'll recall that in the thick of COVID
it was like really hard to get a car and
it wasn't necessarily because of like the stuff that makes
the outside of the car, or like the plastics that
make like the dash and stuff. It was all of
these like microprocessors and like super conduct semiconductors rather that um,
you know, make up the electronics inside the car because
(14:32):
of supply chain issues, because of you know, this very
limited kind of monopolistic hole that that China has on
these these materials. It just should be noted. Right now,
we're talking about in two thousand eleven. Uh, we're gonna
get into it. But the whole world kind of smelled
(14:52):
what the rock was cooking in China and they went, Okay,
we need to up our game here. So those numbers
have chained to now I've been The last thing I
saw was put China at about production the same. It's
about eighty percent right now, and we'll get as we
get closer to the end, we'll get to some other numbers.
(15:14):
But what you'll find is the issue. It's kind of
like oil refineries, right getting the raw material is separate
profit stream from refining it or making it into something usable,
separating the combo meal as it were. Uh, And why
are people worried about the future here. Well, you can
(15:35):
already guess conspiracy realists. But to put it very diplomatically,
humans have never been super awesome at sharing stuff, especially resources, water, gold, land, food, animals,
you name it. There is a possible conflict looming on
the horizon. This is an historical fact, and right now
(15:55):
there's nothing to indicate that the growing importance of rare
earth elements will be any different. As you listen to
today's episode, governments, your government, no matter where you live,
and companies around the world, as well as some corrupt,
very powerful individuals, are actively conspiring to get the best
seat at the table for this new gold rush, and
(16:16):
they are increasingly less concerned with who might get hurt
in the process. We're gonna pause for word from our
sponsors and will return. Here's where it gets crazy, all right,
conflict resources. Let's talk about it. Let's say the the
(16:41):
five of us on the show, Uh, Matt Noell myself,
Mission Control and you're listening. Let's say we're in a
regional conflict. We're either a government and we're fighting rebel militias,
or we're part of a rebel force and we're fighting
a government. Whichever side we're on, we're in it because
we're convinced we have the moral high ground. Other people
(17:04):
might agree with us. They might you know, want to
supply us arms, they might want us like training. They
might just you know, make like viral social media post
or something. But the thing is, yeah, but the thing
is thoughts and prayers don't pay the bills. Conflict is expensive.
We have to fund our side of the war, and
(17:26):
that's where we start looking for physical control of areas
with lots of resources cocaine for example, or oil or
nowadays rare earth minerals. If we can extract these and
we can exercise attacks on them, no matter who we're
hurting in the process, then we can sell them and
we'll continue our conflict. And the people we sell them
(17:48):
to can use any number of like proxies and middlemen
actors to give themselves legal cover, and they will almost
never ask questions about where this stuff actually comes from.
It's an old idea, yeah, um, our country has been
(18:08):
doing it for a long time. We learned from the
best tip of the hat creep Britain. Uh just you know,
moving into a place and taking the stuff to sell it,
maybe back to the same people that you just took
over from the word you're looking for. It perhaps is pillaging, Yes,
taking taking what's it's ours? It's ours. We we we
(18:29):
got here, we like we we pushed the other people
out of the way. I mean, it's rightfully ours. So
that's that's an old thing for for many people right now.
Not reading your mind, but you probably just thought of
blood diamonds, right That is another conflict resource. That's the
umbrella term for these. But blood diamonds are only the
(18:50):
most well known example in the West right now to
the public. If you look at something like the mining
industry and the demo aocratic Republic of Congo, you'll see
that one of the big big deals there is something
you might not think about often. It's a thing called coltan.
Coltan is important because it provides the element tantalum, which
(19:14):
is used in many mobile phones. Huge deal, uh, This
resource one financed fighting during the Second Congo War to
two thousand three. Another thing you probably didn't hear much
about on the evening news, right and you certainly didn't
hear about the money that was involved and the way
(19:36):
the ways in which mining financed this war. It was
such a big deal in the Congo that control of
the minds became its own military objective. They would go
out and say, hey, we need to get the mind
because the mind is profitable. And when like again back
(19:56):
to small things so coltan and or like, the components
made from it control the flow of electricity and mobile phones.
Without this stuff, your phone is bricked, and more and
more and more people are are using mobile phones. It's
like the most common way to access the Internet. Some
people treat it um entirely like another part of their
(20:20):
brain lives with them. You were probably within reaching distance
of your cellular device. Now. The largest reserves of this
cold ten stuff there in the Democratic Republic of Congo. UH.
They finance sustaining civil wars on the African continent and
in in the d r C. Those wars directly relate
(20:44):
to the profits from these substances. The trade continues today
in the east of the country. These minds are often
in really remote places, really dangerous areas of the world.
At this point, when it introduce International Peace Information Service
or it is, it is as a delightful acronym, But
(21:06):
they have some terrible news. UH. Their studies have indicated
that for years, armed groups were present at more than
fifty percent of all the mining sites in the country.
And they weren't just loafing around at a lot of
these sites. They would force the local civilians into work.
They would illegally extort them, illegally tax them, miners including children.
(21:31):
So miners with an E M, miners with an O
work these shifts that go up to forty eight hours
around mudslides, tunnel collapses. Uh, these are fatal. Ocean is
not a thing. And perhaps most horrifyingly, both sides of conflicts,
like the militia groups but the Congolese National Army as well,
(21:53):
have been known to use sexual assault violence to control
the locals and control the minds. And this has been
happening since really the birth and golden age of smartphones
that occurred, remember talking about late nineties to early two thousand's,
So that's that started happening then and it just continues today.
(22:14):
And it's horrifying to think about with the number of
smartphones that exist on the planet right now that are
being actively used and thrown away and new ones purchased
and creative god yeah, I mean, it's such a waste,
wasteful culture. I don't know if you guys have seen these,
but there are literally machines at some grocery stores where
you can just feed your one generation old smartphone into
a slot and then I'll give you like a couple
(22:36):
of bucks for it, while presumably recycling it. I don't
know exactly where that stuff goes, but they're probably just
trying to pull some of those rare minerals out of
it and you know, sell them in bulk. I guess
that's that's how they're amassing it. But this really reminds
me of like the Harkonans in um in Dune in
terms of like their use of spice mining on iraqis
(22:56):
to basically fund their supremacy over like the whole galaxy
as much as they possibly can, like their warlords, and
they are able to fund their military through the extraction
of this resource that everybody means mm hmmm. Yeah. In
some regions of the Congo, about thirty percent of school
children have been pulled away from their daily lives and
(23:19):
forced to work in the minds. So again we see
the supply chain similar to nest Lee's activity gathering their ingredients,
similar to the beer's activity gathering diamonds. It's a tactic,
right and it's a tactic because it's profitable and it works,
and they are rarely repercussions for the dirty hands involved.
(23:42):
The United States is aware of this issue, and a
guy named Senator Sam Brownback back in April the two
thousand nine introduce something he called the Congo Conflicts Minerals
Act of two thousand nine, and it said, here, if
you're an electronics company and you you work with us,
you need to verify and disclose your sources of several
(24:04):
specific conflict resources. This legislation died in committee because it
was messing with the money potentially. So brown Back, to
the senator's credit, went back and added similar language in
the Dodd Frank wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act,
(24:25):
because without getting the weeds, that's something you can do
in Congress, and congress folk do it all the time.
You just you want something to happen, so you add
your thing in to a totally unrelated piece of legislation.
It would be like if we all decided we were
going to order pizza and then someone said, I'm only
(24:45):
ordering pizza if we're also getting wantons and borshed, like
when they don't have that at the pizza place. Well, no, deal. Uh,
that's it's weird, but brown back strategy worked and this
was signed into law on July. Hopefully these laws can
(25:06):
make a difference, and hopefully international organizations can continue to
work around the clock to stem or mitigate the human
wave of blood and pain created by conflict mining. But
it still continues today, and it's going to continue because
even though it's a problem, not a lot of people
want to think about. Uh, from us holding our phones
(25:29):
all the way to the heights of corporate power where
all these complex supply webs of middlemen create this morally
convenient plausible deniability. Everybody wants this stuff and this is
this sounds like the point of the episode, but this
is just one of three big points. This is one
aspect of the larger rare earth gold rush, and it
(25:51):
is a gold rush, and we are part of it.
The number of people that own a smart phone it's
like seven point to six billion, which is almost of
the world's population. So you're involved, even if you don't
want to think about it. We are to um, but
(26:12):
we're probably not going to be directly involved in the
next frontier of the gold rush, just because most people
couldn't survive getting to this place. We are kind of
involved because I think we mentioned this specific thing back
in an episode of Strange News, and so we're we're
we're involved on the edge. We at least let some
(26:33):
people know about it. The new gold rush, right, the
brand new frontier gold rush that is deep beneath the waves,
around four thousand meters below the waves to be exact.
Mm hmm, yeah, the newest mining Frontier. It reminds me
of a sci fi show that was on many years
(26:53):
ago called um I can't remember. It was like Star
tre second see us, Yes, that's it. That's the one
quest TSV with with with Royce rob roy Scheider from
Jaws was in it. Also Jonathan Brandis, who was a
big teen heart throb at the time who tragically passed
(27:14):
away and a really sad circumstances. But it had a
talking dolphin um and it was very eco driven. It
was all about the ecological kind of stuff. I thought
you guys were talking about Sea Lab. Oh, Sea Lab. Yeah, No,
Sea Lab also great, very different kind of show, but
also some cold classic. Yeah. Sea Lab is a little
more no Country for old man. That is gonna be
(27:36):
great for anybody who was watching Sea lab for the
first time. Just watch the episode, keep thinking to yourself
what it has in common with Bild Country for old Men,
and then send us an email about the similarities. Cut cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut,
cut cut cut. So let's this newest mining frontier. It's
(27:56):
the Pacific Ocean. It's deep in the Pacific Ocean. As
we mentioned earlier, in remote parts of the Pacific seabed.
There are trillions of these little like potato size nodules
of rare earth elements, and there there's enough of them
there to really play apart and power in the world,
(28:18):
as long as someone can figure out how to get
get down there, more than two miles below the surface
and bring them back up. Gee, guys, I don't see
any potential fall out from this kind of operation at all.
Do you zero percent? What could go wrong if we, uh,
if we make first contact with a lot of these
places in the world's least explored, most remote, and most
(28:41):
poorly understood regions. Well, yeah, most delicately ecologically balanced. We
just need we'll just get claws and it'll just grab
all the stuff on the ocean floor. Just whatever it
is doesn't matter as long as the nodules are picked
up and then we'll just return it to the surface.
It'll be fine, but we'll do that a lot, and
then we'll post environmentally conscious means on Instagram for our
(29:05):
mining companies, so people know our our thoughts and prayers
are there. You know. Uh, these this thing like okay,
just like the earlier mineral in Sweden, this was discovered
a long time ago, back in eighty five. Ship saw
this stuff and they really think much of it. And
(29:26):
it wasn't until pretty recently that humanity has made the
breakthroughs and underwater robotics that make large scale mining possible,
if not advisable, because there are a lot of people
against it, as you can imagine messing with things you
don't understand classic human being. But oh brother, people want
(29:48):
to slice in that undersea pi. Yeah, this is very
much to me like the what is it the asteroid
mining that we recently discussed. Everybody kind of sees that
as a potential news source of these kinds of minerals.
Now we're just going down instead of up, I suppose.
(30:09):
So let's let's jump to some reporting from the Guardian.
This uh journalist Rupert meet any A t E and
he wrote an article looking at the Deep Sea Mining
Summit which occurred in two specifically at the Hilton London
Hotel in the Canary Wharf district. And it's really interesting
(30:30):
because the summit itself, you pay money to go and
you know, visit the summit here what people are talking about,
meet other people in mining and you had to pay
what was it been almost twelve hundred pounds just to
go and hang out at the event. Yes, they're already
(30:51):
making money. And uh the delegates are like representatives of
environmental concerns, but also a lot of banks, also lot
of mining interest startups, established mining giants. Like mining is
a huge industry and it's a very powerful industry. The
(31:11):
organization just to be guests fair, do our due diligence.
They made some pragmatic points in their advertisements and ruper
neat points is how too, they say, particularly the psychotomy quote.
As we move into an era of mining the deep
ocean floor, the world's most remote environment, mining companies are
(31:32):
working on overcoming the perceived challenges, and developing island nations
are watching with interest as the demand for base metals
and minerals surges ever beyond what our land is able
to provide new technological and technical developments are helping to
drive forward this new industry. Cue the cue the trumpets,
(31:52):
you know what I mean, Play the play the marching music.
We're off to the underwater races. Everybody's tests. That's why
I remember the story because it was a two year
rule they got recently triggered back in April. I think
we're around that time where the island nations. What was
it they had two years to do something. Oh man,
(32:14):
I'm I can't remember it exactly. It was. Okay, So
last year in June, as we record this, the Pacific
island nation of Naru triggered the two year rule. The
two year rule gives the International Seabed Authority or ISSA,
(32:34):
two years to finalize regulations governing this nascent, controversial, and
growing deep sea mining industry. So the clock is ticking.
The deadline is July of next year. To get our
you know, our safe words are boundaries, are dues, and
don't alt together before the drills start. Uh. There are
(32:58):
a lot of people are against this, I mean Pacific.
Several Pacific nations are saying, you know, they've seen what
happened to African nations in the past. And Latin America,
and they're saying, hey, we don't want to be um
robbed of our natural resources, or at least we want
to be compensated in some way. And then other folks,
(33:19):
including like Sir David Attenborough, are saying, no, just don't
do it. You don't know what's down there. Stop. Where
will I make my documentaries? Well, if the oceans are pillaged,
well I have to make at least ten more before
I turned two hundred. Well, the environmentalist response really does
ring true. And I think that's what we focused on
(33:41):
in our episode, just that every time we humanity, whether
it's through some new tech where a human can actually
get in them craft and get all the way down
to the bottom there again four thousand meters below sea level,
or even we're just sending a robot of some sort
to go down there, every time we do it we
(34:03):
discover new species because we don't go there very often
and it's a huge f in place. So you know,
you can just imagine that if we just go down
there to take the stuff up from the surface, then
we're gonna kill a lot of things, things that we
don't even know there are there. Yeah, but isn't that
(34:23):
the point though, Like I mean, yeah, people like you
and I and Davy Attenborough we care about those things.
We we we realize that adds a richness to life
and life on earth and all of that stuff, and
we love nature documentaries. But do you think that the
leaders of these conglomo companies that are banking on getting
the stuff care at all? Even a little? Any representation
(34:45):
of caring about the environment is all optics, It's all
in service of some pr line. I don't think they
care at all. If it was up to them, they'd
kill every single living creature on earth to get to
their stuff. I don't know, because rationalization and is something
that humans are very very good at, and it's unrelated
(35:05):
to intelligence really, I mean, it's not like it's not
like being intelligent makes people be honest with themselves. They
just get better at lying to themselves pretty often. It's
mental parkour. But uh, I know that there are a
lot of signals from these groups that say, hey, we
want to work on the right environmental regulations. But because
(35:25):
people haven't done something like this before, they don't know
what those regulations really should be. And a big part
of how China jumped ahead in the Rare Earth Game,
hinged on their ability to keep production costs low by
not giving two farts about the environment. I'm trying to
(35:47):
curse less on the show. But they didn't have to
worry about the same expensive regulations. And people are saying, um,
you know, and and scientists and experts are reacting to
the two In the same year. One partially in reaction
to this, more than three hundred and fifty scientists from
(36:07):
forty four different countries signed a petition saying, hey, we
gotta stop. We shouldn't mine in the deep sea until
quote sufficient and robust scientific information has been obtained. Here's
where we go to Luisa Cassan, who is who is
working with green Peace at the time. She said the
industry running the conference is crooked. She said the banks
(36:30):
who are talking about investing in this are clearly just
looking for a quick profit. Consequences be damned. She said,
This destructive new industry wants to rip up an ecosystem
we're only just starting to understand there ain't mean to
make a quick profit while our oceans and the billions
of people relying on them bear the costs. Also important
to know activists for places like green peace point out
(36:55):
that the maritime ecosystem is already like on the verge
of collapse. You know what I mean, if you like seafood,
maybe eat them now. I don't know, I don't know
what to do, but because yeah, yeah, just stop eating anything,
Just stop eating anything. Yeah. Right. Uh. And you know what, though,
(37:21):
they all make great points, and this is probably going
to happen one way or another. The United Nations, as
sort of parent company, doesn't have a bunch of real
enforcement powers, and in a money driven society, money being
the dominant religion of this age, the money is just
too good. The need from the materials is just too great.
(37:42):
To paraphrase Douglas Adams, so long to the Pacific. Thanks
for all the fish, beautiful, beautiful. I mean, it is
going to happen. And I don't care who you are.
If you if you hold that view, you probably like
your smartphone. You you know, even if you know that
this is a bad idea to get the rare earth
(38:03):
elements from that specific place, you know that we need them.
Like It's exactly what we're saying here. The need is
too great. We're not Humanity isn't gonna change its way
and just say, okay, guys, no more smartphones, no more Internet,
no more hybrid cars, no more Tesla's. We're done with
that stuff now because we can't afford it. As a species,
(38:23):
we're not particularly great at making sacrifices once we've already
like gone down a particular road. I think we had
a great Mr. Show quote a couple of episodes ago.
I'm gonna do another one. Uh it's a a wealthy
executive talking about what might happen if the company collapse,
and he says, I swear to God, if I have
to go from being super richness rich, I'll kill myself. Uh.
(38:44):
We we just that's how we think. Like, once you've
gone down that road of like luxury or even like
basic stuff, you know, having you know, the ability to
to you know, doodle around your smartphone with apps and
play games and stuff in text, it's really hard to
put that genie back in the bottle, even with the
best intentions, because we've kind of trained ourselves to feel
like we're owated in some way. And this still doesn't
(39:06):
cover the extent of corruption, contamination and conspiracy orbiting those
neat little gadgets hot in your hands and all the
crazy crazy stuff people will do to manufacture and to
sell them to you at a profit. And pause for
quick word from our sponsor, and then we'll return with
(39:27):
a third big piece of the conspiracy puzzle. When it
comes to rare earth elements. We've returned. Um. If you
are a fan of hip hop, I'm sure you heard
the song Detroit Versus Everybody with a lodge of legendary
(39:47):
Detroit m ces. Check out the song. Tell us what
you think. Uh, this part of the show should be
called China Versus Everybody is As we mentioned right now,
China controls the vast majority party of rare earths, as
the Swedish originally called them. They've raised the price of
some of these elements by as much as one thousand
(40:09):
percent in recent years. Also, there was a fishing dispute
also with Japan a few years back, and China retaliated
by cutting off exports of these substances, and this gave
them a lot of clout and helped them resolve the issue. Uh.
The worry about China having control over this high demand
resource type has sent the US into an emergency mode
(40:32):
that continues today. That this wasn't China freestyling. This plan
was decades in the making, and it was an accurate,
brilliant prediction on the part of Chinese analysts based on
a couple of factors. First, the sort of mining crazy expensive,
especially if you care about the environment. To China wanted
to create a situation where at the lowest cost of production,
(40:54):
super good vertical integration, and a lot of industry subsidies.
And then they rolled out their plan. They wanted to
control the entirety of the supply chain so much as possible.
They wanted to capture Western intellectual property r i P.
And they wanted to embed the materials that they touched
into US commercial and defense systems. They were super successful.
(41:18):
China dominates the market. It minds fifty of the world's
rare earth minerals today, and perhaps more importantly, it processes Yeah,
so let's just break some of those numbers down even further,
just to the actual elements themselves. In China produced of
(41:39):
all gallium and of all silicon and of arsenic important.
It's up there with the old lace. How was about
to get out of my head? So? Uh, These Chinese
firms also control of global cobalt refining. They also control
(41:59):
have of the d RC Democratic Republic of the Congo
is cobalt mining that's of global production. Round about. This
means that the majority of rare earth elements mind outside
of China are going to end up there anyway. They're
shipped over for processing into high value metals and magnets
(42:20):
and alloys. And over time, the i p that the
Chinese government and state supported companies acquired, often from Western companies,
meant that they were increasingly less reliant on those other
countries manufacturing processes. And this leads to what dings shall
Pain called, uh, something kind of poetic. In response to
(42:42):
a question about this, Deng said, the Middle East has
its oil, China has rare earths, and it's not hyperpole.
Uh it's a little poetic, but it's a real thing.
And the US knew about this hustle since pretty much
day one at for they just didn't do anything about it.
I don't I don't think they knew what a big
(43:04):
issue it would become. Do you think China did? Oh? Yeah,
for sure. I mean, well, because you know, it was
obviously like the stuff was important for many products. But
I wouldn't you say that it's the smartphone revolution like
the iPhone, the whole lego that and then insane number
that you just put out Ben that maybe really really
pushed it over the line in terms of like how
(43:27):
necessary these things are. Yeah, that's a huge part. Semiconductors,
as you mentioned earlier, that's a huge part. Well, bombs
and the way to make bombs land where they're supposed
to land. Uh, you need semiconductors, electric vehicles. It's a
big part. Part of the rollout for e vs has
been stymy by these supply chain issues. I just I
(43:47):
just wonder how U S could have been so shortsighted. Well,
here's the other thing. A lot, let's say, of the
economically viable deposits of rare earth minerals exist. They just
happen to exist on land that is controlled by the
country of China and the you know, the borders that
create China. They just happen. They just happen to be there.
So it's also a bit of luck, I guess in
(44:10):
a way, um all working together at the same time
of the factors you guys mentioned, and the US closed
down a lot of minds due to those environmental concerns.
In fact, we're talking about this a little bit too.
We'll hold it for US solutions. But let's let's get
there in a second. Uh. For years now, the US
(44:33):
has been thinking about how to respond to this. After
initially seating control and closing down their own stuff, they
might resurrect domestic minds. All those old like forty nine
are gold mines that are out decaying in the West.
It turns out if they have anything worthwhile in them
that's not gold because the original prospectors weren't looking for that,
(44:54):
then they're gonna open them again. They're gonna try to
and let's hope that first one works out, because the
other possibilities are not things you would want to consider
lightly yes, and might haunted. Yeah, you know, prospectors past
yet there soon they could be leaders in the afterlife
(45:17):
semiconductor industry. Uh. Look, these things power America's advanced military.
It's digital economy, vehicle smartphones, radar, fighter jets like the
F thirty five, name it. These chips are essential for
US national security, and once you cut past the headlines,
this deficit is one of the main reasons the US
(45:40):
has not gone full nuclear in a trade war with
China just yet. It's because they're entirely reliant on imports
for the supply of rare earth minerals. Number two supplier
of rare earth material to the U S is Estonia
at about six percent. Number one is China at about
seven in the eight percent, it's a distance second. Well,
(46:02):
and you remember we did an episode a long time
ago on Chinese interests in UH mineral minds in Africa.
Remember that we talked about how, oh yeah, that's a
little weird. China's really going hard extracting minerals from Africa.
We know there's resources extraction, we understand that, but it
was it really was part of this bigger game that
(46:24):
was happening that we could kind of see at the
time when we were talking about that, because gosh, that
was probably maybe when we were looking into that. And
now you can really see that this is a major
part of China's foreign policy, right at least what in
what their interests are in Africa. Yeah, yeah, because the
(46:45):
thing about an authoritarian, centralized government is that it can
more easily enact long term plans, you know what I mean,
without those plans being up for political debate every two
to four years. So it's it's true. Uh, and Uncle
Sam is aware of this, and they've been making increasingly
focused and I would argue at times desperate overtures to
(47:06):
African mining interests. It's an uphill battle, though, because China's
foreign policy on the continent is formidable, and it's got
a hell of a head start in this part of
the great game. In this particular chapter, we talked about
the Belton Road initiative, which from a purely objective infrastructure
perspective is amazing. But they also give scads of friendly
(47:29):
infrastructure loans to these countries with serious strings attached. And
African governments, of course, look, most people obviously are extraordinarily intelligent.
The people who are leaders of these governments and of
these countries, they are well aware of previous experiences with
US companies and they're not super jazzed about it, nor
(47:51):
should they be. So all of those factors combined to
make China the clear leader on the continent for now,
and that's why the Department and DEFEN is trying to
throw money at the problem. They're hoping they can waive
some money over and make you magically disappear. The d
O D is planning to provide thirty five million dollars
in fundings for a rare earth processing plant in the
(48:12):
Mountain Pass mine in California, and the d o E
of the Department of Energy will fund a one hundred
and forty million dollar demonstration project to process rare earth's
at other critical minerals from coal ash, which is you know,
kind of killing two birds with one stone, uh, toxic
stone UM. The d o E has another three billion
(48:32):
dollar investment in refining green metals such as lithium, cobalt,
and nickel, which you're absolutely critical for de carbonization UM.
And there's also a lot of talk about subsidizing domestic
mining interests or even nationalizing them. That's interesting prospect. Just
(48:53):
to go back to that Mountain Pass mine, that's the
one that I was thinking about the top. We were
talking about how the numbers have changed because of the
last time I looked at it, in that single mind
in California was providing like fifteen six of the world's
like the global production of rare earth elements. Pretty crazy, yeah, yeah,
(49:16):
And you know, the for for conservationists, this is clearly
a victory to shut down minds like this, Right, you're
helping preserve the world for your those who come after.
But how does that match up against the tremendous profits
and the tremendous need for these electronics that people are
(49:37):
so you know, so into these days. Ah, you have to.
And plus a lot of people in the US across
political spheres don't like the big N word nationalization That
has kind of shades of communist ideology right to too
(50:00):
many people in the US. So will any of these
strategies be enough? Though? If one or all of them happen.
Uh if again, if you live in the US, you
better hope. So the situation still looks brim I mean, sure,
you could say China is taking a golden goose opportunity
and running with it, but they're not just doing it
to be jerks. Remember we said demand for these and
(50:22):
related materials is skyrocketing everywhere China is no exception. Their
demand is skyrocketing too, domestically, and that means logically, at
some point China will theoretically have to limited exports, not
to hurt others, but to maintain its own growth. And um,
we've talked a little bit about how the government approaches
(50:44):
the concept of human rights. Right, they're thinking less about
civil rights and more about what they call economic rights.
So the legitimacy of the government continues to depend upon
this con like continuing year over your growth, it keeps
the pitchforks and the torches in the closets. So all
this means that unless the situation fundamentally changes, something has
(51:08):
to give. This is untenable. What does it all mean though,
if you take it all together, it means African countries
continue to be subjected to resource extraction, same song, just
different different part of the course. Geopolitical manufacturing pressures indicate
that deep sea mining will become inevitable. It will probably happen.
(51:32):
These materials may not get a lot of coverage on
your average evening news program, but that also might change
as they become increasing flashpoints for talks of trade wars,
maybe even hot wars. But at this point in hot
war between China and the US is unlikely based on
this situation. I hate to say, you guys, but that
(51:54):
doesn't mean there's not a war in the cards. It
just means that the powder caag would likely be something else,
And even if it was a war over rare earth resources,
it would almost certainly be advertised as something else to
US voters. Right, you don't want to people. People want
to have smartphones, but they don't want to think I'm
supporting a war so I can keep paying playing you know,
(52:18):
Best fiends great game. By the way, I'm actual million
to peg ol Blast lately. That's a fun one too
in Royal Match. But now it's no laughing matter. I mean,
you know, this isn't the same as like deep sea fishing.
This is deep sea mining. This is absolutely destructive to
all of these ecosystems that we barely understand, and it's
sort of like a common thing that people just do.
(52:39):
It's like, oh, there's a thing, let's go get it. Wait,
what ramifications the future? It's fine, just go in. Yeah. Well,
I mean, you know, to your point, Ben, when we're
not going to hear about it, I think we will
when this industry's version of deepwater Horizon occurs, you know,
there's gonna be some major disaster. We be an environmental
(53:02):
disaster at its heart, but oh the whole, the whole,
you know, mission is destroyed. Basically all of the infrastructure
got destroyed in this accident, um and then there really
won't be anymore whatever rare insert rare earth element here
on the planet. Because some little thing went wrong. But
it's also like companies like that don't pivot or start
(53:24):
making promises, you know, to be greener or to be
better stewards of the environment until something like that happens,
because then it becomes like a clean up game of
like protecting their image and being made to seem like
better stewards of the environment, even though they're the ones
in there that have wrecked it in the first place.
It's a pattern that's just really depressing. Yeah, greenwashing. I
(53:46):
want to give a special shout out uh to something
that I hope happens. There's a great sci fi horror
film called Underwater came out. It's one of the best
recent lovecraft films I've seen. Um Also, Color Out of
Space is great, but this one's underwater. Check it out.
Let us know. It's like a flooded town, coastal town
(54:10):
or is it actually underwater? Vincent is quite good. Yes,
it's a group of workers at a deep sea drilling
facility at the bottom of the ocean and about their hygiens.
So believe it at that. Let us know what you think.
I'm glad you liked it to know. And either way
you look at this not just the deep sea aspect,
(54:33):
not just the geopolitical tensions, not just the deaths of
so many innocent people in the minds. Mining overall is
hugely important, and it's dirty, and in many ways it's
vital to what you listening today consider to be civilization,
(54:53):
and a lot of it functions in the background, and
that is by design. The next time you pick up
a phone or see any number of nifty gadgets around
your house, remember when it comes to rare earth elements,
there's definitely some stuff they don't want you to know.
And you can find us online because you already got him, right,
You already got the rarer stuff right, Oh yeah, you
(55:14):
definitely do uh and send us more as it is.
More of your thoughts, your ideas, your concerns, your questions.
We want to hear all of them. You can find
us on the internet. We are conspiracy stuff on Facebook, Twitter,
and YouTube. Lots of new YouTube content coming out every week.
Check those out. You can also find us on Instagram,
which we have really put a lot more um interesting
(55:36):
content into of late as well, some memes, reels, all
that good stuff. So please go give us a follow
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(55:58):
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(56:37):
don't want you to know is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
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to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer,
all mission control decond Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realist, this is a
metal episode, and not the same sort of metal as
(00:46):
in our church burning episode, but literal metals, minerals, materials,
all the boring stuff that made your eyes glaze over
in chemistry class um. But let's make it more impactful.
Right from the jump, think about how you're hearing today's show.
You might be listening via your phone, maybe on a laptop,
maybe a smart device, maybe even a radio in your vehicle,
(01:09):
regardless of how we got to you. Thanks for listening.
We'd also like to thank a little thing called Rare
Earth Elements for, in a very real way, of making
this show possible, and before too long, we all might
also have to thank these minerals and metals for much
more disturbing things. But first, here are the facts. What
(01:30):
are rare earth metals or rare earth elements or are
ease um there. They're the big reason modern civilization exists.
There are seventeen elements roughly depending on which list you
look at and how they're categorized, but seventeen medals that
(01:52):
are rare earth elements. And really, interestingly enough, guys, I
didn't know this, they were called Earth's back in the
day because you couldn't break them down. They're just like
they're strong as Earth. They are Earth. They don't go away.
They just are earth, fire, water, heart, heart. It's like
(02:16):
the last last priority here, actually a monkey. I got
really excited. I actually got excited about chemistry again with this.
The properties of these rare earth metals are fascinating. They
really are kind of like magical materials. They very much are,
and there are other equally important metal and mineral resources,
(02:37):
but these are ease are particularly tricky. Still, don't let
the name fool you. Rare earth metals are actually not rare.
In fact, they're they're they're kind of plentiful, depending on
which one you're looking at throughout Earth's crust. Like if
you look at syrium, that's a that's one of these substances.
(02:58):
It is more a bund didn't than copper. It's just
dispersed in what we could diplomatically call a challenging wave
for mining interests because you don't don't find like a
rich vein as syriam. You find exactly as part of
a as part of a combo meal that's all messed
up together, you know, like like if you were at
(03:19):
Chick fil A and you've got the combo meal and
all you really wanted was the coal slaw and you
have to figure out a way to extract the coal
slaw and it's very, very expensive. It's more expensive than
getting the actual combo or like you buy thousands of
boxes of like breakfast cereal and the hopes that you
get the magical golden prize, you know, the the exclusive
(03:40):
Yeah sure. And and what you said been about syrium
being more plentiful, I didn't realize that these things are
more plentiful, at least most of them, than silver, platinum, gold,
all of those. They're just like hanging out. But like
you said, tough to get, so tough to get. And
this is old beans for humanity. They knew about these
(04:01):
things for several centuries. The first one was got a lynite.
This was a This is a mineral. It's a black
looking mineral that's composed of syrium, utrium, iron, silicon, and
a few other elements, but those are the important ones.
This mineral was found back in sev seven in a
mine at a village called yetter B or yet Theater
(04:24):
be Sweden. And fun fact, because of that discovery, four
of these rare earth elements got their name from just
that little village. So go Sweden, Yeah, go Sweden. Go
um sweets. They're good at like, you know, uh, prefab
kind of flat pack furniture, electronic music, and rare earth
(04:47):
minerals apparently, and ava they're Swedish, right, Oh yeah, they're
got lots of stuff. I'm just I'm being selective here,
but it is fascinating. I did not know that. And
uh yeah, it is the wise silent. Is it atrium
or is it definitely atrium atrium? I like leaning into
the y entirely because why not. It feels like the
(05:11):
HP Lovecraft thing, you know, totally like the sound that
you make when you're possessed by the elder elden lords
whatever it is. Wait, let me let me give a
quick show just when we're still in in the element world.
If you head over to your periodic table and you
check out just the way it looks, there's a fun
(05:32):
little usually kind of pink. It's pinkish purple, and it's on.
If you're looking at it on the left hand side,
you'll see l a dash l u and it's atomic
numbers fifty seven to seventy one. And that's our little
grouping of elements that we're talking about, including and I
think there are two others that are just above them,
scandium and yeah, those are the lanthanid's plus scandium and
(05:57):
e trium. And if you are a fan of online
quizzes and obsessively learning stuff once again, want a shout
out Sparkle, which has a free quiz to help you
memorize the all the known elements of the human periodic
table in case whatever comes up. Um it gives you
(06:18):
ten minutes, it counts down, it doesn't. I mean, it's
easy to cheat if you want, but you know, if
you can get away from elden ring long enough. And
also fun fact, Sporkle is also a Swedish export. Yes,
it's true. They're known for their sparkles. Uh. The this
(06:38):
is the question that comes up when you hear about
when you hear this sort of talk about resources and
elements and chemistry. First question, why do these things matter?
I'm already put off, you might say, because the name
is misleading. They're not actually rare, They're just inconvenient we
should call them inconvenient earth metals or whatever. It turns out,
(07:01):
they are super important. They are key to current civilization
and will continue to be key to this civilization as
a matter of fact. Spoiler, towards the end of today's episode,
you may ask yourself whether there is in some sense
blood on your smartphone. But for happier things, Yeah, let's
(07:22):
go to the U S Geological Survey. They have a
great summary of the situation. And this quotation is a
little lengthy, but I think I think it drives the
need for these things home. Absolutely it does so. Uh.
The rare earth metals are essentially according to the US
Geological Survey UM. They're often reverted as R E or E.
(07:43):
They are necessary components of more than two hundred products
across a wide range of applications, especially high tech consumer
products such as cellular telephones, computer hard drives, electric and
hybrid vehicles, and flat screen monitors and televisions. Look around, boys,
you see any of these items in your immediate purview?
I should do without having to look around, just opening
(08:03):
my eyes and looking in front of me. Oh yeah, Oh,
there's there's a ton of things. L E d s
should be included in there. Uh, there's all kinds of things.
The Geological survey goes on. Significant defense applications include electronic displays,
guidance systems, lasers and radar, and so in our systems.
Although the amount of r E used in a product
(08:25):
may not be a significant part of that product by weight, value,
or volume, the r E can be necessary for the
device to function. For example, magnets made of r often
represent only a small fraction of the total weight. Without them,
the spindle motors and voice coils of desktops and laptops
would not be possible. So, in other words, there's just
no substitute for the damn stuff right at this point,
(08:49):
And of course people are trying to figure out something
that might be an alternative, but the problem is getting
those same capabilities for a comparable cost. Think of it
this way. You know, everybody knows what cars are vehicles
if we're the first people to introduce you to that concept.
(09:09):
Awesome and also very weird. But think of a car.
Wheels make up a relatively small amount of your cars
mass and a small amount of its weight. But without them,
you your car doesn't work. It becomes a sculpture. Are
Ease can make up a small piece of a given
(09:29):
electronic or industrial device, but without that small component, the
thing is bricked. And if you like, stick with the
car comparison. Let's make it literal instead of an analogy. Neodymium,
one of the most highly prized metals, is used for
those magnets like you described nol in motors. Lanthanum is
(09:51):
used in electric car batteries. The average Toyota Prius has
twenty five pounds of rare earth metals WUR in its
hybrid engine, in every single car. And without these modern
civilization not a thing. And it's weird. That's such a huge,
huge issue. Humanities present and its future could hinge on
(10:16):
these surprisingly humble little elements. It to me, you guys,
it is like discovering extraterrestrial technology. Or something, but it
was just here the whole time. But we just found
you know, that discovery where oh my god, these things
that were here the whole time could do this really
special thing. Um. But it feels like, you know, I'm
(10:36):
looking at all the screens, all the flat screens that
around me. It does feel like we stumbled on some
magical thing that now just allows our life to continue.
I think about that too pretty often. You know, it's
always the mental exercise. What would most impressive time traveler
from the past who made it to Um, It's really
(10:57):
tough to guess. I think screens and technology. You one
be one of the big ones, but so it airplanes
and also stuff like the availability of pepper or saffron,
you know what I mean speaking, did you guys hear
Sarascha isn't taking any more orders? No, not for a time.
(11:17):
It's not SATs the company that makes it, I can't
remember the name, but the fung something fun fun, it's
something foods. But also it's a small operation, like I
think the main plant where they make it. People that
live around there are always complaining that their eyes are burning.
Peers by the way, for for time travel impressing uh flexes.
(11:42):
I would also argue industrial laser would be cool. Absolutely,
are you kidding? Nice shoes might do freaking snippers man.
They would be like, what, I don't trust it. It's
devil is always a red flag and time travel movies
when no one immediately murders the heretic. It's just all
(12:05):
of a sudden, like in their world wearing weird magic clothes.
You know, they learn improv and they're like, there's tell
us more about your situation. So it's hohifung foods. Yes, yes,
I said that was very wrong. Always sound in the
(12:26):
nfan m hmm. So here's the deal. This stuff and
as useful as it is, as grateful as we are
that the person at the mine in Sweden didn't just
throw this black rock away. It doesn't exist in a vacuum.
It's not just nifty stuff for gadgets. It's known to
(12:46):
be very important. It's mission critical for this species, humanity.
The global landscape is changing. Back in the US and
China were the biggest producers of these substances. China about
thirty eight percent of everything the U s made, Australia
made twelve percent, and the other seventeen percent. Came from India, Malaysia, Brazil, Canada,
(13:10):
South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand. But that has changed rapidly
in and it's by design, as we'll find. In two
thousand eight, China went from making thirty eight percent of
stuff to make a ent of it, and then by
two thousand eleven that number rose to seven percent. China
(13:30):
touches in some way even if it's not mined there.
And ever since the nineties, the government of China has
become increasingly protective of these substances, of these reads and
they limit out a smart move, and they limit how
much can be produced, and uh they've also at times
(13:51):
limited how much can be exported. It's a very rational move.
It makes sense any government would do that if they had,
you know, unless they were like being victimized by longer
foreign powers as we'll see. But you can understand how
entities and other parts of the world, governments and corporations
they might not vibe with it. Well, I know, I
know we're gonna get into this uh later, but it's
(14:11):
like you'll you'll recall that in the thick of COVID
it was like really hard to get a car and
it wasn't necessarily because of like the stuff that makes
the outside of the car, or like the plastics that
make like the dash and stuff. It was all of
these like microprocessors and like super conduct semiconductors rather that um,
you know, make up the electronics inside the car because
(14:32):
of supply chain issues, because of you know, this very
limited kind of monopolistic hole that that China has on
these these materials. It just should be noted. Right now,
we're talking about in two thousand eleven. Uh, we're gonna
get into it. But the whole world kind of smelled
(14:52):
what the rock was cooking in China and they went, Okay,
we need to up our game here. So those numbers
have chained to now I've been The last thing I
saw was put China at about production the same. It's
about eighty percent right now, and we'll get as we
get closer to the end, we'll get to some other numbers.
(15:14):
But what you'll find is the issue. It's kind of
like oil refineries, right getting the raw material is separate
profit stream from refining it or making it into something usable,
separating the combo meal as it were. Uh, And why
are people worried about the future here. Well, you can
(15:35):
already guess conspiracy realists. But to put it very diplomatically,
humans have never been super awesome at sharing stuff, especially resources, water, gold, land, food, animals,
you name it. There is a possible conflict looming on
the horizon. This is an historical fact, and right now
(15:55):
there's nothing to indicate that the growing importance of rare
earth elements will be any different. As you listen to
today's episode, governments, your government, no matter where you live,
and companies around the world, as well as some corrupt,
very powerful individuals, are actively conspiring to get the best
seat at the table for this new gold rush, and
(16:16):
they are increasingly less concerned with who might get hurt
in the process. We're gonna pause for word from our
sponsors and will return. Here's where it gets crazy, all right,
conflict resources. Let's talk about it. Let's say the the
(16:41):
five of us on the show, Uh, Matt Noell myself,
Mission Control and you're listening. Let's say we're in a
regional conflict. We're either a government and we're fighting rebel militias,
or we're part of a rebel force and we're fighting
a government. Whichever side we're on, we're in it because
we're convinced we have the moral high ground. Other people
(17:04):
might agree with us. They might you know, want to
supply us arms, they might want us like training. They
might just you know, make like viral social media post
or something. But the thing is, yeah, but the thing
is thoughts and prayers don't pay the bills. Conflict is expensive.
We have to fund our side of the war, and
(17:26):
that's where we start looking for physical control of areas
with lots of resources cocaine for example, or oil or
nowadays rare earth minerals. If we can extract these and
we can exercise attacks on them, no matter who we're
hurting in the process, then we can sell them and
we'll continue our conflict. And the people we sell them
(17:48):
to can use any number of like proxies and middlemen
actors to give themselves legal cover, and they will almost
never ask questions about where this stuff actually comes from.
It's an old idea, yeah, um, our country has been
(18:08):
doing it for a long time. We learned from the
best tip of the hat creep Britain. Uh just you know,
moving into a place and taking the stuff to sell it,
maybe back to the same people that you just took
over from the word you're looking for. It perhaps is pillaging, Yes,
taking taking what's it's ours? It's ours. We we we
(18:29):
got here, we like we we pushed the other people
out of the way. I mean, it's rightfully ours. So
that's that's an old thing for for many people right now.
Not reading your mind, but you probably just thought of
blood diamonds, right That is another conflict resource. That's the
umbrella term for these. But blood diamonds are only the
(18:50):
most well known example in the West right now to
the public. If you look at something like the mining
industry and the demo aocratic Republic of Congo, you'll see
that one of the big big deals there is something
you might not think about often. It's a thing called coltan.
Coltan is important because it provides the element tantalum, which
(19:14):
is used in many mobile phones. Huge deal, uh, This
resource one financed fighting during the Second Congo War to
two thousand three. Another thing you probably didn't hear much
about on the evening news, right and you certainly didn't
hear about the money that was involved and the way
(19:36):
the ways in which mining financed this war. It was
such a big deal in the Congo that control of
the minds became its own military objective. They would go
out and say, hey, we need to get the mind
because the mind is profitable. And when like again back
(19:56):
to small things so coltan and or like, the components
made from it control the flow of electricity and mobile phones.
Without this stuff, your phone is bricked, and more and
more and more people are are using mobile phones. It's
like the most common way to access the Internet. Some
people treat it um entirely like another part of their
(20:20):
brain lives with them. You were probably within reaching distance
of your cellular device. Now. The largest reserves of this
cold ten stuff there in the Democratic Republic of Congo. UH.
They finance sustaining civil wars on the African continent and
in in the d r C. Those wars directly relate
(20:44):
to the profits from these substances. The trade continues today
in the east of the country. These minds are often
in really remote places, really dangerous areas of the world.
At this point, when it introduce International Peace Information Service
or it is, it is as a delightful acronym, But
(21:06):
they have some terrible news. UH. Their studies have indicated
that for years, armed groups were present at more than
fifty percent of all the mining sites in the country.
And they weren't just loafing around at a lot of
these sites. They would force the local civilians into work.
They would illegally extort them, illegally tax them, miners including children.
(21:31):
So miners with an E M, miners with an O
work these shifts that go up to forty eight hours
around mudslides, tunnel collapses. Uh, these are fatal. Ocean is
not a thing. And perhaps most horrifyingly, both sides of conflicts,
like the militia groups but the Congolese National Army as well,
(21:53):
have been known to use sexual assault violence to control
the locals and control the minds. And this has been
happening since really the birth and golden age of smartphones
that occurred, remember talking about late nineties to early two thousand's,
So that's that started happening then and it just continues today.
(22:14):
And it's horrifying to think about with the number of
smartphones that exist on the planet right now that are
being actively used and thrown away and new ones purchased
and creative god yeah, I mean, it's such a waste,
wasteful culture. I don't know if you guys have seen these,
but there are literally machines at some grocery stores where
you can just feed your one generation old smartphone into
a slot and then I'll give you like a couple
(22:36):
of bucks for it, while presumably recycling it. I don't
know exactly where that stuff goes, but they're probably just
trying to pull some of those rare minerals out of
it and you know, sell them in bulk. I guess
that's that's how they're amassing it. But this really reminds
me of like the Harkonans in um in Dune in
terms of like their use of spice mining on iraqis
(22:56):
to basically fund their supremacy over like the whole galaxy
as much as they possibly can, like their warlords, and
they are able to fund their military through the extraction
of this resource that everybody means mm hmmm. Yeah. In
some regions of the Congo, about thirty percent of school
children have been pulled away from their daily lives and
(23:19):
forced to work in the minds. So again we see
the supply chain similar to nest Lee's activity gathering their ingredients,
similar to the beer's activity gathering diamonds. It's a tactic,
right and it's a tactic because it's profitable and it works,
and they are rarely repercussions for the dirty hands involved.
(23:42):
The United States is aware of this issue, and a
guy named Senator Sam Brownback back in April the two
thousand nine introduce something he called the Congo Conflicts Minerals
Act of two thousand nine, and it said, here, if
you're an electronics company and you you work with us,
you need to verify and disclose your sources of several
(24:04):
specific conflict resources. This legislation died in committee because it
was messing with the money potentially. So brown Back, to
the senator's credit, went back and added similar language in
the Dodd Frank wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act,
(24:25):
because without getting the weeds, that's something you can do
in Congress, and congress folk do it all the time.
You just you want something to happen, so you add
your thing in to a totally unrelated piece of legislation.
It would be like if we all decided we were
going to order pizza and then someone said, I'm only
(24:45):
ordering pizza if we're also getting wantons and borshed, like
when they don't have that at the pizza place. Well, no, deal. Uh,
that's it's weird, but brown back strategy worked and this
was signed into law on July. Hopefully these laws can
(25:06):
make a difference, and hopefully international organizations can continue to
work around the clock to stem or mitigate the human
wave of blood and pain created by conflict mining. But
it still continues today, and it's going to continue because
even though it's a problem, not a lot of people
want to think about. Uh, from us holding our phones
(25:29):
all the way to the heights of corporate power where
all these complex supply webs of middlemen create this morally
convenient plausible deniability. Everybody wants this stuff and this is
this sounds like the point of the episode, but this
is just one of three big points. This is one
aspect of the larger rare earth gold rush, and it
(25:51):
is a gold rush, and we are part of it.
The number of people that own a smart phone it's
like seven point to six billion, which is almost of
the world's population. So you're involved, even if you don't
want to think about it. We are to um, but
(26:12):
we're probably not going to be directly involved in the
next frontier of the gold rush, just because most people
couldn't survive getting to this place. We are kind of
involved because I think we mentioned this specific thing back
in an episode of Strange News, and so we're we're
we're involved on the edge. We at least let some
(26:33):
people know about it. The new gold rush, right, the
brand new frontier gold rush that is deep beneath the waves,
around four thousand meters below the waves to be exact.
Mm hmm, yeah, the newest mining Frontier. It reminds me
of a sci fi show that was on many years
(26:53):
ago called um I can't remember. It was like Star
tre second see us, Yes, that's it. That's the one
quest TSV with with with Royce rob roy Scheider from
Jaws was in it. Also Jonathan Brandis, who was a
big teen heart throb at the time who tragically passed
(27:14):
away and a really sad circumstances. But it had a
talking dolphin um and it was very eco driven. It
was all about the ecological kind of stuff. I thought
you guys were talking about Sea Lab. Oh, Sea Lab. Yeah, No,
Sea Lab also great, very different kind of show, but
also some cold classic. Yeah. Sea Lab is a little
more no Country for old man. That is gonna be
(27:36):
great for anybody who was watching Sea lab for the
first time. Just watch the episode, keep thinking to yourself
what it has in common with Bild Country for old Men,
and then send us an email about the similarities. Cut cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut,
cut cut cut. So let's this newest mining frontier. It's
(27:56):
the Pacific Ocean. It's deep in the Pacific Ocean. As
we mentioned earlier, in remote parts of the Pacific seabed.
There are trillions of these little like potato size nodules
of rare earth elements, and there there's enough of them
there to really play apart and power in the world,
(28:18):
as long as someone can figure out how to get
get down there, more than two miles below the surface
and bring them back up. Gee, guys, I don't see
any potential fall out from this kind of operation at all.
Do you zero percent? What could go wrong if we, uh,
if we make first contact with a lot of these
places in the world's least explored, most remote, and most
(28:41):
poorly understood regions. Well, yeah, most delicately ecologically balanced. We
just need we'll just get claws and it'll just grab
all the stuff on the ocean floor. Just whatever it
is doesn't matter as long as the nodules are picked
up and then we'll just return it to the surface.
It'll be fine, but we'll do that a lot, and
then we'll post environmentally conscious means on Instagram for our
(29:05):
mining companies, so people know our our thoughts and prayers
are there. You know. Uh, these this thing like okay,
just like the earlier mineral in Sweden, this was discovered
a long time ago, back in eighty five. Ship saw
this stuff and they really think much of it. And
(29:26):
it wasn't until pretty recently that humanity has made the
breakthroughs and underwater robotics that make large scale mining possible,
if not advisable, because there are a lot of people
against it, as you can imagine messing with things you
don't understand classic human being. But oh brother, people want
(29:48):
to slice in that undersea pi. Yeah, this is very
much to me like the what is it the asteroid
mining that we recently discussed. Everybody kind of sees that
as a potential news source of these kinds of minerals.
Now we're just going down instead of up, I suppose.
(30:09):
So let's let's jump to some reporting from the Guardian.
This uh journalist Rupert meet any A t E and
he wrote an article looking at the Deep Sea Mining
Summit which occurred in two specifically at the Hilton London
Hotel in the Canary Wharf district. And it's really interesting
(30:30):
because the summit itself, you pay money to go and
you know, visit the summit here what people are talking about,
meet other people in mining and you had to pay
what was it been almost twelve hundred pounds just to
go and hang out at the event. Yes, they're already
(30:51):
making money. And uh the delegates are like representatives of
environmental concerns, but also a lot of banks, also lot
of mining interest startups, established mining giants. Like mining is
a huge industry and it's a very powerful industry. The
(31:11):
organization just to be guests fair, do our due diligence.
They made some pragmatic points in their advertisements and ruper
neat points is how too, they say, particularly the psychotomy quote.
As we move into an era of mining the deep
ocean floor, the world's most remote environment, mining companies are
(31:32):
working on overcoming the perceived challenges, and developing island nations
are watching with interest as the demand for base metals
and minerals surges ever beyond what our land is able
to provide new technological and technical developments are helping to
drive forward this new industry. Cue the cue the trumpets,
(31:52):
you know what I mean, Play the play the marching music.
We're off to the underwater races. Everybody's tests. That's why
I remember the story because it was a two year
rule they got recently triggered back in April. I think
we're around that time where the island nations. What was
it they had two years to do something. Oh man,
(32:14):
I'm I can't remember it exactly. It was. Okay, So
last year in June, as we record this, the Pacific
island nation of Naru triggered the two year rule. The
two year rule gives the International Seabed Authority or ISSA,
(32:34):
two years to finalize regulations governing this nascent, controversial, and
growing deep sea mining industry. So the clock is ticking.
The deadline is July of next year. To get our
you know, our safe words are boundaries, are dues, and
don't alt together before the drills start. Uh. There are
(32:58):
a lot of people are against this, I mean Pacific.
Several Pacific nations are saying, you know, they've seen what
happened to African nations in the past. And Latin America,
and they're saying, hey, we don't want to be um
robbed of our natural resources, or at least we want
to be compensated in some way. And then other folks,
(33:19):
including like Sir David Attenborough, are saying, no, just don't
do it. You don't know what's down there. Stop. Where
will I make my documentaries? Well, if the oceans are pillaged,
well I have to make at least ten more before
I turned two hundred. Well, the environmentalist response really does
ring true. And I think that's what we focused on
(33:41):
in our episode, just that every time we humanity, whether
it's through some new tech where a human can actually
get in them craft and get all the way down
to the bottom there again four thousand meters below sea level,
or even we're just sending a robot of some sort
to go down there, every time we do it we
(34:03):
discover new species because we don't go there very often
and it's a huge f in place. So you know,
you can just imagine that if we just go down
there to take the stuff up from the surface, then
we're gonna kill a lot of things, things that we
don't even know there are there. Yeah, but isn't that
(34:23):
the point though, Like I mean, yeah, people like you
and I and Davy Attenborough we care about those things.
We we we realize that adds a richness to life
and life on earth and all of that stuff, and
we love nature documentaries. But do you think that the
leaders of these conglomo companies that are banking on getting
the stuff care at all? Even a little? Any representation
(34:45):
of caring about the environment is all optics, It's all
in service of some pr line. I don't think they
care at all. If it was up to them, they'd
kill every single living creature on earth to get to
their stuff. I don't know, because rationalization and is something
that humans are very very good at, and it's unrelated
(35:05):
to intelligence really, I mean, it's not like it's not
like being intelligent makes people be honest with themselves. They
just get better at lying to themselves pretty often. It's
mental parkour. But uh, I know that there are a
lot of signals from these groups that say, hey, we
want to work on the right environmental regulations. But because
(35:25):
people haven't done something like this before, they don't know
what those regulations really should be. And a big part
of how China jumped ahead in the Rare Earth Game,
hinged on their ability to keep production costs low by
not giving two farts about the environment. I'm trying to
(35:47):
curse less on the show. But they didn't have to
worry about the same expensive regulations. And people are saying, um,
you know, and and scientists and experts are reacting to
the two In the same year. One partially in reaction
to this, more than three hundred and fifty scientists from
(36:07):
forty four different countries signed a petition saying, hey, we
gotta stop. We shouldn't mine in the deep sea until
quote sufficient and robust scientific information has been obtained. Here's
where we go to Luisa Cassan, who is who is
working with green Peace at the time. She said the
industry running the conference is crooked. She said the banks
(36:30):
who are talking about investing in this are clearly just
looking for a quick profit. Consequences be damned. She said,
This destructive new industry wants to rip up an ecosystem
we're only just starting to understand there ain't mean to
make a quick profit while our oceans and the billions
of people relying on them bear the costs. Also important
to know activists for places like green peace point out
(36:55):
that the maritime ecosystem is already like on the verge
of collapse. You know what I mean, if you like seafood,
maybe eat them now. I don't know, I don't know
what to do, but because yeah, yeah, just stop eating anything,
Just stop eating anything. Yeah. Right. Uh. And you know what, though,
(37:21):
they all make great points, and this is probably going
to happen one way or another. The United Nations, as
sort of parent company, doesn't have a bunch of real
enforcement powers, and in a money driven society, money being
the dominant religion of this age, the money is just
too good. The need from the materials is just too great.
(37:42):
To paraphrase Douglas Adams, so long to the Pacific. Thanks
for all the fish, beautiful, beautiful. I mean, it is
going to happen. And I don't care who you are.
If you if you hold that view, you probably like
your smartphone. You you know, even if you know that
this is a bad idea to get the rare earth
(38:03):
elements from that specific place, you know that we need them.
Like It's exactly what we're saying here. The need is
too great. We're not Humanity isn't gonna change its way
and just say, okay, guys, no more smartphones, no more Internet,
no more hybrid cars, no more Tesla's. We're done with
that stuff now because we can't afford it. As a species,
(38:23):
we're not particularly great at making sacrifices once we've already
like gone down a particular road. I think we had
a great Mr. Show quote a couple of episodes ago.
I'm gonna do another one. Uh it's a a wealthy
executive talking about what might happen if the company collapse,
and he says, I swear to God, if I have
to go from being super richness rich, I'll kill myself. Uh.
(38:44):
We we just that's how we think. Like, once you've
gone down that road of like luxury or even like
basic stuff, you know, having you know, the ability to
to you know, doodle around your smartphone with apps and
play games and stuff in text, it's really hard to
put that genie back in the bottle, even with the
best intentions, because we've kind of trained ourselves to feel
like we're owated in some way. And this still doesn't
(39:06):
cover the extent of corruption, contamination and conspiracy orbiting those
neat little gadgets hot in your hands and all the
crazy crazy stuff people will do to manufacture and to
sell them to you at a profit. And pause for
quick word from our sponsor, and then we'll return with
(39:27):
a third big piece of the conspiracy puzzle. When it
comes to rare earth elements. We've returned. Um. If you
are a fan of hip hop, I'm sure you heard
the song Detroit Versus Everybody with a lodge of legendary
(39:47):
Detroit m ces. Check out the song. Tell us what
you think. Uh, this part of the show should be
called China Versus Everybody is As we mentioned right now,
China controls the vast majority party of rare earths, as
the Swedish originally called them. They've raised the price of
some of these elements by as much as one thousand
(40:09):
percent in recent years. Also, there was a fishing dispute
also with Japan a few years back, and China retaliated
by cutting off exports of these substances, and this gave
them a lot of clout and helped them resolve the issue. Uh.
The worry about China having control over this high demand
resource type has sent the US into an emergency mode
(40:32):
that continues today. That this wasn't China freestyling. This plan
was decades in the making, and it was an accurate,
brilliant prediction on the part of Chinese analysts based on
a couple of factors. First, the sort of mining crazy expensive,
especially if you care about the environment. To China wanted
to create a situation where at the lowest cost of production,
(40:54):
super good vertical integration, and a lot of industry subsidies.
And then they rolled out their plan. They wanted to
control the entirety of the supply chain so much as possible.
They wanted to capture Western intellectual property r i P.
And they wanted to embed the materials that they touched
into US commercial and defense systems. They were super successful.
(41:18):
China dominates the market. It minds fifty of the world's
rare earth minerals today, and perhaps more importantly, it processes Yeah,
so let's just break some of those numbers down even further,
just to the actual elements themselves. In China produced of
(41:39):
all gallium and of all silicon and of arsenic important.
It's up there with the old lace. How was about
to get out of my head? So? Uh, These Chinese
firms also control of global cobalt refining. They also control
(41:59):
have of the d RC Democratic Republic of the Congo
is cobalt mining that's of global production. Round about. This
means that the majority of rare earth elements mind outside
of China are going to end up there anyway. They're
shipped over for processing into high value metals and magnets
(42:20):
and alloys. And over time, the i p that the
Chinese government and state supported companies acquired, often from Western companies,
meant that they were increasingly less reliant on those other
countries manufacturing processes. And this leads to what dings shall
Pain called, uh, something kind of poetic. In response to
(42:42):
a question about this, Deng said, the Middle East has
its oil, China has rare earths, and it's not hyperpole.
Uh it's a little poetic, but it's a real thing.
And the US knew about this hustle since pretty much
day one at for they just didn't do anything about it.
I don't I don't think they knew what a big
(43:04):
issue it would become. Do you think China did? Oh? Yeah,
for sure. I mean, well, because you know, it was
obviously like the stuff was important for many products. But
I wouldn't you say that it's the smartphone revolution like
the iPhone, the whole lego that and then insane number
that you just put out Ben that maybe really really
pushed it over the line in terms of like how
(43:27):
necessary these things are. Yeah, that's a huge part. Semiconductors,
as you mentioned earlier, that's a huge part. Well, bombs
and the way to make bombs land where they're supposed
to land. Uh, you need semiconductors, electric vehicles. It's a
big part. Part of the rollout for e vs has
been stymy by these supply chain issues. I just I
(43:47):
just wonder how U S could have been so shortsighted. Well,
here's the other thing. A lot, let's say, of the
economically viable deposits of rare earth minerals exist. They just
happen to exist on land that is controlled by the
country of China and the you know, the borders that
create China. They just happen. They just happen to be there.
So it's also a bit of luck, I guess in
(44:10):
a way, um all working together at the same time
of the factors you guys mentioned, and the US closed
down a lot of minds due to those environmental concerns.
In fact, we're talking about this a little bit too.
We'll hold it for US solutions. But let's let's get
there in a second. Uh. For years now, the US
(44:33):
has been thinking about how to respond to this. After
initially seating control and closing down their own stuff, they
might resurrect domestic minds. All those old like forty nine
are gold mines that are out decaying in the West.
It turns out if they have anything worthwhile in them
that's not gold because the original prospectors weren't looking for that,
(44:54):
then they're gonna open them again. They're gonna try to
and let's hope that first one works out, because the
other possibilities are not things you would want to consider
lightly yes, and might haunted. Yeah, you know, prospectors past
yet there soon they could be leaders in the afterlife
(45:17):
semiconductor industry. Uh. Look, these things power America's advanced military.
It's digital economy, vehicle smartphones, radar, fighter jets like the
F thirty five, name it. These chips are essential for
US national security, and once you cut past the headlines,
this deficit is one of the main reasons the US
(45:40):
has not gone full nuclear in a trade war with
China just yet. It's because they're entirely reliant on imports
for the supply of rare earth minerals. Number two supplier
of rare earth material to the U S is Estonia
at about six percent. Number one is China at about
seven in the eight percent, it's a distance second. Well,
(46:02):
and you remember we did an episode a long time
ago on Chinese interests in UH mineral minds in Africa.
Remember that we talked about how, oh yeah, that's a
little weird. China's really going hard extracting minerals from Africa.
We know there's resources extraction, we understand that, but it
was it really was part of this bigger game that
(46:24):
was happening that we could kind of see at the
time when we were talking about that, because gosh, that
was probably maybe when we were looking into that. And
now you can really see that this is a major
part of China's foreign policy, right at least what in
what their interests are in Africa. Yeah, yeah, because the
(46:45):
thing about an authoritarian, centralized government is that it can
more easily enact long term plans, you know what I mean,
without those plans being up for political debate every two
to four years. So it's it's true. Uh, and Uncle
Sam is aware of this, and they've been making increasingly
focused and I would argue at times desperate overtures to
(47:06):
African mining interests. It's an uphill battle, though, because China's
foreign policy on the continent is formidable, and it's got
a hell of a head start in this part of
the great game. In this particular chapter, we talked about
the Belton Road initiative, which from a purely objective infrastructure
perspective is amazing. But they also give scads of friendly
(47:29):
infrastructure loans to these countries with serious strings attached. And
African governments, of course, look, most people obviously are extraordinarily intelligent.
The people who are leaders of these governments and of
these countries, they are well aware of previous experiences with
US companies and they're not super jazzed about it, nor
(47:51):
should they be. So all of those factors combined to
make China the clear leader on the continent for now,
and that's why the Department and DEFEN is trying to
throw money at the problem. They're hoping they can waive
some money over and make you magically disappear. The d
O D is planning to provide thirty five million dollars
in fundings for a rare earth processing plant in the
(48:12):
Mountain Pass mine in California, and the d o E
of the Department of Energy will fund a one hundred
and forty million dollar demonstration project to process rare earth's
at other critical minerals from coal ash, which is you know,
kind of killing two birds with one stone, uh, toxic
stone UM. The d o E has another three billion
(48:32):
dollar investment in refining green metals such as lithium, cobalt,
and nickel, which you're absolutely critical for de carbonization UM.
And there's also a lot of talk about subsidizing domestic
mining interests or even nationalizing them. That's interesting prospect. Just
(48:53):
to go back to that Mountain Pass mine, that's the
one that I was thinking about the top. We were
talking about how the numbers have changed because of the
last time I looked at it, in that single mind
in California was providing like fifteen six of the world's
like the global production of rare earth elements. Pretty crazy, yeah, yeah,
(49:16):
And you know, the for for conservationists, this is clearly
a victory to shut down minds like this, Right, you're
helping preserve the world for your those who come after.
But how does that match up against the tremendous profits
and the tremendous need for these electronics that people are
(49:37):
so you know, so into these days. Ah, you have to.
And plus a lot of people in the US across
political spheres don't like the big N word nationalization That
has kind of shades of communist ideology right to too
(50:00):
many people in the US. So will any of these
strategies be enough? Though? If one or all of them happen.
Uh if again, if you live in the US, you
better hope. So the situation still looks brim I mean, sure,
you could say China is taking a golden goose opportunity
and running with it, but they're not just doing it
to be jerks. Remember we said demand for these and
(50:22):
related materials is skyrocketing everywhere China is no exception. Their
demand is skyrocketing too, domestically, and that means logically, at
some point China will theoretically have to limited exports, not
to hurt others, but to maintain its own growth. And um,
we've talked a little bit about how the government approaches
(50:44):
the concept of human rights. Right, they're thinking less about
civil rights and more about what they call economic rights.
So the legitimacy of the government continues to depend upon
this con like continuing year over your growth, it keeps
the pitchforks and the torches in the closets. So all
this means that unless the situation fundamentally changes, something has
(51:08):
to give. This is untenable. What does it all mean though,
if you take it all together, it means African countries
continue to be subjected to resource extraction, same song, just
different different part of the course. Geopolitical manufacturing pressures indicate
that deep sea mining will become inevitable. It will probably happen.
(51:32):
These materials may not get a lot of coverage on
your average evening news program, but that also might change
as they become increasing flashpoints for talks of trade wars,
maybe even hot wars. But at this point in hot
war between China and the US is unlikely based on
this situation. I hate to say, you guys, but that
(51:54):
doesn't mean there's not a war in the cards. It
just means that the powder caag would likely be something else,
And even if it was a war over rare earth resources,
it would almost certainly be advertised as something else to
US voters. Right, you don't want to people. People want
to have smartphones, but they don't want to think I'm
supporting a war so I can keep paying playing you know,
(52:18):
Best fiends great game. By the way, I'm actual million
to peg ol Blast lately. That's a fun one too
in Royal Match. But now it's no laughing matter. I mean,
you know, this isn't the same as like deep sea fishing.
This is deep sea mining. This is absolutely destructive to
all of these ecosystems that we barely understand, and it's
sort of like a common thing that people just do.
(52:39):
It's like, oh, there's a thing, let's go get it. Wait,
what ramifications the future? It's fine, just go in. Yeah. Well,
I mean, you know, to your point, Ben, when we're
not going to hear about it, I think we will
when this industry's version of deepwater Horizon occurs, you know,
there's gonna be some major disaster. We be an environmental
(53:02):
disaster at its heart, but oh the whole, the whole,
you know, mission is destroyed. Basically all of the infrastructure
got destroyed in this accident, um and then there really
won't be anymore whatever rare insert rare earth element here
on the planet. Because some little thing went wrong. But
it's also like companies like that don't pivot or start
(53:24):
making promises, you know, to be greener or to be
better stewards of the environment until something like that happens,
because then it becomes like a clean up game of
like protecting their image and being made to seem like
better stewards of the environment, even though they're the ones
in there that have wrecked it in the first place.
It's a pattern that's just really depressing. Yeah, greenwashing. I
(53:46):
want to give a special shout out uh to something
that I hope happens. There's a great sci fi horror
film called Underwater came out. It's one of the best
recent lovecraft films I've seen. Um Also, Color Out of
Space is great, but this one's underwater. Check it out.
Let us know. It's like a flooded town, coastal town
(54:10):
or is it actually underwater? Vincent is quite good. Yes,
it's a group of workers at a deep sea drilling
facility at the bottom of the ocean and about their hygiens.
So believe it at that. Let us know what you think.
I'm glad you liked it to know. And either way
you look at this not just the deep sea aspect,
(54:33):
not just the geopolitical tensions, not just the deaths of
so many innocent people in the minds. Mining overall is
hugely important, and it's dirty, and in many ways it's
vital to what you listening today consider to be civilization,
(54:53):
and a lot of it functions in the background, and
that is by design. The next time you pick up
a phone or see any number of nifty gadgets around
your house, remember when it comes to rare earth elements,
there's definitely some stuff they don't want you to know.
And you can find us online because you already got him, right,
You already got the rarer stuff right, Oh yeah, you
(55:14):
definitely do uh and send us more as it is.
More of your thoughts, your ideas, your concerns, your questions.
We want to hear all of them. You can find
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(55:36):
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(55:58):
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(56:37):
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