Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Japanese researchers have mapped vast reserves of rare earth elements in deep-sea mud, enough to feed global demand on a "semi-infinite basis," according to a new study.
The deposit, found within Japan's exclusive economic zone waters, contains more than 16 million tons of the elements needed to build high-tech products ranging from mobile phones to electric vehicles, according to the study, released Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports.
[...] The finding extrapolates that a 2,500-sq. km region off the southern Japanese island should contain 16 million tons of the valuable elements, and "has the potential to supply these metals on a semi-infinite basis to the world," the study said.
The area reserves offer "great potential as ore deposits for some of the most critically important elements in modern society," it said.
The report said there were hundreds of years of reserves of most of the rare earths in the area surveyed.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 17 2018, @04:37PM
If I (or some version of my consciousness) live to see the cosmos become a limited resource, I'll call that a win.
Back on my Malthusian soap-box, if we keep doubling population every 50 years into the future, by the year 7018 (laugh if you will, but the pyramids of Giza were built ~4600 years ago...), that's 1.0E40 people, or 3.3E28 people per star in the Milky Way. Without FTL travel, or some kind of miniaturization of the human body, we're doomed to grow our population more slowly in the future than we did these past two generations.
🌻🌻 [google.com]