THE SCRAMBLE FOR RARE

EARTH METALS AND WHY THE BATTLE FOR SMALL OBJECTS IS SO IMPORTANT TO THE WORLD?

WRITTEN BY ARYAN J – YEAR 8

7th December 1941 will be a date that lives in history. December 1941 Pearl Harbour (On the island of Oahu), "The Gathering Place," halfway between Japan and the mainland United States) was bombed, destroyed, entirely destroyed Americas Pacific fleet demolished A forgotten reason behind the dreadful, intense attack was the United States of America had frustrated Japan’s expanding global ambition. In summary the expansion was so the country could obtain goods and resources. The Japanese did this by blocking the Pacific rivals’ access to a critical raw material, OIL With Americas actions it led Japan to take extreme drastic measures.

Stampede to the year 2021, a researcher in Vienna expressed “the brutal rivalry against the USA, China, Russia and Europe for natural resources, on the contrary it wasn’t oil or gas however it was the scramble for today’s rare earth metals. These are a compact group with certain amazing properties. Warlords or mafia bosses from across the Earth exchanged highly dangerous weapons to the democratic republic of Congo. In addition, what shocked me highly was it wasn’t for drugs or low paid slaves but for rare earth metals.”

Now we saunter to the more scientific point of view Dr Juliee Clinger is commonly known as the author of rare earth frontiers (which covers anywhere from terrestrial subsoils to lunar landscapes) In a summarised version the rare earth metals are a group of 17 chemically similar elements. She quotes “This contains 15 of the rare earth metals originated from a group which is known as the Lanthionines The rare earth metals are generally considered to be elements to be elements with atomic numbers (57-71) lanthanum to lutetium another question, why are they called rare earth metals? or humans health like China promised How will they defend from wars and attacks to protect the metals and the mines? The largest Potanin producers are Russia run by president Vladimir Putin Why now when the war took place did the UK withdraw the Nickle from Russia?

Before we verify this answer by Mrs Clinger my personal opinion is they are called this because the word rare, when you hear it spikes you as it sounds exiting and seaming as its so hard to dig and takes a while to get rare earth metals, this is my theory. Now if we verify this it is called rare earth metals because of their similar geographical characteristics The word rare in the term means how difficult it is extracting the metal from the ore Earth means non-ferrous metals Now we have looked at the scientific perspective, where are the resistance manoeuvres against digging them up?

These are all metals Now we still have 2 remaining rare earth metals which in fact are scandium and etrium The specific reason they are all grouped together is because they all have similar geochemical characteristics ” Indeed, they all do have slight differences in atomic structure which is similar to diversity with people This gives them magnetic, electric and more features You can find cirem in old tea sets, it’s also found in lenses as well as red glasses It’s otherwise known as a signal booster for example internet cables need cerium every 30 km to give a boost to international connection. There is etrium and uropien, they are found in our phones and give the mobile the LED colour Dysprosium is used in control rods for nuclear reactors

Now we lead back to the start where countries are fighting over rare earth metals however where really are they located? They are dispersed all over the world, the metals are most likely to be in every country. In addition, that leads us to

In a town in Portugal (Barroso) workers are looking for an ore which is lighter than air itself, (lithium) Protesters challenge against the mining process as it destroys their planet and Portugal’s bio diversity is now very dangerous due to the mining When the earth formed only 3 earth metals were found and lithium was one of them Lithium requires a lot of water, that livelihoods need! However, some of the head workers verbalise the money made out of the mining will be used for new facilities, schools and houses for residences. We need lithium but the mining hurts the informant and the residency The mining will use lots of chemicals which will affect what the civilian’s food and what they drink Congo mines around 60% (the most mined in the world) they are the main producers It is an arduous idea in my opinion as Congo is not a good supplier, Congo doesn’t have the resources. They have large mines removing space which could be used for farming These mines are locked away from the rest of the country The civilian’s pry through the gates to take the ores and resell them to make more money for themselves China is currently being shipped with Congo and China doesn’t want to sell the metal but the rare ore itself This hasn’t taken care of animal

March 2020 the days of pain suffering Covid lockdown People found hobbies e g , magnet fishing The magnet contained neodymium which aloud the magnet to carry as much as a panda’s weight

This element was discovered in 1841 when Swedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander, extracted a rose-coloured oxide from cerite, which he named didymium, as it was a twin of the element lanthanum In 1885, Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach separated didymium into two new elemental components, neodymium and praseodymium This gives the magnet power This has been developed to be used into powerful motors like off sure wind turbines. On the coast the UK have enormous windfarms with an off sure capacity of 10gigawatts

Number 63 in the periodic table of elements is eropian, the most reactive of the rare earth metals, depending on what it is mixed with it creates a red, green or white colour If you find it you can use it on a star, one can locate where it was born. There are around 25billion eropian notes. Over the last 2 years the EU has failed to develop a strategy for finding rare earth metals China has created a very strong policy compared to other countries where they do not have a strategic strategy

This is serious! Showing how slow other countries are at creating renewable resources Without them they will lose their economy, Europe are working very close with Canadians for lithium deposits to all potential partners to create a cooperation However, in some countries there is a great NO for mining. A worker called Zao has a profession of removing vegetation and drills holes into the mountain where ammonium sulphate is injected into the holes liquefying the earth and finally it is drained into a blue liquid where it gets absorbed and left The mountains will die due to this Governments have said to move it from their homes to the mountains as the law is you can’t build anything in Europe that goes against the human harm. The EU depends on China 93 percent since 1948 and to this day they are only 90 percent outlining the issue Can the EU expect to obtain earth metals where China holds the future? The alliance seeks to spread them all over the world It takes 16 years to have an active extraction of moving live rare earth metals Zoa thinks by 2030 20 percent will be moved in Europe Ukraine has lots of potential currently, and this is seen as very complimentary as they are currently at war The development of the supply should be up to the European dimension if it comes to a certain point, but the war isn’t what you read in the headlines The war is also the scramble for rare earth metals and how Ukraine has used drones to their advantage for the purpose of rare earth metals What is a drone? A plane, an eye, a motor in the sky The Ukrainians use these to destroy Putin’s artillery system and army air knowledge They have become so popular; songs have been made after them and now there is a 3-year waiting list for one Russia’s motors may have been used for a push for NATO but who knows However, what if they were used for more he world is a whole new game controlled by the green transition to obtain rare earth metals Ukraine has 117/120 minerals that the Russians want They are all in the eastern part of Ukraine controlled by Russia. Russia is always on the hunt for new species and useful objects. Africa is a useful back up after Ukraine as Russia has already disabled Ukraine’s economy Given that, Russia will have to look at Africa as a resource Since the invasion the country has struggled with technology like the UK have This is no game but a hunt

In 1965 a group of scientists were welcomed at a hotel called the rare earthers. They developed the atom bomb by removing rare earth metals. We have already become massively dependent on them, if we want to become a green planet We need to let go of this hunt It’s a choice which we have already decided I welcome you to the new rare earth world