Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in ancient Norwegian volcano | Lessening Europe’s reliance on China for the elements

From the article: Norwegian mining company Rare Earths Norway (REN) announced that after three years of exploration, it has discovered Europe’s largest proven deposit of rare earth elements.

REN said that its Fen Carbonatite Complex deposit in the southeast of Norway has an estimated 8.8 megatons of rare earth oxides with a reasonable prospect for eventual economic extraction. Within that deposit, there is an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of magnet-related rare earths, which can be used in electric motors and generators, as well as other clean energy technologies such as wind turbines. They’re also found in consumer electronics, medical devices, touch screens, and more.

“The resource estimate underscores the potential of the deposit to be a truly transformative asset that can underpin a secure rare earths value chain for Europe,” Rare Earths Norway CEO Alf Reistad said in a statement.

Located southwest of Norway’s capital city Oslo, near Lake Norsjø, the complex was the pipe of an active volcano around 580 million years ago, notes Live Science. The upper part of the volcano has since eroded away, exposing the 1.2-mile-in-diameter magma-filled pipe. REN says the magma, which has solidified into carbonatite, holds rare earth elements such as neodymium and praseodymium.

China is leading in this sector, because the Chinese Communist Party is perfectly happy to destroy the Chinese land resources, water resources and public health. In order to achieve market dominance in a commodity, which can be produced practically anywhere in the world.

Rare earth resources are not ‘rare’, they are merely in low concentrate. With some notable exceptions, such as the finding in Norway where the concentration is ‘less rare’. So in order to separate the valuable metals from the worthless dirt, you generally need a lot of chemicals. Whose byproduct, if handled improperly will pollute the earth, the water and the people. And handling the pollutant properly is expensive.

In China, they don’t care about polluting the earth, water and the people. Not one bit. And the West is perfectly happy outsourcing the pollution to China.

For such a mine, and refinement to work in Norway. There has to be some assurance, primarily from the European and American defense sector. To buy the refined product, at a markup compared to the prices the Chinese Communist Party can offer in comparison. Because i don’t see us Norwegians jeopardizing our earth and water, in order to acquire wealth we have no pressing need for.