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Japan's Deep-Sea Rare Earths: Promise Meets Extraction Hurdle

Japan’s deep-sea rare earth find at Minamitorishima sounds like a game-changer. And on paper, it is. The 50-50 mix of light and heavy rare earths is impressive, especially since heavy elements are the truly scarce ones. The bad news is it’s buried under eight kilometers of ocean. Compare that to South Africa and China, where you can put a shovel in the ground tomorrow, and this becomes an uphill battle for Japan, with extraction alone multiplying costs before processing even begins. Strategic potential and a push for technological advancements may be apparent, but most of these projects never scale. #japan #rareearths