Metals

For many years it was predicted that fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas would run out and this was a reason to move to renewable energy sources like wind and solar. This argument was most often made by people who were concerned about climate change but that argument can be made about any energy source. There is a class of materials called rare earth metals, aptly named because they are rare. These metals are critical to today’s high tech society since they are used in things like cell phones, wind turbines, solar panels and flat screed TV’s. China which produces 90% of these metals predicts they will run out in 20 years but climate change devotees seem unaware of this fact. The reason for this blind spot in their thinking is that politics is often more important than science. The reason that China produces most of these metals is that mining of this type is considered bad for the environment and unacceptable in advanced societies like the US and Western Europe. As the demand for these metals continues to increase the number of mines will also increase and that includes the pollution that goes along with these mines.