"Trump said on Wednesday that he and NATO had worked out the "concept of a deal" to extend the US' security footprint on the island and rights to its minerals in perpetuity, without offering any additional details or specifics. Analysts at energy, chemicals, metals, and mining consultancy Wood Mackenzie published a report on Thursday following Trump's announcement, noting that Greenland's rare earth assets would be nigh impossible to extract and process on a commercial scale."
"The rare earth minerals available in Greenland are numerous. Cerium is believed to be the dominant material on the island, and it's used in everything from lighter flints to the oil-refining process to self-cleaning ovens. Also common is Lanthanum, which is used in cameras, telescopes, battery electrodes, and hydrogen storage systems, to name a few applications. There's also quite a bit of Neodymium on the island, which is used in things like rare-earth magnets, lasers, and electric motors."
The United States announced a conceptual deal with NATO to expand its security footprint in Greenland and claim perpetual rights to the territory's minerals. Greenland hosts significant but largely unexplored reserves of metals and rare earths and ranks among the world's top rare-earth holders, with potential to produce most EU-defined critical minerals; however, no commercial rare earth mine currently operates there. Numerous critical elements — including cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, yttrium, praseodymium, and europium — occur on the island. Extraction and processing face steep obstacles from remoteness, lack of infrastructure, technical challenges, environmental constraints, and high commercial costs.
Read at Theregister
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]