Hacker News Reader

The difference is that copper tends to be concentrated into minable deposits. REE tend to be spread out. Also comparing Ce with Cu is not totally fair the HREE are also important industrially and they are much rarer than the LREE - and tend to be less well concentrated into minable deposits.

View on HN

A lot of the rare-earths are produced as a by-product of other mining activities. Also, as soon as supply is seriously in constraint, recycling technology for EOL products would be developed, and as the price of sourcing from mines increased, recycling rates would tend towards 100%. Ultimately, the mining product is not being destroyed in the production of something like a battery, so it is fundamentally different, and fundamentally more sustainable than burning a fossil fuel.

There was a crisis around 2010 and this did not happen.

Agree that recycling is probably going to be important (as it is already with other metals).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com