Datasets:

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innovation-hacking2

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shitposting_dataset2

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[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front)." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too..." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb.." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news", ">\n\nWhat kind of rare earth elements? There are 17 of them." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news", ">\n\nWhat kind of rare earth elements? There are 17 of them.", ">\n\nSo what you're saying is that Sweden needs some freedom." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news", ">\n\nWhat kind of rare earth elements? There are 17 of them.", ">\n\nSo what you're saying is that Sweden needs some freedom.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some more freedom" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news", ">\n\nWhat kind of rare earth elements? There are 17 of them.", ">\n\nSo what you're saying is that Sweden needs some freedom.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some more freedom", ">\n\nWow I can't believe Sweden has WMD'S" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news", ">\n\nWhat kind of rare earth elements? There are 17 of them.", ">\n\nSo what you're saying is that Sweden needs some freedom.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some more freedom", ">\n\nWow I can't believe Sweden has WMD'S", ">\n\nELI5 - Amazon can deliver some rare earth magnets to me in Waltham Massachusetts in about 2 hours. Rare? Doesn’t sound like it…" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news", ">\n\nWhat kind of rare earth elements? There are 17 of them.", ">\n\nSo what you're saying is that Sweden needs some freedom.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some more freedom", ">\n\nWow I can't believe Sweden has WMD'S", ">\n\nELI5 - Amazon can deliver some rare earth magnets to me in Waltham Massachusetts in about 2 hours. Rare? Doesn’t sound like it…", ">\n\nThey better get in NATO right quick" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news", ">\n\nWhat kind of rare earth elements? There are 17 of them.", ">\n\nSo what you're saying is that Sweden needs some freedom.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some more freedom", ">\n\nWow I can't believe Sweden has WMD'S", ">\n\nELI5 - Amazon can deliver some rare earth magnets to me in Waltham Massachusetts in about 2 hours. Rare? Doesn’t sound like it…", ">\n\nThey better get in NATO right quick", ">\n\nHey Erdogan! Orban! That tempting enough for you?" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news", ">\n\nWhat kind of rare earth elements? There are 17 of them.", ">\n\nSo what you're saying is that Sweden needs some freedom.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some more freedom", ">\n\nWow I can't believe Sweden has WMD'S", ">\n\nELI5 - Amazon can deliver some rare earth magnets to me in Waltham Massachusetts in about 2 hours. Rare? Doesn’t sound like it…", ">\n\nThey better get in NATO right quick", ">\n\nHey Erdogan! Orban! That tempting enough for you?", ">\n\nAH! There you go, Tesla!" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news", ">\n\nWhat kind of rare earth elements? There are 17 of them.", ">\n\nSo what you're saying is that Sweden needs some freedom.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some more freedom", ">\n\nWow I can't believe Sweden has WMD'S", ">\n\nELI5 - Amazon can deliver some rare earth magnets to me in Waltham Massachusetts in about 2 hours. Rare? Doesn’t sound like it…", ">\n\nThey better get in NATO right quick", ">\n\nHey Erdogan! Orban! That tempting enough for you?", ">\n\nAH! There you go, Tesla!", ">\n\nSo happy to hear" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news", ">\n\nWhat kind of rare earth elements? There are 17 of them.", ">\n\nSo what you're saying is that Sweden needs some freedom.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some more freedom", ">\n\nWow I can't believe Sweden has WMD'S", ">\n\nELI5 - Amazon can deliver some rare earth magnets to me in Waltham Massachusetts in about 2 hours. Rare? Doesn’t sound like it…", ">\n\nThey better get in NATO right quick", ">\n\nHey Erdogan! Orban! That tempting enough for you?", ">\n\nAH! There you go, Tesla!", ">\n\nSo happy to hear", ">\n\nSweden better stock up on ATGM's and Gripens." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news", ">\n\nWhat kind of rare earth elements? There are 17 of them.", ">\n\nSo what you're saying is that Sweden needs some freedom.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some more freedom", ">\n\nWow I can't believe Sweden has WMD'S", ">\n\nELI5 - Amazon can deliver some rare earth magnets to me in Waltham Massachusetts in about 2 hours. Rare? Doesn’t sound like it…", ">\n\nThey better get in NATO right quick", ">\n\nHey Erdogan! Orban! That tempting enough for you?", ">\n\nAH! There you go, Tesla!", ">\n\nSo happy to hear", ">\n\nSweden better stock up on ATGM's and Gripens.", ">\n\nElement 115?" ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news", ">\n\nWhat kind of rare earth elements? There are 17 of them.", ">\n\nSo what you're saying is that Sweden needs some freedom.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some more freedom", ">\n\nWow I can't believe Sweden has WMD'S", ">\n\nELI5 - Amazon can deliver some rare earth magnets to me in Waltham Massachusetts in about 2 hours. Rare? Doesn’t sound like it…", ">\n\nThey better get in NATO right quick", ">\n\nHey Erdogan! Orban! That tempting enough for you?", ">\n\nAH! There you go, Tesla!", ">\n\nSo happy to hear", ">\n\nSweden better stock up on ATGM's and Gripens.", ">\n\nElement 115?", ">\n\nSweden is finally good for something." ]

[ "Welcome to NATO!", ">\n\nI wonder if it was kept under wraps until this very moment as a bargaining chip.", ">\n\n'This huge deposit of rare valuable Materials were just sitting there, in the vault... no one knew... honestly.' \n-Sweden", ">\n\n\"To our surprise they were already forged, purified and polished\"", ">\n\n\"And they had Swiss markings.\"", ">\n\n\"Which is good because we are Swiss\"\nI am stupid.....", ">\n\nSwitzerland is where the 'Swiss' live.\nSweden is where the 'Swedes' live. \nSource: I am descended from 'Swedes'.", ">\n\nSwede is also a kind of turnip", ">\n\nOk, Denmark.", ">\n\nThey call it that in the UK too apparently.", ">\n\nSwedish geologist here who can provide a bit of context to this. As it happens my main field is rare earth elements (REE), and their formation within these types of ores that they are talking about. I have no connection to LKAB, the state owned mining firm that announced the discovery. \nWhile they are hailing this as a deposit of REEs what it most likely is is a greenwashing by the Swedish state, and LKAB to more easily sell the public on more iron mining, as this is really just yet another iron ore that happens to have a high content of REE. Shockingly high to be honest, almost enough to make me a bit skeptical that they hadn’t misplaced a decimal in the press release. \nThe major iron ore deposits that are mined in the Kiruna area, Kirunavaara, Malmberget and so on are what are known as iron-oxide apatite deposits. These occur in other places in Sweden, including central Sweden, Grängesberg, Blötberget to name a couple, and in the world. They are rich in, well, iron, as well as the mineral apatite, which containes abundant phosphorus. Phosphate minerals like apatite have a habit of acting as sort of a vacuum for REEs, enriching them in thes iron ores. These deposits also contain other REE minerals, xenotime, monazite, allanite.\nNow why do I suggest that this is greenwashing? Well REEs are a hot topic right now due to being metals that are critical in transitioning to green technology, as well as other high tech uses. \nThe currently mined iron oxide apatite mines up right next door to this new ore body also are rich in REE. Not as rich, but they come out to be about 0.07 percent on average in these ores, but the sheer volume of ore means that the potential tonnage is high. But they aren't hailed in the media as a harbinger of European REE independance. \nNow, apatite and its phosphorus is not wanted in iron, so when the iron ore is crushed and enriched on site, it produces a waste sand known as tailings, which are then dumped in ponds near to the mine. The tailings are enriched in the apatite and other REE rich minerals, as the iron has been taken out. \nJust the tailings pond in Kiruna, which amount to 76 million tonnes of tailings (as of 2019) have been measured to contain 0.12% REE. Pretty close to what is reported from this new deposit. Combined with other tailings repositories in the area, it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of REE just sitting there, ready to go more or less, already mined and crushed. They could easily be exploiting that resource if they were serious about REE production. To be fair, there are projects working on it, but it is still small scale pilot projects.\nBut they don't get splashy international headlines because like I said, I doubt this is really about them hot to mine REE. It is because they want to get at the easy to extract, easy to process iron fast, so the Swedish government makes a big announcement, to sell this as an REE deposit and try and get mining it faster, and wrapping it up in a big green bow to try and make the environmentalists and the Sami keep quiet.", ">\n\n\ntry and make the Sami keep quiet. \n\nA time honoured Swedish tradition.", ">\n\nWhat is the Sami?", ">\n\nThey are the original indigenous people of the far north of Fennoscandia, inhabiting the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Culturally and linguistically they are somewhat related to the Finns, but were traditionally nomadic. They were displaced north progressively by the Germanic Scandinavians and Christian Finns from the south, and then starting in the 1800s they suffered a similar kind of treatment as indigenous people in other parts of the world, including discrimination, forced assimilation practices and attempts to erase their cultures and languages.\nToday they are recognised as the indigenous people of the north and have some autonomy and protection, but there is a long history in Sweden and the other Nordic countries of ignoring and mistreating them. That is what OP was referring to. The Sami lands are rich in many minerals, and also are home to a lot of hydroelectric capacity, and that means that their lands have suffered negatively from an environmental perspective despite their opposition.", ">\n\n\noriginal indigenous people \n\nvery far from, komsa culture is more than 8000 years before, they are indigenous because they were inhabitants before the countries were officially countries", ">\n\nThe Sami settled from the East, Bronze Age swedes from the South. They were mixed for many centuries, with the \"forest Sami\" living as far South as Dalarna. The Sami would have a nomadic or semi-nomadic culture not far from settled farmers. Meanwhile, the southern Swedes settled the Baltic Sea coast quite early on, even pretty far up north. The area around e.g. Kiruna was colonized later in a more intentional way.", ">\n\nyes, but komsa people settled north of samis/kvens before that", ">\n\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that the Komsa culture was almost exclusively sea-oriented, living mainly off seal hunting and being able boat-builders and fishermen.\n\nAlso, they lived along the Norwegian coast, so they didn't really have contact with the farmers who came later.", ">\n\nBad news for China, good news for world balance.", ">\n\nAgreed. You have to deal with the Thorium and Uranium content in many of the ores, not to mention all the other toxic waste produced separating the different rare earth oxides. The reason why China dominates the processing of the ores is because, it frankly does not care as much about toxicity/radioactivity/environment. Also the 8 or so major rare earth processing companies in China have some state ownership and are heavily subsidized (China considers rare earths to be a national security issue). As such, Chinese rare earth producers can undercut almost all others when it comes to the price of the oxides and pure metals. I doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China. Whether they can make the money from selling the ore really boils down to the type of rare earths found in the deposit. The largest rare earth miner in the US (out West) still has not turned a profit.", ">\n\n\nI doubt Sweden is going into rare earth processing, so it would most likely have to make its money from selling the crude ore to China.\n\nWe are actually. More specifically, LKAB is planning to do so in Norway, in partnership with Norwegian company Reetec. There's also plans to do some processing in a new industrial park in north Sweden near this mine. Here's an article in Swedish about it.", ">\n\nWell then Kudos to Sweden and Norway! Well done! I wish the US government had the courage to do what is necessary for US miners.", ">\n\nThey already did. They are restoring Mountain Pass Mine (an huge deposit) on government dime/US environment. \nIt is likely only to be used for military use however, ensuring we got proper amount of RE for bombs if we go to war with China. \nIt isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :)", ">\n\n> It isn't gonna make your Iphone cheaper :) \nIt might. If the US military is buying less rare earths on the international market then that reduces the demand on that source.", ">\n\nthat indirect reduction in materials cost will not translate into savings for you", ">\n\nYeah. Bidens release of strategic petroleum didn't lessen the prices OR make a profit. Nothing matters, give your money to Lrrr.\nEdit: god fukin dammit here ya go: /s. \nCan you not find an obscure Futurama reference as enough of a \"/s\"?", ">\n\nUh, the US made billions off those sales, because they were selling oil for $97 that was bought for a whole lot less than that. Now that prices are down in the $70s they're starting to buy it back. Buy low, sell high, that's sort of how it is supposed to work, right?", ">\n\nGiven that Yttrium - a rare-earth element- was discovered in a Swedish village, this is not all that surprising.", ">\n\nI feel like I'm in a Dr Seuss science class", ">\n\nMmm, green eggs and yttribrebiumxcjasdfjhjkl", ">\n\nCheers I'm sat by myself in a hotel restaurant and just laughed out maniacally. Earned some very odd looks", ">\n\nWell now they have a reason to rush their nato membership, before someone declares this Russian", ">\n\nIt's Turkey holding it up, they're trying to blackmail Sweden and Finland into declaring anyone they don't like terrorists. They also don't seem to get the concept of an independent judiciary, as they're also demanding the Swedish government extradite a few journalists and kurds - which isn't really up to the government, even if they wanted to do it.", ">\n\nHungary hasn’t ratified it yet either", ">\n\nHungary can go eat a bag of dicks and watch themselves become part of the CCCPv2.0. Turkey has actual strategic value given its location spanning Europe and Asia, as well as a respectable military.", ">\n\nFinland and Sweden for Hungary is a no-brainer.", ">\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.", ">\n\n\n[Heyman] NATO has acquired Finland and Sweden in exchange for Hungary and a Baltic state to be named later. Deal is pending physical.\n\nCarlos Correa in a NATO uniform on the front page of ESPN tomorrow?", ">\n\nAren't there like 5 elements isolated from the samples of a single mine?", ">\n\n9 elements actually. 4 of them are named after the town Ytterby. Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Holmium, Skandium, Tulium, Gadolinium, Tantalum*.", ">\n\nWhat are the reasons that it's all pretty much located there? I mean good for Sweden but I want some too? ;/ oh well guess I'll just live my life without any rare earth elements then.", ">\n\nWell it's not that they only exist there, that's just where they were discovered for the first time. The reason it's so many different ones is because of how they naturally occur in the first place. If you find one of them, you're very likely to find most of the others in the mix as well. That's why you always see them referred to by the group name and not by their individual names.", ">\n\nGreat insight thanks!", ">\n\nAlso worth noting that Sweden \"just\" went from being a major empire, to an age of liberty and science, to fight on the winning side of the Napoleonic wars, and starting even more science. And then, when everyone else was fighting 2 world wars, Sweden was just sitting there, playing with it's rocks. \nIt really is notable how much Sweden with a population of today only 10 million, has contributed so much to science. But Sweden was simply more of a power back in the day. \nAlso worth noting that it was one guy who proved a lot of these elements.", ">\n\nEntire planet has been bombarded by asteroids and comets it’s likely many places have these. It’s the environmental cost of extracting them being the issue.", ">\n\nThat’s not how geology works. The entire surface of our planet has been reworked and recycled continuously since at least 500 million years after the late heavy bombardment. Where mineral deposits are now has to do with all of the geology that’s happened since then: plate tectonics, hot spot magmatism, weathering, etc.", ">\n\nYet the idea of the post is correct. Rare Earth deposits are, in opposite to their names, not actually rare. The real reason a few countries produce most of the worldwide demand is that purifying the material leaves a lot of toxic sludge and most countries don't want to deal with that.\nOther countries like china don't give a fuck about producing masses of toxic stuff so they like to fill the role of the provider.", ">\n\nChina has some special deposits where rare earths can be or have been produced as a byproduct of iron mining. From an economic standpoint, you can’t beat a byproduct as a primary producer. The deposit they are working (Bayan Obo) is absolutely enormous, so the byproduct rare earths filled the market demand nicely until demand really ramped up. There are lots of small rare earth occurrences all over the world, but you have to beat the economics to make it worthwhile. The US finally reopened Mountain Pass last year after not having an active rare earth mine for decades. It’s not that the only thing China had going for it was weak environmental regulations… that definitely helped, but Bayan Obo is just so massive (40% of the ENTIRE WORLD’S known REE reserves in ONE deposit—basically unparalleled in resource geology) and rare earths can be produced as a byproduct there, so even without the regulations, other nations’ rare earth deposits just paled in comparison and it wasn’t worth it to mine them.", ">\n\nAs I understood it, this deposit is extremely rich in rare earth metals. 0.18% I believe it was. And it is really rich in iron, phosphorus and fluorine which will be mined as well. So, there will be many byproducts.", ">\n\nGet them into NATO asap!", ">\n\nCan't we just invade them instead?\n/s", ">\n\nHow are they doing on that democracy? I'm sure we could bring them a little more.", ">\n\nI'm pretty sure they got a lot of socialism and could use a nice big influx of freedom as a gift from the good ole U-S-of-A.", ">\n\nLol I know it's a joke, but Sweden is far from being a socialist country!", ">\n\nThey definitely need to be in NATO. Their risk just increased dramatically.", ">\n\nWe are in the EU.\nIf we get attacked it is still WW3, just with a slightly slower start.", ">\n\nOh, absolutely. NATO is a nice additional security blanket, but if Russia attacks Sweden all bets are off generally, I think. I don't think Russia are that dumb (plus they can't fight on more than one front).", ">\n\nWhich belong to the Swedish people right?\n...right?", ">\n\nThe mining company is state owned so... yes.", ">\n\n...and the chairman of the board is former Prime Minster Göran Persson (1996–2006)", ">\n\nVilket är så jävla sjukt", ">\n\nSossar gonna soss", ">\n\nSweden has been added to NATO", ">\n\nNordic countries really do have it best.", ">\n\nAmerica about to find some weapons of mass destruction.", ">\n\nI bet they have WMD too...", ">\n\nWe don't. Just look at the map. Denmark is still there.", ">\n\nUS: you want some freedom?", ">\n\nThe only metals Sweden is used to discovering are death metals.", ">\n\nHAIL!!🤘🔥🤘", ">\n\nRussia finds documents saying they own Sweden.", ">\n\nI swear I just heard the screaming of a bald eagle saying “Are you ready for some freedom!?”", ">\n\nWhy is it impossible to find any mention of WHAT rare earth element deposits they are referring to?!?", ">\n\nThey're too rare.", ">\n\nSweden joins NATO.\nOr American will bring it Freedom otherwise.", ">\n\nI smell a country in need of freedom", ">\n\nDon't worry soon the region they're in will have a very oro Russia rebellion and little green men in vacation will ensure \"fair\" elections", ">\n\nSweden doesn’t even border Russia", ">\n\nguess they will be even richer", ">\n\nI live 10 miles from a mining superfund site. I know we need these resources to move into the future but at what cost to humans? Lead and arsenic are in our waterways from it already. Cancer rates are high in my area as well. Mining is never a green solution.", ">\n\nWasn't this find near Kiruna? The entire reason that city exists is because of the mines. There isn't a better place in the country to dig for these metals, considering the infrastructure already in place-", ">\n\nAlso it will be \"farmable\" in about 10-15 years", ">\n\nThats great but lithium isn't classified as a rare earth element.", ">\n\nOperation Golden Eagle is a Go.", ">\n\nSweden bounta become very popular or vanish from all media attention completely just like Uganda and that massive gold deposit", ">\n\nCould take up to 15 years to start mining it due to bureaucracy according to the text.\nThat sounds so dumb..", ">\n\nAren't most rare earth elements named after a mine in Sweden?", ">\n\nYou lucky bastards!\nWait til we see the difference in how much this industry benefits the local population, as opposed to how much the population of African nations benefited from finding REMs on their land.\nBe interested to see how they deal with the corporate vultures that will be offering bribes to every politician in Sweden.", ">\n\nSweden about to hollow.", ">\n\nBetter fast track that NATO app.", ">\n\nAs a CK3 fan, it has always been known that Sweden has high deposits of useful minerals.", ">\n\nThis reminds me how sometimes real life is like, totally random.\nEveryone was talking about how China has cornered the market on rare earth minerals and how the US needs to get on it... And then BAM! SWEDEN swoops in like, \"BOOYAH BETCHES!\"", ">\n\nUnobtainium?!", ">\n\nThis means the cost of these rare earth metals will go down right? Right…?", ">\n\n\"FOR ROCK AND STONE\"", ">\n\nLike... In their banks?", ">\n\nAmerica: \"Sweden needs democracy.\"\nChina: \"Sweden has always been part of China.\"", ">\n\nDid someone say rare earth elements?\n\"Next up, Sweden housing terrorists with weapons of mass destruction....\"", ">\n\nThis is good news for all of us.\nReducing reliance on China for rare earth metals is good for everyone in the West.", ">\n\nDon't let the Russians know or they might try and free them from all the Nazis.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some freedom", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden could use some Freedom\n-America", ">\n\nAmerica heavy breathing \"lemme touch it\"", ">\n\nSuddenly feel like Sweden really needs some good ole fashion ‘Murican DEMOCRACY", ">\n\nLooks like Sweden is about to get some freedom", ">\n\nAccording to the article it could take roughly 10 to 15 years before this deposit can even start being mined. Ouch.", ">\n\nThey finally advanced enough in civ to see the new elements", ">\n\nJust wait till they find what's at the other end of the Earth.", ">\n\nSo, we can go ahead and defend Taiwan now?", ">\n\nElon musk: \"I'm building a spaceship to Sweden\"", ">\n\nWas there a small town in Sweden that has 3 rare earth elements named after it? They do tend to stick together so I would assume this isn't huge news", ">\n\n\"Kiruna. You fear to go into those mines. The Dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm... shadow and flame.\"", ">\n\nNice to see a Scandinavian country finally catching a break.", ">\n\nTurkey: \"You have my attention.\"", ">\n\nNow called “Earth Elements “", ">\n\nSomething tells me there’s more pollution, drilling or stripping to be done. Price will sky rocket.", ">\n\nNext they’ll be bringing back ABBA", ">\n\nGandhi readying nukes as we speak", ">\n\nLike finding a awesome resource patch late game in civ. Nice.", ">\n\nIKEA now selling iPhones", ">\n\nThis is a BFD. China's leverage is about to drop.", ">\n\nI'm sure it's being blown out of proportion. Mining companies put out a massive amount of propaganda to make their claims sound valuable.\nThe first survey teams explore it and put out good sounding results so they can sell a garbage property. Then the company that buys that does the same while doing more exploration on it. Until eventually a shell company is created to mine it where they hype up investors and do a bit of cheap mining where they are trying to make it sound good, meanwhile they pay everyone massive salaries to claim the money. Then the shut down and vanish. If you see a property that they aren't trying to hype up, odds are it actually has good stuff on it that they don't want to sell.\nI don't like doing to much work for them, but it pays too well to pass up.", ">\n\nWill they be reclassified as uncommon earth metals if the deposits are big enough?", ">\n\nMy bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rare earth elements, my bum is on the swedish... swedish...my bum is all alone.", ">\n\nDaddy would you like some sausage!", ">\n\nCan’t wait to see them get burned into the atmosphere and buried in electronic waste landfills !", ">\n\nSuck it China!", ">\n\nMy fellow citizens. At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Sweden, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.\nOn my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Ulf Kristersson's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.\nMore than 35 countries are giving crucial support from the use of naval and air bases to help with intelligence and logistics to deployment of combat units.\nEvery nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honour of serving in our common defence.\nTo all the men and women of the United States armed forces now in Scandinavia, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.\nThe enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery. The people you liberate will witness the honourable and decent spirit of the American military.\nIn this conflict America faces an enemy that has no regard for conventions of war or rules of morality.\nUlf Kristersson has placed Swedish troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for his own military. A final atrocity against his people.\nI want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.\nA campaign on the harsh terrain of the nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict and helping Swedes achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.\nWe come to Sweden with respect for its citizens, for their great civilisation and for the religious faiths they practise.\nWe have no ambition in Sweden except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.\nI know that the families of our military are praying that all those who serve will return safely and soon.\nMillions of Americans are praying with you for the safety of your loved ones and for the protection of the innocent.\nFor your sacrifice you have the gratitude and respect of the American people and you can know that our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.\nOur nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.\nWe will meet that threat now with our army, air force, navy, coastguard and marines so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.\nNow that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force and I assure you this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.\nMy fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.\nMay God bless our country and all who defend her.", ">\n\nMeow meow meow!!!", ">\n\nThey knew they had them the whole time :)", ">\n\nSo we can expect the price of Swedish Fish to remain stable indefinitely? Good news", ">\n\nWhat kind of rare earth elements? There are 17 of them.", ">\n\nSo what you're saying is that Sweden needs some freedom.", ">\n\nSounds like Sweden needs some more freedom", ">\n\nWow I can't believe Sweden has WMD'S", ">\n\nELI5 - Amazon can deliver some rare earth magnets to me in Waltham Massachusetts in about 2 hours. Rare? Doesn’t sound like it…", ">\n\nThey better get in NATO right quick", ">\n\nHey Erdogan! Orban! That tempting enough for you?", ">\n\nAH! There you go, Tesla!", ">\n\nSo happy to hear", ">\n\nSweden better stock up on ATGM's and Gripens.", ">\n\nElement 115?", ">\n\nSweden is finally good for something.", ">\n\n\"We've found some elements that are going to advance the green movement, right after we ravage the earth to get them.\"" ]

[]

[ "The DOJ issued the four-page subpoena to multiple Trump campaign officials in early December, seeking more than “two dozen categories of information,” according to the report. One part of the subpoena asks Trump campaign officials if anyone paid for their legal representation and paperwork related to any such agreement.\nThe subpoena also seeks “all documents and communications” related to Trump’s fundraising activities for a litany of groups outside of his Save America PAC, which has already come under scrutiny. The new subpoenas seek documents related to the Make America Great Again PAC, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, including documents related to the “formation, funding and/or use of money” of the groups.\nThe subpoena also seeks documents related to the creation of an “Election Defense Fund,” which Trump officials ostensibly formed created to raise money from grassroots donors after Trump’s election loss. Officials later testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that the fund technically did not exist but was a way to raise money from people who bought into Trump’s Big Lie.\nProsecutors’ interest in the payments comes after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the Jan. 6 committee that she was initially represented by a Trump-linked lawyer who would not tell her who was paying his fees and said she did not need a formal written retention agreement." ]

[ "The DOJ issued the four-page subpoena to multiple Trump campaign officials in early December, seeking more than “two dozen categories of information,” according to the report. One part of the subpoena asks Trump campaign officials if anyone paid for their legal representation and paperwork related to any such agreement.\nThe subpoena also seeks “all documents and communications” related to Trump’s fundraising activities for a litany of groups outside of his Save America PAC, which has already come under scrutiny. The new subpoenas seek documents related to the Make America Great Again PAC, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, including documents related to the “formation, funding and/or use of money” of the groups.\nThe subpoena also seeks documents related to the creation of an “Election Defense Fund,” which Trump officials ostensibly formed created to raise money from grassroots donors after Trump’s election loss. Officials later testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that the fund technically did not exist but was a way to raise money from people who bought into Trump’s Big Lie.\nProsecutors’ interest in the payments comes after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the Jan. 6 committee that she was initially represented by a Trump-linked lawyer who would not tell her who was paying his fees and said she did not need a formal written retention agreement.", ">\n\nAre these real subpoenas that people have to respond to, or are they the other kind that one is apparently allowed to ignore?" ]

[ "The DOJ issued the four-page subpoena to multiple Trump campaign officials in early December, seeking more than “two dozen categories of information,” according to the report. One part of the subpoena asks Trump campaign officials if anyone paid for their legal representation and paperwork related to any such agreement.\nThe subpoena also seeks “all documents and communications” related to Trump’s fundraising activities for a litany of groups outside of his Save America PAC, which has already come under scrutiny. The new subpoenas seek documents related to the Make America Great Again PAC, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, including documents related to the “formation, funding and/or use of money” of the groups.\nThe subpoena also seeks documents related to the creation of an “Election Defense Fund,” which Trump officials ostensibly formed created to raise money from grassroots donors after Trump’s election loss. Officials later testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that the fund technically did not exist but was a way to raise money from people who bought into Trump’s Big Lie.\nProsecutors’ interest in the payments comes after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the Jan. 6 committee that she was initially represented by a Trump-linked lawyer who would not tell her who was paying his fees and said she did not need a formal written retention agreement.", ">\n\nAre these real subpoenas that people have to respond to, or are they the other kind that one is apparently allowed to ignore?", ">\n\nThese are DOJ subpoenas, not Congressional ones. Technically, neither can be ignored, but as we've seen, the Congressional ones don't seem to have much recourse when someone does ignore them." ]

[ "The DOJ issued the four-page subpoena to multiple Trump campaign officials in early December, seeking more than “two dozen categories of information,” according to the report. One part of the subpoena asks Trump campaign officials if anyone paid for their legal representation and paperwork related to any such agreement.\nThe subpoena also seeks “all documents and communications” related to Trump’s fundraising activities for a litany of groups outside of his Save America PAC, which has already come under scrutiny. The new subpoenas seek documents related to the Make America Great Again PAC, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, including documents related to the “formation, funding and/or use of money” of the groups.\nThe subpoena also seeks documents related to the creation of an “Election Defense Fund,” which Trump officials ostensibly formed created to raise money from grassroots donors after Trump’s election loss. Officials later testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that the fund technically did not exist but was a way to raise money from people who bought into Trump’s Big Lie.\nProsecutors’ interest in the payments comes after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the Jan. 6 committee that she was initially represented by a Trump-linked lawyer who would not tell her who was paying his fees and said she did not need a formal written retention agreement.", ">\n\nAre these real subpoenas that people have to respond to, or are they the other kind that one is apparently allowed to ignore?", ">\n\nThese are DOJ subpoenas, not Congressional ones. Technically, neither can be ignored, but as we've seen, the Congressional ones don't seem to have much recourse when someone does ignore them.", ">\n\nWell let's hope these have legs, because this whole \"ignoring subpoenas if your rich\" bullshit has been pretty deflating lately." ]

[ "The DOJ issued the four-page subpoena to multiple Trump campaign officials in early December, seeking more than “two dozen categories of information,” according to the report. One part of the subpoena asks Trump campaign officials if anyone paid for their legal representation and paperwork related to any such agreement.\nThe subpoena also seeks “all documents and communications” related to Trump’s fundraising activities for a litany of groups outside of his Save America PAC, which has already come under scrutiny. The new subpoenas seek documents related to the Make America Great Again PAC, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, including documents related to the “formation, funding and/or use of money” of the groups.\nThe subpoena also seeks documents related to the creation of an “Election Defense Fund,” which Trump officials ostensibly formed created to raise money from grassroots donors after Trump’s election loss. Officials later testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that the fund technically did not exist but was a way to raise money from people who bought into Trump’s Big Lie.\nProsecutors’ interest in the payments comes after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the Jan. 6 committee that she was initially represented by a Trump-linked lawyer who would not tell her who was paying his fees and said she did not need a formal written retention agreement.", ">\n\nAre these real subpoenas that people have to respond to, or are they the other kind that one is apparently allowed to ignore?", ">\n\nThese are DOJ subpoenas, not Congressional ones. Technically, neither can be ignored, but as we've seen, the Congressional ones don't seem to have much recourse when someone does ignore them.", ">\n\nWell let's hope these have legs, because this whole \"ignoring subpoenas if your rich\" bullshit has been pretty deflating lately.", ">\n\nThats only from the house, they have to ask the doj to enforce them of invoke enherent contempt; which hasn't been used in almost 100 years.\nIgnore a doj subpoena and the come and arrest you." ]

[ "The DOJ issued the four-page subpoena to multiple Trump campaign officials in early December, seeking more than “two dozen categories of information,” according to the report. One part of the subpoena asks Trump campaign officials if anyone paid for their legal representation and paperwork related to any such agreement.\nThe subpoena also seeks “all documents and communications” related to Trump’s fundraising activities for a litany of groups outside of his Save America PAC, which has already come under scrutiny. The new subpoenas seek documents related to the Make America Great Again PAC, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, including documents related to the “formation, funding and/or use of money” of the groups.\nThe subpoena also seeks documents related to the creation of an “Election Defense Fund,” which Trump officials ostensibly formed created to raise money from grassroots donors after Trump’s election loss. Officials later testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that the fund technically did not exist but was a way to raise money from people who bought into Trump’s Big Lie.\nProsecutors’ interest in the payments comes after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the Jan. 6 committee that she was initially represented by a Trump-linked lawyer who would not tell her who was paying his fees and said she did not need a formal written retention agreement.", ">\n\nAre these real subpoenas that people have to respond to, or are they the other kind that one is apparently allowed to ignore?", ">\n\nThese are DOJ subpoenas, not Congressional ones. Technically, neither can be ignored, but as we've seen, the Congressional ones don't seem to have much recourse when someone does ignore them.", ">\n\nWell let's hope these have legs, because this whole \"ignoring subpoenas if your rich\" bullshit has been pretty deflating lately.", ">\n\nThats only from the house, they have to ask the doj to enforce them of invoke enherent contempt; which hasn't been used in almost 100 years.\nIgnore a doj subpoena and the come and arrest you.", ">\n\nThey should have already arrested people on the fake elector scheme. You have their signatures right on the form they submitted. Damn. Trying to defraud the government." ]

[ "The DOJ issued the four-page subpoena to multiple Trump campaign officials in early December, seeking more than “two dozen categories of information,” according to the report. One part of the subpoena asks Trump campaign officials if anyone paid for their legal representation and paperwork related to any such agreement.\nThe subpoena also seeks “all documents and communications” related to Trump’s fundraising activities for a litany of groups outside of his Save America PAC, which has already come under scrutiny. The new subpoenas seek documents related to the Make America Great Again PAC, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, including documents related to the “formation, funding and/or use of money” of the groups.\nThe subpoena also seeks documents related to the creation of an “Election Defense Fund,” which Trump officials ostensibly formed created to raise money from grassroots donors after Trump’s election loss. Officials later testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that the fund technically did not exist but was a way to raise money from people who bought into Trump’s Big Lie.\nProsecutors’ interest in the payments comes after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the Jan. 6 committee that she was initially represented by a Trump-linked lawyer who would not tell her who was paying his fees and said she did not need a formal written retention agreement.", ">\n\nAre these real subpoenas that people have to respond to, or are they the other kind that one is apparently allowed to ignore?", ">\n\nThese are DOJ subpoenas, not Congressional ones. Technically, neither can be ignored, but as we've seen, the Congressional ones don't seem to have much recourse when someone does ignore them.", ">\n\nWell let's hope these have legs, because this whole \"ignoring subpoenas if your rich\" bullshit has been pretty deflating lately.", ">\n\nThats only from the house, they have to ask the doj to enforce them of invoke enherent contempt; which hasn't been used in almost 100 years.\nIgnore a doj subpoena and the come and arrest you.", ">\n\nThey should have already arrested people on the fake elector scheme. You have their signatures right on the form they submitted. Damn. Trying to defraud the government.", ">\n\nThere's a very large number of people whose arrests would give us signs that progress is being made. But it's not enough to charge lower-level people with specific crimes they personally committed. We need the higher-ups who ordered the crimes, which is hard to get without flipping many minions. \nTo complicate the juggling act, indicting a person starts the discovery process where prosecution must share evidence with the defense. We all know much of that information will be shared higher up the ladder. That's part of the reason DoJ subpoenas demand info on who's paying whose lawyers." ]