Rare Earth - Learn These Elements

Every day is a school day and this morning I’ve buried myself in the equivalent of Double Science – not a favourite subject unless we’re doing biology and anatomy - with a teacher going too fast for me to keep up with. I’m still digging my way out of a pile of seventeen elements I hadn’t heard of before and probably won’t remember. There are some unpronounceable names and I wonder who dreams them up. I won’t list them, they are easy enough to look up. There’s no need to test me, by the way, the knowledge, or some of it, is retained.

Rare Earth Elements, known as REE or Rare Earth Metals,  “are a group of elements widely used in high-tech goods and low carbon technologies. China produces 95-97% of the world supply, but is reducing exports and increasing prices to foreign customers. The direct impact of these restrictions to the UK economy is currently limited as it only has a small rare earth processing industry. However, a consistent supply is of future strategic as well as economic importance to the UK. Alternative sources are expected to become available from USA and Australia by 2014, predicted to meet the anticipated global non-Chinese demand.” Quoted from Parliament information, dated 2014.

In 2020, a site in Hull was chosen as the proposed location for the UK’s first plant to process rare earth materials. Saltend Chemicals Park was given the go-ahead earlier this year and would create 100+ jobs. This is expected to be safe and not have a negative impact on the environment.

Recent research in the US has found that REEs are finding their way into Colorado water supplies which is considered dangerous, even at low levels. From what I read, it is down to global warming and this is due to mining, not processing.

Quoted from USA account of the situation earlier this year, “In the mountainous regions of the western US, historic mining has led to acid mine drainage, i.e. the run-off produced when water comes in contact with exposed rocks containing sulphur-bearing minerals that react with water and air to form sulphuric acid and dissolved iron. This acidic run-off dissolves heavy metals including copper, lead and mercury which in turn pollute ground and surface water. Acid mine drainage is the main cause of polluted water in the US with devastating effects on biological activity in many streams. In this new study, researchers have shown that the same processes mean more heavy metals are finding their way into streams and are also acting on rare earth elements. By making measurements in Snake River in Summit County Colorado, the researchers found concentrations of REE that were several orders of magnitude higher than is typical for surface waters in this region. They also found that increases in REE in the Snake River corresponded to warming summer air temperatures, demonstrating that climate change will likely continue to exacerbate this effect in the years to come.”

Phew! That was a hard lesson and I’m more than happy to be back with daytime tv. I’d better learn these REE names, just in case I’m on Pointless, or playing along at home. To make it easier, they all end in ‘ium’.

This poem by Sam Illingworth, was inspired by the described research.

Rare Earth Water

Cascading carelessly
Past weathered ore
You slither into view
Against the levee’s edge.
Sparkling waters that
Blister in the warming sun,
Their see-through hues
A deceitful abstraction
For what lies beneath,
Refracted in the scattered light
Your provenance unwinds,
As the filthy discharge
Of a thousand
Discarded cell phones
Drifts downstream.
The rarity of extraction
Tempered by the
Ubiquity of release.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

(Photo is Saltend Chemicals Park, Hull)