We love our phones and other high-tech gadgets, don’t we? (In some cases, maybe more than other people, but that’s another issue…)
In order to keep the high tech goodies online and operating we need rare earth elements, and Nebraska (potentially) has LOTS of ‘em.
Here are Five Fast Facts about the rare earth potential in Nebraska:
- ⛏️Here’s What’s Up - An analysis of southeastern Nebraska (near Elk Creek) shows a whole lot of rare earth elements buried in the ground. A mining company is studying the affordability of getting to it, but it will cost almost half a billion dollars to do it. Got any pocket change you can loan them?
- 🥈How Does It Compare? - If the deposit turns out to be viable, it would be the second largest in the United States. In this case, there could be a LOT of points for getting second place!
- ✈️📡Who Cares? The Big Things - Rare earth elements are essential components for high tech life and modern society. They are used for big time products like defense and military purposes, air and space technology, health care, communications, and even clean energy. We like all of those things!
- 📱🖥️Who Cares? The Little Things - Rare earth elements are also used in many smaller every-day things. We’re talking about things like cell phones, hard drives, movie theaters, cameras, cars, and TVs. We like all of those things even more!
- 🌎What’s At Stake? - Over ⅓ of all rare earth mining and refining happens in China. In fact, they have such a corner on the market that when they cut exports global prices spike. So, the news of a potential mine right here at home is great for literally the whole world (except maybe China). We all know that monopolies are terrible…unless you’re the one holding the monopoly!
🔥Bottom line: This is good on many levels. Not only would this mine becoming operational provide high paying jobs for Nebraska (Paychecks rejoice!), it would also benefit the country at large. And, it would help keep costs lower in the long term for all our favorite tech. Can’t get much more win-win than that!
What do you think about this situation?
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