Reading more from book.
The rare metal mines in China are often illegal, with payoff to local police, dispensing sulfuric acid and other pollutants into the water.
One town the author visited has very high cancer rates and mutagenic problems.
The government did make a generous offer to move the town but the people didn’t want to move because the soil around the new town was barren, not suitable for farming.
The mining giant Baogang is responsible for 75% of global production.
“The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust” https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth
This BBC article seems hyped. But it’s worrying that the processing plant they were shown was completely inactive – not the true plant.
It seems to me that the illegal mines protected by bribery are the real problem, rather than the government policy or the mining giant. Perhaps.
Rare earths are present in trace amounts in ores that contain largely iron and nickel.
Baogang Group, founded in 1954, is a major steel producer in China and the largest rare earth industrial base in the world. It has two listed companies, Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Union Co., Ltd and Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech Co., Ltd, with total assets of more than 150 billion yuan ($24.17 billion) in 2014.
From wikipedia “As rare earth prices went up because of the restriction of export in 2002, many illegal mines were developed by organized criminals to benefit from the trade. The smuggling by organized criminal groups is harmful to China’s rare earth industry … It is estimated a third of exports or 20 000 tonnes in 2008 were illegally exported from China.”
This is interesting, from 2014, https://www.mining.com/chinese-rare-earth-giant-born-62354/
In order to crack down on illegal mining, pollution and modernize the country’s mostly low-tech industry Beijing is consolidating the industry under six large organizations including Baotou, China Minmetals Corporation, Aluminum Corporation of China (Chinalco), Guangdong Rare Earth Group, Xiamen Tungsten and Ganzhou Rare Earth Group with each group assimilating dozens of small miners, recyclers and processors.
Baotou will merge with five smaller rare earth firms to establish the China North Rare Earth Group Co. Baotou will acquire shareholdings in Baotou Feida Rare Earth Co., Baotou Jinmeng Rare Earth Co., Baotou Hongtianyu Rare Earth Magnets Co., Wuyuan Runze Rare Earth Co., and Xinyuan Rare Earth Hi-Tech & New Material Co. The five rare earth separation and refining businesses have a combined rare earth processing capacity of 73,500 tonnes per year.
The book I’m reading was written in 2020, so illegal mining was still flourishing despite the supposed elimination circa 2014.
