One of the best investments of our generation
What a remarkable documentary! Since 2024-03-15, ZDF and Arte have been showing how the most important metals of our time have formed since the Big Bang 4.5 billion years ago. The programme explains the current gold-rush fever around rare earths so well that we will be using it as training material from now on.
Elements formed by supernovae
In the first part, geologist Colin Devey invites us to look up at the night sky with him. There, we can still see the light of long-gone celestial bodies that exploded in gigantic supernovae and gave rise to heavy elements such as rare earths. Over billions of years, these scarce metals have accumulated in various places on Earth through rising magma masses and tectonic plate movements. However, they occur far less concentrated than copper or nickel, which means extracting them from the Earth’s crust requires significantly more effort. Nevertheless, mining them is a multi-billion-dollar business.
Gold-rush fever in the West
The global gold rush is most noticeable at the Mountain Pass mine in California, USA. It is the most promising rare earth mining project outside China to date. Since 2023, these critical commodities have not only been mined there, but also processed. This is special in that the West is competing with China. The Middle Kingdom is currently the world leader in the processing of rare earths with 36%, followed by Russia with 16%. Own projects therefore mean more independence for Western countries, but also come at a price. This is because mining is very costly and can entail environmental risks.
Prices will have to rise sooner or later
Jordan’s sandstone also contains numerous rare earths. Whether it is worth mining them is still uncertain. One reason for this is certainly the low prices. These in no way reflect the sacrifices that mining these commodities can entail. But this will certainly change soon. An investment can therefore be worthwhile in any case.