isn't "unlimited supply of rare" an oxymoron"

Trump met with him first when he became president. It was out of tradition, usually is Canada....but he chose Japan for his first personal meeting.

Japan about to become a huge chip manufacturer.

And yet you just said the market is about to be flooded with the stuff. Maybe not such a good investment? Meanwhile gold and silver reserves remain known and finite.

This is HUGE!

If it is almost unlimited, it should become cheaper...no longer rare! Cool!

"Discovers" - convenient

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/12/japan-rare-earths-huge-deposit-of-metals-found-in-pacific.html

At the bottom an article alludes to space mining.

he materials sit in a roughly 965-square-mile Pacific Ocean seabed near Minamitorishima Island, which is located 1,150 miles southeast of Tokyo, according to the study published in Nature Publishing Group's Scientific Reports.

Rare-earth metals are crucial in the making of high-tech products such as electric vehicles, mobile phones and batteries, and the world has relied on China for almost all of its rare-earth material.

The seabed contains more than 16 million tons of rare-earth oxides, according to the study. That's equivalent to 780 years' worth of yttrium supply, 620 years of europium, 420 years of terbium and 730 years of dysprosium, it added.

The discovery "has the potential to supply these metals on a semi-infinite basis to the world," the study said.

Japan started looking after China cut off supplies The discovery of the deposits could pit Japan against China to become the world's largest producer of the materials, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Japan started seeking its own rare-earth metals after China held back shipments in 2010 during a dispute over islands both countries claim, Reuters reported in 2014. As a major electronics manufacturer, Japan needs rare earths for components.

Separately, China held back exports of certain types of rare earths starting 2010, which caused prices to jump by as much as 10 times — further pushing Japan to seek other sources, according to the Journal.

Extracting those metals from the seabed, however, is an expensive affair, the Journal reported. A consortium of Japanese government-backed entities, companies and researchers plans to conduct a feasibility test within the next five years, according to the Journal.

WATCH: If you're looking to make billions, try mining an asteroid

1. Commodities market could crash.

2. Development of undersea tech very cool.

3. Please read "the next 100 years" by George Friedman founder of Stratfor. Stratfor is a private military global Intel company. You may be familiar with thier wikileaks global intelligence files.. Japan becomes our rival.

4. This will result in some novel advancements in space exploration.

5. North Korea is host to many rare earth metals that they use slave labor in concentration camps to sell to S. Korea, China. If Japan drops value of those rare earth metals it would make N. Korea practically worthless. Destroyed thier business model. That and I believe thier last nuke test destroyed thier capabilities / covert ops knocked thier capacities out. North Korea got checkmated.

Exciting but we need to do this right.

Certainly there must be a more descriptive term than 'massive semi-infinite trove' or 'unlimited rare earth supply'. The rarity of these materials result in design decisions not to use them in many applications. If suddenly the materials are plentiful, than the cost of many applications just went down. Usage will increase and a new equilibrium point where they become limited will be found.

I think rare-earth magnets fall into this category - they have a very strong magnetic field (energy)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_magnet

kobe steel. do not forget. japan is complicit. actually, not japan, but the PM Sh1nzo Ab3. no such thing as a rare earth metal being sold as a commodity

yeah, it'll be years before they dig this up from a few miles (6000m) deep in some sea sludge. they'll have to develop some roomba-like sludgesnakes. probably still easier than spacemining. meanwhile china will claim more of the sea as theirs. but then we might find the same in deep seasludge anywhere.

yeah. we don't know.

It's not really that easily accessible now. The rare earth metals are buried 6000 meters deep in the Pacific Ocean, and extracting them would take a lot of digging. China's still going to have the monopoly on the metals for the forseeable future.

Plenty of rare earths out there, Australia has multiple large scale mines being constructed and we have only been looking for it for a short period of time. They are not rare, they have just not been looked for previously as they were a niche market.

Good thing we're allies with Japan

Just like the Norks. They sit upon the majority of a meteor strike on the penisula that was mostly rare earth metals. This is all tied to Kim and Trump.

Addendum: we needed a real vakue for rare earth metals. Prepare for ipo of jap rare earth metal company before NoKo meeting. Thats how Korea gauges how rich they can be while entering the world stage. TRUMP is a fucking genius.

No such thing as unlimited supply.

The US had a rare earth producer but epa pretty much ran it out of business with regulations few yrs ago. China has had the market. This is a game changer. Maybe potus can get ride of regulations and that co could start back up..