may completely change the economy of their country, as more than 230 million tons of rare materials were found and this could bring the same an additional 24.8 billion euros.
Currently, about 95% of the world’s rare earths come from China, so the discovery of such important sources outside the region is a significant boost to both the economy and production of the host countries.
The reason these materials are so valuable is their use in the production of lithium-ion batteries – specifically in technologies such as smartphones, hybrid cars and aircraft.
This is why the discovery of rare minerals around the ports of the Minami-Tori-shima islands by Japanese researchers is so important, as it not only gives the country a huge economic boost, but it also strengthens its technical production.
The investigations
The researchers “searched” over 100 areas of the seabedat a depth of up to 5,200 meters, and they found a real treasure.
According to the Nippon Foundation, the area surveyed is estimated to hold a dense field of 230 million tons of “easily minable manganese deposits,” spread over an area of about 10,000 square kilometers.
This includes 610,000 tonnes of cobalt and 740,000 tonnes of nickel – enough to meet Japan’s needs for 75 and 11 years respectively.
A metric ton of cobalt is currently selling for $24,080, while the same amount of nickel costs $15,288.
Therefore, if Japan were to sell the entire estimated find it would collect just over 24.8 billion euroswhich would give a big boost to the economy. However, as Japan imports almost all of its rare earth materials today, it is understandable that it would want to keep most of this find for itself.
It is estimated that the requirements for materials such as these will increase by 400 to 600%, as battery operated technology will become the main demand, replacing industries that used to run on natural gas and oil.
Companies like Tesla have already seen a big boom in the US with the production of electric cars, but this could prove to be a major boost for the Japan-based companies.
According to Yasuhiro Kato, a professor specializing in resource geology at the University of Tokyo, Japan plans to lift about three million tons of the extracted materials annually, and the University itself will provide a detailed analysis of the mined resources.
This limited annual mining is also significant, as it minimizes the impact on the marine environmentas “hunting” for carbon in other ocean regions has proven to be a catastrophic risk.
With information from uniladtech
