The Biden Administration’s signature climate legislation is unleashing a wave of clean energy investment, along with some opportunities and risks for countries like Australia.
A new geochemical discovery could lead to a cleaner way to extract the rare earth elements needed for the transition to renewable energy.
While people may be familiar with precious metals, which are often at the heart of conflicts, there are also metals that are essential to good health.
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Iron fights anemia. Bismuth relieves gastric problems. Lithium acts against depression and gold can treat rheumatoid arthritis. Metals are precious tools for good health.
The Bingham Canyon open-pit copper mine in Utah has operated since 1903.
David Guthrie/Flickr
More electric vehicles and renewable energy means more mining for resources. Unless industry adopts cleaner habits urgently, the environment faces more damage.
Is more than waste stored in this pile of coal ash?
AP Photo/Steve Helber
Questions about supplies of rare-earth elements, crucial in high-tech devices, pushed researchers to look to industrial waste for new sources of the key materials.
The fossil fuel era won’t last forever. And a new set of countries will find their reserves of lithium, copper and rare earth metals are in high demand.
This week a dozen protesters travelled from Malaysia to Australia to protest outside the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Lynas Corporation, an Australian rare earth mining company, for the third year running…
Not just a pretty planet – Jupiter may provide clues for detecting Earth-like planets.
NASA
Thanks to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, we’ve recently heard a great deal about how the Earth’s climate is changing. The IPCC’s cautious assessment of the…
Mining for rare earth elements is taking China down the track to environmental degradation.
Göran Höglund (Kartläsarn)/Flickr
Environmental pollution is currently a white-hot topic in China, but what if western consumers are driving the issue? A storm of activity recently occurred on Sina Weibo, triggered by reports that industries…
Malaysians are unconvinced Lynas’ rare earth factory will deal properly with radioactive waste.
EPA/Ahmad Yusni
The radioactive waste generated by an Australian-owned rare earth extraction factory in Malaysia has generated a firestorm of controversy. The factory - the world’s largest - is owned by Lynas Corporation…