stackyFACTSThe name 'rare earth' is the greatest geological marketing scam in history. These elements are found almost everywhere; they are just obnoxiously difficult and toxic to separate from other minerals, requiring massive chemical processing facilities.
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Next time you admire your smartphone's sleek screen, thank a giant toxic pit in Inner Mongolia. Bayan Obo alone accounts for nearly half of the world's rare…
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Unlike other resources, you cannot synthesize phosphorus in a lab. We are steadily strip-mining the last remaining rock phosphate reserves, setting a ticking…
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Your sleek electric vehicle battery likely shares a dark history with a muddy pit. A staggering percentage of the world's cobalt is extracted by impoverished…
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Thankfully, my lungs aren't aggressively stealing from your lungs. Purely non-rivalrous goods are those that can be consumed infinitely without ever…
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Turning raw radioactive dirt into an energy utopia requires grinding it into a fun-sounding powder called yellowcake. Despite its delightful name, this milled…
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The elements crucial for modern hardware are incredibly abundant in the earth's crust. They are only called 'rare' because extracting them requires boiling…
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