| ▲ | Animats 4 hours ago | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nice. Here's MP Minerals' plant for doing that, in Alliance, TX.[1] It's a modest sized plant in an industrial park. It's fed by a huge mine in California, which has an onsite beneficiation plant. Beneficiation is the first step of separation - sorting the good stuff out from the unwanted dirt, with rock crushers, screens, and flotation. This being "rare" earth mining, the amount of good stuff is tiny relative to the unwanted dirt. This new technology works on the separated good stuff. Although these separation plants aren't big compared to mines, US mines had been sending rare earth ores to China for processing. That's gradually moving back to the US as more separating plants are built. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | pfdietz an hour ago | parent | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Is that mine in California the one powered by burning sulfur? If I recall correctly, they need sulfuric acid to extract the minerals, and they need power, and burning sulfur to make sulfuric acid produces steam, and sulfur is easier to ship than the acid, so... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | dylan604 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
That's one of those corporate videos that's totally useless. Lot's of "pretty" pictures with drone footage, but there's no there there. Who do videos like this work on? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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