rare earth
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Critical List: A blueprint for a ‘bioeconomy’; urban chicken retirement
The Obama administration is going to release a blueprint for a “bioeconomy” — an idea that includes renewable energy and biological manufacturing. Here is what conservatives think about energy and the environment, for real. Apparently environmentalists want America to suffer, to follow not lead … TO FAIL. Watch this video to get angry. China’s reaching […]
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Critical List: It’s been really, really warm; polar bears have a weird disease
A look at the news of the day.
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Critical List: Fukushima will take decades to decommission; North Sea gas leak
Is Fukushima news ever positive? A new assessment of damage at the plant shows levels of radiation higher than expected, which means decommissioning the plant could take decades. Building cleantech requires certain resources — rare earth metals, water, biomass — that are getting scarce. Mohamed Nasheed, the deposed Maldives president, is doing a media tour […]
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Critical List: BP spill liability trial delayed; Meryl Streep’s eco-friendly Oscar dress
BP’s trial for Deepwater Horizon liability has been pushed back one week as the company considers a $14 billion settlement. Scientist Peter Gleick is taking a leave of absence from the Pacific Institute after the organization’s board of directors expressed concern about the methods he used to obtain internal documents from the Heartland Institute. Meryl […]
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Screw China: American scientists are finding replacements for rare earth
Priuses, wind turbines, and other clean technologies require rare earth materials, which generally go into ultra-strong magnets that help power clean technology. But rare earth elements have a couple of problems: China controls most of the supply, they require less-than-environmentally-friendly mining to get at, and, uh, they’re rare. So there's a race on to create a replacement magnet component that doesn't require rare earth.
CleanTechnica reports that a team at Boston's Northeastern University has taken one step in the right direction -- developing a material with similar magnetic properties to rare earth.