Samarium is not found free in nature, but, like other rare earth elements, is contained in many minerals, including monazite, bastnäsite, cerite, gadolinite and samarskite; monazite (in which samarium occurs at concentrations of up to 2.8%)[13] and bastnäsite are mostly used as commercial sources. World resources of samarium are estimated at two million tonnes; they are mostly located in China, US, Brazil, India, Sri Lanka and Australia, and the annual production is about 700 tonnes.
Oh noes, our mighty military is being brought to its knees by a shortage of a thing we have the second most of in the entire world, how dare China hoard it all to itself.
Yeah, my preference would be for all the generals to come to their senses and realize the continued production of the instruments of death will only lead to tragedy, but in the meantime the lamentation over outsourcing production of critical materials to someone they’ve decided is a mortal enemy is pretty funny.
Oh noes, our mighty military is being brought to its knees by a shortage of a thing we have the second most of in the entire world, how dare China hoard it all to itself.
The downside is that the US will absolutely eventually start digging for it domestically at great ecological cost.
Yeah, my preference would be for all the generals to come to their senses and realize the continued production of the instruments of death will only lead to tragedy, but in the meantime the lamentation over outsourcing production of critical materials to someone they’ve decided is a mortal enemy is pretty funny.
Yeah that’s my read as well, drop regulations and start strip mining like it’s Ghorman.
It’s not our fault that we couldn’t be bothered to invest in mines and refineries instead of de-localizing production to maximize our profits!
Samarium has no swagger. The chemist should have named it after himself. Boisbaudran is missing from the periodic table.