A new rare earth mineral deposit has been discovered in Wyoming, possibly making the U.S. the new world leader in the production of technology. With the deposit weighing 2.3 billion pounds – making the U.S. the owner of the largest mineral deposit in the world – it opens new possibilities for the country to advance its economy. The exact contents of the minerals are, according to Innovation, “Neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium… Sitting in the middle of the periodic table, these metals possess properties like fluorescence, magnetism, and conductivity.” These properties are sought after because they can be applied to many different pieces of technology.

The rare minerals in the deposit, used for technology, according to Geoengineer, “can be used for the creation of wind turbines, electrical vehicles, and other technological applications.” These applications are extremely valuable within our current society. With such a wide variety of uses in technology that have been increasingly implemented within our society, such a high demand for the metals is justified. This combined with the other opportunities that such a large deposit that must be mined provides new opportunities for the U.S. to expand its green technology. Originally, the U.S. had to import the metals from China which had the largest deposit in the world, but with the U.S. having such a large deposit there is will no longer a need to import it. According to Sophomore Emily Phan, “The U.S. is going to gain more power in the global economy, and I think China is going to lose its influence too.” This prediction seems to be accurate. Oilprice states, “The United States currently imports a large portion of rare earth magnets and minerals from China. If this recent find proves as bountiful as estimates predict, the U.S. may be able to lessen its reliance on foreign suppliers—especially China while diversifying its rare earth supply chain. In fact, the new deposit could support the country’s energy transition and affect U.S. national security by supporting the domestic manufacturing of technologies that rely on rare earth elements.” With the need for China’s minerals diminishing so could their influence on the U.S. allowing the U.S.’ technological advancements to grow. These technologies could very well be one of the most important thing for the U.S. With new green technology, the carbon emissions of the United States could drop significantly. This would secure the safety of our future at the risk of harming it from all the carbon emissions coming from mining the minerals.

With such a large deposit of minerals, there are also jobs that come with it, as there need to be people mining, surveying the land, working the machines, and so on, helping the economy. Although all these effects are positive, the mine itself could be devastating for the environment. Mining is becoming increasingly bad for the environment, and it creates a lot of carbon emissions. Senior Al Haw Mohammad agrees, stating, “It is going to cause a lot of pollution because the actual extraction is very bad for the climate.” The risk of having such a large effect on our climate by extracting so many metals is not something to be ignored. Instead, it raises the argument on whether the technological advancements and sopping the export of the Chinese minerals outweigh the negative effects that are caused by the mining itself. This could only be determined with time though, as the new technology that could come from the use of all the minerals that are extracted might itself help the climate as they can be used for renewable energy. Especially, as according to American Rare Earths, the company that found the deposit, “The rare earth minerals bonanza is the result of consumers starved for magnet metals integral to the green transition.” So, this raises the question on the actual uses of the metals and how to determine what should be sold and kept in the U.S.

The answer to such a simple question is complicated as there are many factors that must be considered before making such important decisions. According to freshman Timote Romeyer, one of these factors is “making sure to mine them efficiently.” This efficiency could very well determine the price of the minerals themselves as they could be hard to extract from the earth. Other factors may include the U.S.’ intervention in the mining itself as such a large deposit is bound to gain the governments attention. With all these important pros and cons of such an influential group of minerals, it is too soon to determine whether there will truly be large consequences to the extraction. This could affect the price of the actual technological development, and according to junior Fareen Alam, “The [minerals] could make tech cheaper.” However, this is all dependent on the actual process of the extraction.

Considering all these possible outcomes of this mine, it must not be ignored and instead monitored to see how it may be used positively or negatively. This would help all the U.S. to follow how their future would be affected while also keeping the government and companies accountable for how they manage such a valuable and influential group of minerals.