>>90797
Because there is and will always be a good supply of Rare Earths given that, as a whole, they're common in the planets crust. The pain in the arse part is a suppliers problem where concentrated deposits are rarer but then mine viability rises with price and efficiency like any method resource extraction.

Ramp up demand and you will magically have supply - especially as significant Rare Earths deposits remain untapped. If this wasn't the case then humanity would be in serious trouble given how important Rare Earths are for the modern economy.

>>90797
He's an agent of BIG GOVERNMENT.

>>90798
Your graph / point is excellent - and correct - rare earths aren't "rare" at all, it's just that to date China has most of the processing plants, which is why it leads the way in battery and solar panel production. The underlying minerals are found in many other kinds of mine, it's just that Western miners couldn't be bothered to build the processing plants required to extract them, whilst China did.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/17/17246444/rare-earth-metals-discovery-japan-china-monopoly
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/22/big-surprise-rare-earths-arent-rare/#51e2923775bd

>>90798
If there is a shortage of supply from the suppliers then there is not a good supply of the supplies.

This is all somewhat unrelated to the fact that rare earth metals aren't used in solar panels, which is what I was originally questioning.
Yes, they're used in (magnets for) motors, and in homeopathic quantities in other things. No, they're not particularly rare, they were named so before lots of reserves were found. Mining them is a messy and unpleasant business, same as much mining.
So, Oish-P, please back up your assertion that solar panels need trick minerals.

>>90802
On a tangentially-related note, most phone screens are made of indium tin oxide - conductive and transparent. We're going to run out of indium and tin pretty soon.

>>90802

https://e360.yale.edu/features/a_scarcity_of_rare_metals_is_hindering_green_technologies
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364032118303861

>>90803 tin is used in far, far larger quantities in solder, and nobody's worrying about that.
Indium's a bit more constrained, but anyone banging on about an indium shortage is probably trying to sell you something. If it really gets constrained then good old capitalism will deliver more of it, with an annoying lag and price increase.

>>90804 Meh, CdTe is a bit better than Silicon. It's also a pain in the arse. If we can't make CdTe, we just make a bit more silicon panels. Seriously no biggie. There are endless such tradeoffs, on availability, price, politics. It's just engineering.

>>90806
Alright. It's just what I'd read is all.

>>90786

Rare-earth minerals are totally optional in solar cells. Most solar cells are made of nothing more than sand, copper and aluminium. Some thin-film technologies do use rare earths, but those cells are actually cheaper than silicon cells because a) rare earths actually aren't all that rare and b) thin-film panels don't use much material, as the name suggests. Thin-film cells represent less than 8% of the total market, mainly because of the plunging cost and immense output of the well-proven poly-Si technology.

>>90784

>Prostitution would be fully legalised, regulated and taxed.

Prostitution is already fully legalised. Brothel-keeping, pimping and solicitation are illegal, but it's perfectly legal to advertise sexual services and have sex with people for money. I have no idea what you mean by "regulated", but I don't like the sound of it one bit.

>>90804

The paper you posted (full-text link below) is actually really good news for the renewables sector - the authors conclude that we can keep producing everything at sustainable levels beyond 2050 just by marginally increasing the recycling rates.

https://sci-hub.ee/10.1016/j.rser.2018.05.041

>>90808

Good. Though last I heard we were running out of sand too so I'm not sure how that's going to go. I realise that sounds mental but it's apparently a thing.

>>90809
Don't be silly. The UK might not have much sand left, but there is plenty still out there, both on land and at sea.

>>90809

It's building sand they're running out of due to the preferred properties of it (has to be water-eroded rather than wind eroded or something), but I assume any old silicate would work for solar panels. Which is fairly abundant in the form of rocks.

>>90805
It seems there was a big panic about it in 2010 or so, and that sort of makes sense since I was taught it in a uni module about optical displays and devices in 2015, using notes that were probably a few years old.

>We'd plant shitloads more trees
Good intentions assured, this isn't how you create healthy ecosystems. When trees are planted on blanket bog and lowland heath etc, this destroys those places as natural habitats.
>>90798
From what I understand China has a pretty tight grip on Australian and Myanmar anyway?

>>90808
>Prostitution is already fully legalised. Brothel-keeping, pimping and solicitation are illegal, but it's perfectly legal to advertise sexual services and have sex with people for money. I have no idea what you mean by "regulated", but I don't like the sound of it one bit.

Not him but I can see an option for well regulated brothels to address slavery and controlling STIs (by mandating regular screening). They already exist in a roundabout way so it would be a case of recognising that and ensuring that Britain has good brothels. The best.

The German's seem to manage it.

>>90813
The Australian relationship has been torpedoed and as it happens trading dependence that goes both ways. Similar situation across the world where China has managed to ruin its own foreign policy and even where it has strengthened links its been a case of breeding resentment in the population by working with corrupt officials or not delivering.

Its Saturday so I'll just post a youtube on China's failure in Central and Eastern Europe:

>>90808
>Prostitution is already fully legalised. Brothel-keeping, pimping and solicitation are illegal, but it's perfectly legal to advertise sexual services and have sex with people for money.
Yes and no. If you've reached a point where you have accepted payment for sex, an offence has been committed somewhere along the line.

I'd vote for you, OP. What's the catch?

Also if I was you I'd stop fucking about and just build a load of nuclear power stations. We can put them in Scotland where nobody lives and just pipe the leccy down here, right?

Imagine the Scottish STALKER after one of them melts down, with bucky instead of vodka.

>>90813
The place we need to plant all the trees is Scottish moorland mostly - all the trees were removed to benefit grouse shooting. Much of the highlands is completely un-natural as a result.

We need to rewild.

>>90817
Much of the parts of the UK which we think of as being national parks or the countryside could do with rewilding. We hardly realise what the place looked like "wild". We'll look at something like this and assume that's its natural state.

>>90815

>Yes and no. If you've reached a point where you have accepted payment for sex, an offence has been committed somewhere along the line.

Not in England and Wales. Street walking and kerb crawling are illegal, massage parlours are a widely-tolerated grey area, but escorting is 100% legal. If you message a girl on Adultwork and book an outcall to a hotel room or an incall to her flat, no offence has been committed by anyone.

Sex workers have mixed opinions on the legalisation of brothel-keeping. Most are in favour of relaxing the law to allow two or three girls to work out of the same flat, but there's a general opposition to German-style mega-brothels.

>>90819

>Sex workers have mixed opinions on the legalisation of brothel-keeping.

I'm not surprised, If I'm letting someone spunk in my hole I'm definitely keeping 100% of my fee for it.

It's one thing to sell your labour to Tesco and complain about the injustice of the boss making more than you to sit on his arse in the office all day; it's quite a-fucking-nother to have some parasite putting their feet up while skimming off the fat from all the dicks you've had to suck.

>>90818
No thanks. I don't want bears and wolves on these isles.

>>90821
Bears bad idea obviously - but wolves are actually very close to happening.

In Scotland, one of the reasons they struggle to plant trees is all the deer (over-bred to support shooting) eat the young saplings, so having some wolves around would keep them in check. Some of the wildlife trusts are very close to actually doing this.

We already have numerous big cats all over the country, the wolves would also keep them in check.

>>90818
I remember when Lancashire suffered some bad flooding a few years back, almost entirely because moorland along drainage basins is almost exclusively owned and managed by Hoorah Henries who want to encourage a few game birds they can shoot once a yah. Any tree that could help retain water and land from erosion that pops up is felled at its sapling stage.

>>90820

A pimp isn't just an internet persona, lad.

>>90824

Your mum's an internet persona. On adultwork.

>>90817
I might be wrong but I think it's mostly been deforested since the bronze age, however sheep grazing and then shooting have made it a relative wasteland. The shooting lobby is absolutely implacable, unwilling to concede to anything, no exaggeration, it would be a big battle for sure.

>>90822
The documentary I watched about the Yellowstone trophic cascade was amazing honestly, I wouldn't mind at all of they reintroduced Wolves. They'd cull fox populations naturally too, removing another "need" for hunts.

>>90825

And I'm your Dad's Pimp.

>>90820
I'm remembering this from Freakonomics but brothels and pimps can provide beneficial services. For example 18th century brothels managed to create a taboo around blowjobs (as its less arduous work than anal) and there's data that if a prostitute has a pimp she can make more money safely even with someone taking a fee. Although for the latter it obviously depends on how much control the pimp is exercising.

Maybe the comparison would be in how OnlyFans is popular simply because it handles all the internet pimping which, as we all know, ain't easy.

>>90829

It's more or less equivalent to something like Uber. Your view on whether or not this is exploitation of the workers or beneficial to them obviously depends, but is hard to deny there's something more viscerally obvious about the economic mechanics of what's going on, if you are profiting from the use of other people's holes.

If you had brothels owned by a co-operative of the hookers who work there, and the fee is used in a non-profit way to provide security and cleaning etc and any left-over equally shared back around the staff, then everyone's happy I suppose.

In practice, though, the German brothels are most often the former, and that's why they are controversial. There's a decent documentary on Netflix about how they work. Without any legal restriction, it's not hard to imagine the Jeff Benzos of brothels buying out a hotel chain like Travelodge and filling them all with "self employed" minimum wage prozzies.

>>90826
>shooting lobby is absolutely implacable, unwilling to concede to anything, no exaggeration

It's because the shooting estates cover so much land in Scotland - the statistics are quite staggering. There is misuse of the land due to the plants they grow, to benefit the grouse, and then the killing of other animals (hares, foxes, others), that they believe get in the way of grouse breeding. It's very difficult to make inroads into the problem when almost half of Scotland is given over to grouse moor.

>>90830
>Without any legal restriction, it's not hard to imagine the Jeff Benzos of brothels buying out a hotel chain like Travelodge and filling them all with "self employed" minimum wage prozzies.

That is exactly what would happen - as you say, it would just become another gig-economy job mostly in the hands of one or two very large companies, rather than the cute idea of workers co-operatives that we see in Holland or Germany. I think the same would happen if we legalised drugs, or Dutch-style coffee shops.

Sex workers don't want sex work to be "legalised". They want it to be decriminalised. There is a difference.

>>90831
I'm not defending the land management in Scotland but those figures are a little misleading when not taken in the context of how desolate the Highlands are. It's mostly poor quality land used for grazing hardy cattle and sheep so I don't see much of an alternative.

Grouse hunting seems to be the usual drum to beat on this which makes me cynical that it might just be smoke and mirrors. Grouse can fuck off but fluffy cows is another matter entirely.

The 'Islands' part always feels a bit weird for me, Orkney and Shetland are their own thing and that's the hill I'll die on.

>>90834
> in the context of how desolate the Highlands ar

Oh I totally agree with that point - one can easily argue that grouse/deer shooting is a pretty good way of exploiting that land, given the money it will bring in, compared to other kinds of farming. The weather is terrible in the Highlands, the land is extremely rugged and difficult to access etc. On the face of it, the alternatives aren't that great, right now.

But the landscape isn't "natural", that's the point, and shooting estates intentionally keep them that way, ruining the biodiversity. Climate change, rewilding, there are other conversations to be had about what could/should happen with that land in the future.

>>90827
What was the documentary? Been looking for some good ones to watch.

>>90835
>one can easily argue that grouse/deer shooting is a pretty good way of exploiting that land, given the money it will bring in, compared to other kinds of farming

That's the tail wagging the dog. Shooting and hunting is a consequence of the land being adapted to the needs of the wool and beef industries not the other way and not something that requires the enormous footprint of human activity.

Best of luck having your rewilding conversations with wool farmers at the minute.

>>90836
Not him so I might not be right, but I saw this on BBC4 the other day and it was simply excellent (and featured wolves).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b00jcdml/yellowstone

- Put the AOC back down to 12.

(A good day to you Sir!)

We don't need nuclear, we just need to flood a small part of Scotland - https://scottishscientist.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/worlds-biggest-ever-pumped-storage-hydro-scheme-for-scotland/

>>90827

As if fox hunting was ever about keeping fox populations down.

Why does everyone hate foxes? It's not as if they're endemic like non-native hares or whatever it is in Australia.

>>90841
>Why does everyone hate foxes? It's not as if they're endemic like non-native hares or whatever it is in Australia.

I think its people who keep other livestock, like chickens, who actually hate them.

>>90841
I don't hate them, but their numbers adversely affect small animal populations when their numbers aren't controlled by a large, dominant natural predator. The same thing happened with coyotes in Yellowstone. Their numbers went down massively, and as a result smaller mammals flourished.

>>90841
They keep shitting in my garden.

>>90843

So wolves actually eat foxes, or just compete for food etc? I wouldn't have thought they're very tasty.

I can see us just having a lot more urban foxes if they had more competition in the countryside. The thing they share with other animals considered vermin is that they're just as happy to adapt and live by scrounging out of our bins as they are hunting in the wild.

The last thing we want is them teaming up with rats and pigeons to plot our downfall. Crafty bastards, so I've heard.

>>90841

>Why does everyone hate foxes? It's not as if they're endemic like non-native hares or whatever it is in Australia.

If they get into a chicken shed, they tend to go into a frenzy and keep killing birds until they're exhausted or there's nothing left to kill. It would be one thing if they nicked the odd bird, but the sight of dozens of decapitated chickens is utterly enraging.

I don't understand why someone would dress up like a twat and chase after a fox with a pack of dogs, but I do understand why a farmer would go out lamping or support his local hunt.

>>90846

Weasels do the same thing, and they're only the size of a squirrel. If you want to imagine terror, imagine a weasel upscaled to the size of a dog.