The Scramble for Rare Earths - 1. The Magnificent 17
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 30 September 2022
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Misha Glenny explores the world of rare earth metals and other critical raw materials. They are vital for the future of technology and the green transition. But some see China's monopoly on production as a major global threat.
In the first of five episodes, Misha finds out what the 17 rare earth metals are and hears about their weird and wonderful applications. He also discovers how China has managed to dominate the mining and refining of them.
Guests: Dr Julie Klinger, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences at the University of Delaware and author of Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes Sophia Kalantzakos, Global Distinguished Professor in Environmental Studies and Public Policy at New York University and the author of China and the Geopolitics of Rare Earths
Producer: Ben Carter Editor: Hugh Levinson Sound engineer: James Beard Production coordinator: Janet Staples
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.0 | BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:39.0 | Hello, I'm Ben Carter and welcome to Seriously from BBC Radio 4. I'm the producer of The Scramble for Rare Earths. |
| 0:48.0 | In this five-part series, Meisha Glenny finds out why the battle for a small group of metals and critical raw materials |
| 0:55.2 | is central to rising geopolitical tensions around the world. |
| 0:59.6 | In this first episode we hear why rare earths are vital for the future of technology and the green transition |
| 1:05.4 | and how China built a monopoly on their mining and production. December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. December 9th, 1941. in incoming |
| 1:28.0 | December 1941, Pearl Harbor bombed. |
| 1:33.0 | America's Pacific Fleet almost entirely destroyed. A frequently forgotten reason behind the attack |
| 1:36.0 | was that the US had frustrated Japan's expanding global |
| 1:41.0 | ambition by blocking its Pacific rivals access to a critical raw material, |
| 1:47.0 | oil. And that led Japan to take very drastic measures. |
| 1:53.0 | Fast forward 80 years to 2021 and I was listening to a young |
| 2:05.8 | researcher talk at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna which I now run. |
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