The Worst Place on Earth

April 3, 2015 1:18 PM

A visit to Baotou Lake where rare earth minerals, used in "green" products and electronics, are processed.

Welcome to Baotou, the largest industrial city in Inner Mongolia. I'm here with a group of architects and designers called the Unknown Fields Division, and this is the final stop on a three-week-long journey up the global supply chain, tracing back the route consumer goods take from China to our shops and homes, via container ships and factories.

posted by readymade (24 comments total)

Found a sister city for Fort Mac!
posted by klanawa at 1:45 PM on April 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

Remember, if you drive a car or own a smartphone you cannot complain.
posted by Cosine at 1:46 PM on April 3, 2015

Chilling.

(Is it bad if my first thought was to do deep sequencing on the lake to look for cool extremophiles? Maybe it just means I need a vacation.)
posted by en forme de poire at 1:51 PM on April 3, 2015 [7 favorites]

Remember, if you drive a car or own a smartphone you cannot complain.

I disagree strongly. This kind of thinking shuts down discussion about environmental issues and hinders progress. Nobody should have to be perfectly holier-than-thou to express reservations about the way we live and the impacts we're having on this planet.
posted by dialetheia at 1:54 PM on April 3, 2015 [22 favorites]

I disagree strongly.


Apologies, I thought the sarcasm was clear.
posted by Cosine at 1:59 PM on April 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

I've lived in Baotou. The air pollution is surprisingly not that bad, compared to Beijing or Shanghai- about comparable to Houston or LA on a bad day.

Needless to say, this stuff was not on the tour guide areas. They mostly focus on the parks (Baotou has lovely parks). Baotou is the very definition of a boom town at the moment. 2 million people and very little to do, other than the Vanguard of the Proletariat shopping mall. But there are two halves to Baotou, and the side I didn't get to see (because of a very busy class schedule) was the industrial district. I do remember seeing the largest nuclear power plant, from a distance- no less than seven cooling towers.

In some ways it reminded me of Houston TX. Lots of business, lots of activity, but very little culture. A lot of people there to make money and then go elsewhere. But it has it's charms- nice parks, good weather, very safe overall.

It's a company town. I'd also say that it's a place like a Portlandian/Sillicon Valley conservative's fantasy: no environmental regulations, everybody's obsessed with having the latest smart phones and tech gadgets, no overtime, no unions, everybody rides efficient bikes, there are wide open parks everywhere, lots of food carts and fresh food (no food regulations, natch), atheistic, materialistic, and eager to embrace the new and forget the old.

The active disinterest in history was dismaying to me. My students actively opposed me when I tried to teach them about US-China Anglo-Chinese relations, because it wasn't part of the lesson plan. After all, who needs to know history when studying a language?

The William Gibson cyberpunk future is happening, but it's happening in China.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 2:03 PM on April 3, 2015 [29 favorites]

Apologies, I thought the sarcasm was clear.

Ah, sorry for misreading you. It's just such a depressingly common sentiment.
posted by dialetheia at 2:11 PM on April 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

In some ways it reminded me of Houston TX. Lots of business, lots of activity, but very little culture.

Somehow this makes perfect sense.

I'd also say that it's a place like a Portlandian/Sillicon Valley conservative's fantasy.

This also makes perfect sense, and your description of Baotou's cultural mash-up is an amazing synthesis--and very depressing. Both for the residents of Baotou, and me, a resident of Portlandia.
posted by readymade at 2:43 PM on April 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ah, sorry for misreading you. It's just such a depressingly common sentiment.


Yes, especially when read in the voice of my Fort Mac brother.
posted by Cosine at 3:01 PM on April 3, 2015

And now, a Possibly Distracting Segue: While I understand why the Unknown Fields Division (the outfit with whom the author traveled), used a decayed font for their website, the graphic designer in me hates it with a special, deep loathing.
posted by readymade at 3:05 PM on April 3, 2015

The air pollution is surprisingly not that bad, compared to Beijing or Shanghai- about comparable to Houston or LA on a bad day.

Just to be clear; the untrammeled pollution visible from space is a giant million+ tonne heavy-metal rich dumping ground, presumably with little to no isolation from leaching into aquifers; or from drying out and windblown heavy metal dust carpeting the area.

The effects of this kind of poisoning on a populace are usually chronic in nature; you will find a giant cancer & chronic health problem cluster centered around this district in a few years time. I wonder how many millitumors each of our gadgets generate in the surrounding Chinese population?

Externalities: capitalism's gift that keeps on giving.
posted by lalochezia at 3:43 PM on April 3, 2015 [7 favorites]

I'd also say that it's a place like a Portlandian/Sillicon Valley conservative's fantasy: no environmental regulations, everybody's obsessed with having the latest smart phones and tech gadgets, no overtime, no unions, everybody rides efficient bikes, there are wide open parks everywhere, lots of food carts and fresh food (no food regulations, natch), atheistic, materialistic, and eager to embrace the new and forget the old.

Isn't this pretty much true of most of urban China though? (Though I don't think no food regulations is accurate and cars are definitely a big part of the picture.)
posted by ssg at 4:38 PM on April 3, 2015

I feel like we exaggerate the idea that we "need" a lot of the tech gear and advances we are currently using. People do in fact survive without them. And I wonder at what cost to invisible people somewhere else, this filling of "needs" and life improvements happens for those who claim industrialism is an improvement for humanity. I guess the question is WHICH humans, the ones who live longer more comfortable lives, or the ones whose cities, and possibly bodies are damaged beyond repair for this quality of life improvement for others. That an underclass of expendables has always existed to make life better for the wealthy is true for much of known human history, but I'm not sure industrialization has changed that, it's just made it more easy than ever not only to use people and the earth until they are destroyed, but to hide that from the people benefiting. I've been trying to figure exactly what I think various tech things do in my life and try to find ways to challenge myself to achieve without the use of items that are causing this much damage. Clearly, I'm on the computer, not a judgement of where others are in that, just I do think we can try to grow beyond dependance on really harmful technology especially for things we could absolutely find creative and innovative ways to do without using such processes. We could reduce the psychological and physical damage of many workplaces and social and living environments by putting into place a lot of info we have about human wellness, give people more time off, teach people how to care for themselves and create a society that innately defaults to healthy if you're tired and broke- than to the opposite. I am hugely in favor of regulations to make this happen, but I'm also in favor of each person doing what things they can do as they feel able, not necessarily judging or shaming where any given person is at with it since our society feeds this beast as a whole an the most vulnerable are the least equipped to fight against the toxic flow of things. Just when there's opportunities to shift gears,take those and on any given day maybe it will be more or less than others. I don't think there's not a space for some use of technology, just, we can shift how much we make it fill every aspect of life as if everything is always better with more technolog rather than noticing a lot of things are probably just fine without it, and we're failing to even try to use widsomand knowledge we already have about how to promote health, entertain, comfort, create goods, and sustain life without every inch of the process becoming mechanized.
posted by xarnop at 5:35 PM on April 3, 2015

Portlandian/Sillicon Valley conservative's fantasy: no environmental regulations

Portlandian?
posted by Dr. Twist at 6:45 PM on April 3, 2015

Just to put the radiation dosage at the end of the piece in perspective (because radiation is scary and explaining it would ruin the tone), "three times normal background" would mean about another 20µSv per day, or about the same as you would experience on a three hour commercial airline flight.

(Also, cerium oxide is not recommended for polishing Gorilla Glass, so it seems likely the comment was thrown in as a gratuitous Apple name-drop, rather than being researched in any way...)
posted by nonlocal at 8:12 PM on April 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

so it seems likely the comment was thrown in as a gratuitous Apple name-drop

I really wish articles would stop doing this outrage bait crap. It's a good piece, and it always completely snaps me out of it and makes it harder to take it seriously and accept it's value every time i see a cheap lazy shot like that.

This kind of thinking shuts down discussion about environmental issues and hinders progress.

Which is why i'm actually really happy someone snarked it out of the way at the beginning. It's not something that's never come up in earnest, in a long form way on here before.
posted by emptythought at 8:37 PM on April 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

I wonder how long it will be before the actual price catches up with the cost of the things we buy? Could any of us afford to own a car or a cell phone if we factored in the environmental toll, the costs to society in terms of health and social disruption, future pollution and remedial costs from ignoring pollution, and on and on.

Whether its a cell phone or a bunch of bananas, what does it really cost when all the factors surrounding production, shipping, and human effort are added in?
posted by BlueHorse at 8:44 PM on April 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

LeRoienJaune: "Vanguard of the Proletariat shopping mall"

This... exists? That's quite possibly The Best Thing.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:37 PM on April 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

(Also, cerium oxide is not recommended for polishing Gorilla Glass, so it seems likely the comment was thrown in as a gratuitous Apple name-drop, rather than being researched in any way...)

Why is that a gratuitous name drop? It just says the "guide who shows us around the plant explains that they mainly produce cerium oxide, used to polish touchscreens on smartphones and tablets." Apple isn't the only company that makes touchscreen devices, and they don't all use Gorilla Glass, do they?
posted by teponaztli at 11:18 PM on April 3, 2015

I wonder how long it will be before the actual price catches up with the cost of the things we buy?

Until it becomes unnecessary for the powers that be to maintain the fiction that those externalities don't exist? I mean people study this stuff and know the answers to questions about the the total cost of the supply chain, so it's certainly possible.
posted by sneebler at 6:35 AM on April 4, 2015

...other than the Vanguard of the Proletariat shopping mall. But there are two halves to Baotou, and the side I didn't get to see (because of a very busy class schedule...

I see what you did there (or not).

Seriously, though, thanks for that first-hand info.

A few years ago, just before the circa-2009 rare earth mania hit stock markets, I had to learn everything I could about rare earth elements (REEs) because Work Reasons.

Therefore, articles like this often appear a bit incomplete to me. Let me explain why.

There's this focus on "elements you need for high-tech gadgets are doing this." Makes for good click-bait, but it glosses over the fact that the vast majority of the impact on the area is from iron-ore mining, that unsexy industrial-revolution thing. REE extraction occurs on the back end of that whole enterprise.

A lot of what the author saw was not primarily the infrastructure and impact of REE extraction (although it's certainly part of it), but the impact of the massive iron ore industry in and around Baotou.

That said, the focus on the environmental impact isn't wrong -- it's right. Owing to the how atomically similar all of the lanthanides are, extracting them from ore is tricky and toxic business.

From this paper on rare earth extraction processes specific to the ore types at Bayan Obo (pdf):

The ore composition in the Bayan Obo is very complex, 71 elements and 170 minerals are found, one element could exist in several or more than ten different minerals, mineral symbiosis relationship is close and complicated, and dissemination size is fine.

Where I think the BBC piece went a bit wide of the mark is summed up in this paragraph:

Even before getting to the toxic lake, the environmental impact the rare earth industry has had on the city is painfully clear. At times it’s impossible to tell where the vast structure of the Baogang refineries complex ends and the city begins. Massive pipes erupt from the ground and run along roadways and sidewalks, arching into the air to cross roads like bridges. The streets here are wide, built to accommodate the constant stream of huge diesel-belching coal trucks that dwarf all other traffic.

These "vast structures" are primarily related to the iron ore and steel industry in the area. REE production is a by-product of the iron-bearing ores they extract. So the piece kind of has the industrial focus of the area wrong. Iron first, REE second.

One of the problems that the Chinese government has dealt with when it comes to rare earth production was the fact that a significant amount of it was artisanal (no, not hipsters). Small scale artisanal producers (particularly in other production areas in China, where ion-adsorption clays are the deposits) were engaging in highly toxic extraction processes (not that the official industry doesn't), and then exporting their product without official oversight, which threatened the government's strategic control over REEs.

That's not to understate the hideousness of China's environmental track record, mind you - it's just that they weren't in a position to regulate the environmental impact if they wanted to. Big if.

But it primarily it made it hard for them to control production levels and export as tightly as they definitely wanted to. Years before anyone paid REEs much mind, the Chinese government understood the economic and strategic importance of them.

For the reasons above, a lot of the REE production in China has been consolidated.

Doesn't change the fact that it's an environmental nightmare, though.

As a side note, articles like these often overlook the less-sexy uses for REEs, like fluid catalyst cracking. You can do it without them -- it's just easier to do it with them.

Also, regarding the radiation comment in the BBC piece: it was a completely valid thing to look at in the context of REE extraction owing to the presence of thorium in the ores mined at Bayan Obo. In the sample they took, not hugely significant as nonlocal noted, but still relevant.

Here's a presentation that looks at the radiological impact of the ores extracted there (large pdf). Worth looking at because it contains a lot of photos and maps of the areas in question. Also, the iron slag from the mining operations there is used to make bricks:

The indoor effective dose for the buildings containing no slag is 1.86 mSv/a in Baotou City area (similar to other places in China ), but the dose becomes higher than 2.0 mSv/a for most of the buildings made of slag bricks.

So yeah, there's that, too.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:11 AM on April 4, 2015 [14 favorites]

mandolin conspiracy: I had to read your comment twice because NOT MY FIELD OF EXPERTISE, but I'm glad to have a more thorough explanation of the lay of the land, even if I don't understand exactly what the difference between ad-sorption and ab-sorbtion is.

(I keep trying, though, because I know charcoal has adsorptive properties for purifying--science is cool, kids!)

But the links are great, and I thank you for making this a more comprehensive post than someone like me can, not understanding exactly what I'm looking at--just that it's BAD.
posted by readymade at 12:17 PM on April 4, 2015

Full disclosure: I am not a geologist, a mining engineer or a chemist. I have a degree in English literature.

The distinction between the monazite ore deposits mined in Bayan Obo and the ion adsorption clay deposits in other places (Jianxi and Hunan have them, pdf) is that the clay ones are, well, mud.

In contrast, the Bayan Obo deposit is rock.

So, basically: scooping up mud (from the clay deposits) and dumping chemicals in it (in this case sulfuric acid) could allow an artisanal miner to extract REEs from it. It's doable and economically viable for artisanal miners.

Mining deposits like the one in Bayan Obo means you're blowing shit up, then crushing and processing the rock you haul away. Not artisanally feasible because of the large outlay in heavy equipment. Not to mention it's harder to blow shit up on the sly.

That said, monazite also appears in placer deposits - basically, sand.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that the Bayan Obo REE operations wouldn't really exist without the iron ore/steel industry making it economically feasible to mine that deposit in the first place. These are massive open-pit mining operations that REE extraction on its own couldn't have supported economically. That said, given that Bayan Obo on its own is now responsible for something like 45 per cent of global REE output, it's a major part of it now. But alot of the environmental disaster in the area began with iron/steel, and continues to be a result of it. The REE extraction stuff is all a part of that, of course, just not the key or only component of this.

I just thought the implication in the BBC article that "your smartphone is causing this" was a bit of an oversimplification. They might have mentioned that "rising Chinese demand for structural steel and an attempt to wean themselves of foreign imports of same is driving this catastrophe as well." The tablet I'm typing this on and Chinese skyscrapers are all part of this supply chain in some way.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:15 PM on April 4, 2015 [6 favorites]

Every time someone refers to "dead tree publishing" I always think we should be referring to e-readers as "poisoned earth publishing" and that they should maybe lay off the smugness.
posted by ghostiger at 2:15 PM on April 6, 2015 [2 favorites]