Abstract
Mineral resources for metals, especially those pertaining to rare metals, are concentrated precious products that eventually get deposited near the Earth′s surface over millions of years. These deposits result from an extremely special natural phenomenon called the “Miracle of the Earth.” The “Value of Nature,” corresponding to the rare-metal ores produced by special and rare phenomena, is essentially extremely high. At present, however, the value of these ores is evaluated only in terms of the total cost for mine development, mining, smelting, and so forth, the essential value of these ores is not taken into consideration. Furthermore, as a result of pursuing maximum possible profits, costs for preventing environmental pollution caused by mining or smelting is not accounted for in many cases. Owing to a high recycling cost, most of the rare metals are discarded without recycling after being used as raw materials for various products. In this paper, the medium- and long-term prospects for the material flow of rare-metal resources are discussed by introducing the concept of the “Value of Nature.”
