Reply #52: You are aware what "rare earth element" means?

[intaglio]

It means that although they are elements they are not earths and not especially rare. Joke a geologist friend told me. Most are available in high concentration ores and these ores are rare but there are lower yield sources which are fairly abundant. In addition PV generation can use organic compounds although at present they are not sufficiently efficient, all we need is a photostable organic compound that releases electrons with the efficiency of chlorophyll.

Regarding emissions from nuclear plants I would suggest you check the history of Windscale/Seascale/Sellafield (the name depends on the decade) and why the Irish government hates it.

Nuclear power is not safe, it does not cause the immediate chronic problems that fossil fuel plant can but it can render huge swathes of countryside uninhabitable when it does go wrong, causes an unquantifiable number of deaths due to cancer, causes an unquantifiable number of miscarriages and causes vast problems during and after decommissioning. Comparatively: coal causes problems on a time scale of decades, perhaps as much as a century; nuclear causes problems on a timescale of centuries and, conceivably, millennia.