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The green technologies require a lot of rare earth and precious chemical elements which are composed of the heavy nuclei that (beyond iron) are quite rare on our planet and our Solar system.

All those heavy nuclei/elements can be theoretically synthesized in nuclear reactions. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2019.0301 is review about those reactions that are happening in the nature. While the article is saying that heavy elements emerges in such a "exotic" processes as the mergers of neutron stars or explosion of supernova, we should put those processes into the perspective of what the human beings have achieved already. Indeed - the mentioned processes (neutron start mergers and explosion of supernova) are just nuclear reactions that transform one element into another and those processes can be repeated even today in the accelerators with the electromagnetically accelerated ions of lighter of heavier elements. Indeed, human beings have already achieve the processes of more higher energy densities/temperatures that smashes the nuclei, protons and neutrons into quark-gluon soup, into the matter that existed the the Big Bang.

So, from the theoretical and experimental point of view the human beings are already repeating the reactions that created the heavy elements/nuclei. The scale is the problem. Our accelerators are doing the reactions on single of few nuclei, but technologies requires the amounts of 10^25 of nuclei. So, scalability should be achieved.

My question is - taking into account the theoretical possibility of creation the rare earth and precious elements in the accelerators - is it acceptable for the society to label as sustainable and green the science and technology that develops and advances the nuclear synthesis of heavy elements in the industrial quantities?

I see here the dilemma. From the one hand there are the usual risks with the nuclear technologies. From the other hand the greening and sustainability and growth can be halted if there are not enough rare earth and precious metals for the green technologies. So, I see the safety advancement as the only solution that preserves the growth and leads to green and sustainable future.

TomR
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Technetium has been made artificially for decades. It is the lightest element whose isotopes are all radioactive. Because of its relatively short half life, 4.2 million years, and the fact that Earth is around 4.5 billion years old, very little natural technetium exists on Earth. It has been detected in red giant stars. Technetium is manufactured because it is a useful gamma-ray emitting medical radioisotope that is used in diagnosing bone cancer.

The question as to whether the synthesizing of scarce elements via artificial means is labelled green and sustainable will largely comes down to what energy sources are used in the synthesizing process. I very much doubt it.

Fred
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