News Analysis: Japan's deep-sea rare earth mining ambition: feasible or not?

TOKYO, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology announced earlier this week that Japan has recently successfully collected mud containing rare earth elements from the seabed in waters off the country's easternmost Minamitori Island.

Despite the test's success, experts remain cautious about deep-sea mining as a rare earth supply source, noting that the mission near Minamitori Is