In the 10th century, Erik the Red, a Viking from Iceland, was so impressed with the vegetation on another Arctic island he had found he called it "the green land." Today, it's Greenland's rocks that are attracting outsiders — superpowers riding a green revolution.
The world's biggest island has huge resources of metals known as rare earths, used to create compact, superstrong magnets which help power equipment such as wind turbines, electric vehicles, combat aircraft and weapons systems.
The metals are abundant globally, but processing them is difficult and dirty — so much so that the United States, which used to dominate production, surrendered that position to China about 20 years ago.
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