California Rare-Earth Mine Reopens 244
burnin1965 writes in to let us know that the looming crisis in rare-earth materials (which we have discussed recently) has prompted Molycorp, the erstwhile operator of a California mine closed in 2002, to announce plans to reopen it.
"With increasing prices on rare earth ore, tariffs raised by the Chinese government, and the threat of embargoes that would damage United States high-tech manufacturing Molycorp now has the needed incentive to reopen the California Mountain Pass mine. They will spend the capital needed to implement badly needed updates to environmental controls that will mitigate the radioactive waste water releases that plagued the mine in the past. Chinese imports in the 90s nearly halved ore prices and the California mine experienced multiple failures in environmental controls that resulted in the release of huge volumes of radioactive waste water. Updating the mine to address the environmental issues was not financially viable due to the cheap Chinese imports so it was closed in 2002." Within two years the mine could be producing 20% of the amount of rare earths we import from China.
No! Totally wrong approach (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Rare earth materials are actually quite common, despite their name. Some of them are actually more common than lead or nitrogen.
Re: (Score:2)
Lead, perhaps but Nitrogen? It's 80% of the atmosphere. That would be one huge pile of rare earth.
Re: (Score:2)
Oxygen in atmosphere = 20% by volume
Atomic mass of N2 = 28 u
Atomic mass of O2 = 36 u
mass of Nitrogen in atmosphere = (28*4)/(28*4+36)*5*10^18 = 3.8*10^18 kg
Earth mass = 6*10^24 kg
Amount of Earth mass that is Nitrogen in atmosphere = 3.8*10^18/(6*10^24) = 0.6 ppm
That means anything that is more common than 0.6 ppm of the earth would be more common than the nitrogen (in the atmosphere at least, I have no idea how common nitrogen
Re: (Score:2)
I think we're both wrong in our calculations. For one, mineral / element abundance is calculated for the Earth's crust but you're using the weight of the entire planet so your ppm figures for Nitrogen are very low.
From what I've found, N2 in the crust is only in trace amounts but it's found in 0.5 ppm in seawater.
I can't find numbers for mass of crust, however but I did find that it's volume is only 1% of planetary total.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I've always preferred my Earth Material medium-rare.
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
No. The only way to make rare earths less rare is to make more earths, duh. Among other things, the cost of shipping a whole factory-built planet to the nearest Sol-like stars and the loud-mouthed protests of tree-huggers whining about resource depletion (jeez, it's not like anybody else was USING every little yottagram of that feldspar anyway) tend to discourage this.
On a side note: at least the FedEx guy could be a little more POLITE in telling me they don't ship to Tau Ceti. Sheesh. And just FYI, the USP
Re: (Score:2)
The more we mine them, the less rare they will be. Doesn't this defeat the purpose? .... ;)
Not if we don't overcook them.
Molycorp's production is going straight to Japan (Score:5, Interesting)
Despite the story's GO AMERICA slant, a lot of material is going straight to Japan, where most of it is consumed in the first place. Like to Hitachi: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6BK5PL20101221 [reuters.com]
Oh look. They also signed deals with Sumitomo and Mitsubishi: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/T101219002181.htm [yomiuri.co.jp]
They got huge piles of cash from Sumitomo, Mitsubishi, and Hitachi...which is why it's hilarious to hear the CEO of Molycorp waving American flags in various quotes. Oh, and Molycorp's stock has shot up since their IPO in July: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-28/molycorp-s-ipo-aims-at-chinese-grip-on-smart-bombs.html [businessweek.com]
Also, how interesting that the EPA announces cleanup plan of Molycorp site just a few days ago: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=12460111 [go.com]
The EPA said contaminated material from the Molycorp site includes about 328 million tons of acid-generating waste rock, more than 100 million tons of tailings and acid-rock drainage at the mine and seepage at the tailings facility.
Anyone want to place bets on whether or not the US government will press environmental regulations on Molycorp this time, now that national security interests are involved?
Re:Molycorp's production is going straight to Japa (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, how is exporting raw materials (many of which will end up in electronics back on our shores) bad for America?
Sure, it would be better if those materials were used in local manufacturing facilities, but opening a source of those raw materials will make it more financially viable to do so.
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, how is exporting raw materials (many of which will end up in electronics back on our shores) bad for America?
Who said it was bad for America?
ure, it would be better if those materials were used in local manufacturing facilities, but opening a source of those raw materials will make it more financially viable to do so.
Agreed. But lets not put the celebrations ahead of the victory. The company press released is something of a "Mission Accomplished" moment, and that is what is being poked fun at.
Re: (Score:2)
The GP said:
Seemed to me that he was implying that opening these mines in the USA is only good for the Japanese companies funding the project and bad for the USA who is stuck with the cleanup costs.
Any substantial investment into the USA is a good reason to wave the flag, especially in a state with 12.5% unemployment.
Re: (Score:2)
Any substantial investment into the USA is a good reason to wave the flag, especially in a state with 12.5% unemployment.
Agreed. But its not "Mission Accomplished".
And in many respects it parallels AmericanCorporationX opening a textiles plant in unnamed 3rd world high-unemployment country. Yay! Jobs for the unemployed is good... but long term, is it even a step in the right direction for unnamed 3rd world country?
Re: (Score:2)
And in many respects it parallels AmericanCorporationX opening a textiles plant in unnamed 3rd world high-unemployment country. Yay! Jobs for the unemployed is good... but long term, is it even a step in the right direction for unnamed 3rd world country?
Why wouldn't it be? AmericanCorporationX pays more and has better working conditions than the local businesses. So it improves the standard of living and generates wealth for unnamed 3rd world country.
Re: (Score:2)
Why wouldn't it be? AmericanCorporationX pays more and has better working conditions than the local businesses. So it improves the standard of living and generates wealth for unnamed 3rd world country.
There is a reason we call it exploitation.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone want to place bets on whether or not the US government will press environmental regulations on Molycorp this time, now that national security interests are involved?
Not really; but if they have issues and US EPA won't go after them, you can be sure Cal EPA will.
Of course, then you would just have a bunch of right-wing bloggers screaming, "Why does California hate America???" but that isn't exactly new.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Molycorp's production is going straight to Japa (Score:5, Insightful)
That's too narrow. (or maybe not narrow enough?)
Equitable trade is mutually beneficial.
Being a net exporter means that you lose all your stuff and get a wad of IOUs of uncertain value (inflation, for instance, kills the value of your holdings)
Being a net importer means you incur debt, but get all the wonderful stuff.
Neither of which is particularly healthy, and certainly can't possibly be sustainable in the long term. Think about it: China's status as the world's provider of cheaply manufactured goods means that their own citizens are not benefiting from that massive industrial capacity as much as they could be, and they're sure as hell not benefitting from that capacity if the import side of that is money or ownership stakes in foreign countries, and not, y'know, stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
China's status as the world's provider of cheaply manufactured goods means that their own citizens are not benefiting from that massive industrial capacity as much as they could be
China's status as the world's largest manufacturer - and soon the world's highest-tech manufacturer - plus all those IOUs they own means that they will be able to do whatever the hell they want. China's not interested in raising their standard of living too fast, if it means that a huge disparity exists between the poor and the really dirt-poor. China doesn't want the manufacturing to race to the next developing nation, and it's big enough that they know there will always be suitable numbers of desperate un
Re:Molycorp's production is going straight to Japa (Score:5, Insightful)
RE mining has been an environmental problem for a long time. For whatever reason, the RE ores always seem to have a lot of thorium in them also -- there's your radioactive issue, and why we don't just refine and use that too, I'm clueless, as the price of uranium is also doing well (and I own stock in that too that is also doing well). As the Indians know, it's part of a useful fuel cycle as it can be bred into fissile fuel just like U238 can be. The other issue with RE's is that most of them are so chemically similar that they can be real tough to get apart into the individual RE metals. GM and others have done some work on making pretty good magnets with "what you get" rather than what you'd have in a perfect world, slightly reduced performance compared to perfect, but far lower costs at a few stages of the process.
At the instant of this writing, MCP is up 10.2% *in one day* which is about a usual annual return from the stock markets. REMX, an ETF that tracks RE's is only up 0.87%. No guts, no glory. I don't know about the other bucks for sure, but the profits trading on MCP are going to this redneck engineer American to be spent here. I'm sure like any news driven stock, that it will either go back down, or flounder around awhile before going up again. That's why I call myself a trader -- I don't invest, I trade, and know when the heck to get out and put the money back into first bank of mattress....
Copper is doing pretty well these days too, some due to manipulation, but in general we're finding out that Malthus was right, just in the wrong century. Won't be many decades before old landfills become a "mineral rights" issue. We really do live in a finite place.
Re: (Score:2)
As far as the pollution goes, simpl
Re: (Score:2)
Are miners not people?
The courts have often rules that minors aren't people.
*rimshot*
Re: (Score:2)
<HECKLER> If they were Incorporated then they would be legal individuals! Instead they prefer to be commie unincorporated human beings. </HECKLER>
Wonder about the pricing (Score:2)
Old news (Score:5, Informative)
The Molycorp restart has been known for months. The IPO was back in July.
"Rare earths" aren't really that rare. There are many potential mining sites worldwide. They're sparse, in that huge amounts of rock have to be processed to get small amounts of metal. Because of that, rare earth mines produce vast amounts of useless tailings, contaminated with the chemicals used in extraction. That's why nobody wants one nearby. The big one in Inner Mongolia is considered an environmental disaster area even by Chinese standards [dailymail.co.uk].
Re: (Score:2)
"Rare earths" aren't really that rare. There are many potential mining sites worldwide. They're sparse, in that huge amounts of rock have to be processed to get small amounts of metal.
Rare [merriam-webster.com], in this case, is a relative term. You might play poker and rarely get a royal flush (1 in 649,740) but if you play a billion hands you'll get an average of 1539 royal flushes. You never go above the rare chance to get a royal flush but with a big enough sample size you are likely to end up with a lot of them.
The Earth is a HUGE sample size but that doesn't change the fact that the rare earths are, well, rare! Of course almost every element is rare in comparison to the most common element [wikipedia.org], hydrogen [quotationspage.com].
Re:Old news (Score:4, Interesting)
Coordinates of the Chinese mine are 41.797846,109.976892 if you are interested in looking it up on Google Earth or similar. Hard to judge the size of the mine directly, but the sprawling piles of tailings are pretty impressive (the rampant nasty-looking runoff less so).
For comparison, the Mountain Pass mine in California appears to be at 35.47903,-115.535796 (literally just off I-15 between LA and Las Vegas).
Re: (Score:2)
Addition to my post: You can find the Chinese mine on Google Maps if you put "baiyun'ebo" in as the search term as opposed to the various spellings in this and other articles.
Cold War with China (Score:2, Insightful)
Can we finally admit that we're in a cold war with china? Finally?
Re: (Score:3)
Can you please state what makes you think we are in a cold war with China?
Capitalistic competitors, yes, but not cold war adversaries any longer.
another group of scam artists (Score:2, Interesting)
There are only a few principals in Molycorp, each with millions in salaries plus bonuses. They managed to lose over 80 million USD on 22 million USD in equity in just three short years. They hired a couple firms to shake the fear lobby public relations/news tree. The Japan-China rare earth thing occurs regularly every couple of years, and this incident is no different. You may find in the next SEC filing that the principals have unloaded significant paper dilution in the latest round of scamming. I expect t
20% total China produces, not US imports (Score:3)
Within two years the mine could be producing 20% of the amount of rare earths we import from China.
The article says the mine could produce 20% of what China produces, not 20% of what the US imports from China.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Your statement leads me to believe that your are OK with radioactive waste water releases as long as they are not in America. Since you do not seem to indicate that you are against the uses of rare earth.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Your statement leads me to believe one of two things: you are either stupid or dishonest. No one said they are okay with pollution in China. You present a false dichotomy: either accept pollution, or do not use rare earths. What about, pay the full cost of extracting using rare earths in an environmental fashion? Personally, I would be fine paying a little more if that is what things really cost. I'm not comfortable making other people pay for the things I use, yet that is what happens with rare earths. I g
Re: (Score:2)
The original poster did not present options, only a sarcastic statement. Which prompted my reply. Apparently, you are either stupid or dishonest for missing the third option of sarcasm.
Re: (Score:2)
First poster said "Finally, someone bringing radioactive waste water releases back to America!" which is a sarcastic statement, sure. But so what? Is radioactive waste water release NOT a problem?
You sarcastically respond by assuming that, instead of criticizing pollution, the original poster must be FOR pollution in China, or AGAINST rare earth, because, as EVERYONE knows, those are the only two options.
I pointed out that that is not the case, the original poster may in fact have been against ANY pollution
Re: (Score:2)
It was not intended as a defense, merely an explanation of the reason for my post. I cannot help it if you feel the need to over react.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not overreacting, I'm always this much of a bastard.
Re: (Score:3)
Well I guess we can agree on something...
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, it sounded like you were trying a fairly standard line of argumentation I have heard over and over again, the false dichotomy of "If you oppose pollution, you oppose progress." If that was not what you were trying to do, then take this as a piece of constructive criticism, you appeared to be offering a false dichotomy that paints everyone concerned about pollution as Luddites. I'm glad that wasn't what you were trying to do, as I think we can both agree, that would be petty and illogical.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? You are confused here? What is the difference between concentrating radioactive elements and running hundreds of thousands of gallons of water through them, and having tiny amounts of water percolate through the same elements widely dispersed in their natural state? You need help figuring that out, do you? Take off the blinders and stop apologizing for people who will gladly ruin your entire family's health and take no responsibility for it.
This is basic, people, something we all should have learned no later than preschool: you make a mess, you clean it up.
Define "mess", define "cleaning up" (Score:2)
This is basic, people, something we all should have learned no later than preschool: you make a mess, you clean it up.
It would be good if people demanded this of the coal and oil industries.
In the case of rare earths mining, the problem is only the absurd regulations that demand the radiation level in waste to be lower than what's found in nature.
Re: (Score:2)
Citations, or are you just making stuff up?
I burn in hell for demanding responsibility? (Score:5, Insightful)
Progress does not consist of a small group of people enriching themselves at everyone else's expense. Progress consists of better things for everyone, not a trade off where some people must lose in order for others to win.
All I ask is that people pay all the costs they generate, rather than asking others to pay. Why should I burn in hell for asking that people take responsibility for their actions, and how their actions affect others?
I'm all for real progress, but poisoning people, animals, plants and ecosystems in order to extract useful minerals is not progress. When we extract those minerals without harming others, that is progress. Making things better for some by making things worse for others is not progress.
Re:I burn in hell for demanding responsibility? (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically, one would have to weigh the benefits against the cost.
If we slag 100 acres of wilderness to produce modern medical technology, I would call that progress. If we destroy the entire biosphere of a continent to save 5 cents at the gas pump, probably not.
As a general rule, most people when voting with their dollars have chosen cheap goods over cleaner. When they get to vote with what they perceive as other people's dollars, however, suddenly clean sounds a lot better.
Re: (Score:3)
Someone always pays the cost for pollution. It is a negative externality. Most people are only conditionally moral creatures, and do not mind externalizing costs onto someone else, especially when diffusion of responsibility lets them think "Well, it wasn't ME that did it, it was ALL of us." No one raindrop thinks it caused the flood, and all that.
That is the point: people are NOT voting with their dollars for cheaper, less clean products, they are voting with other people's dollars. They are voting with th
Re: (Score:2)
With a proper tort law setup this would only really be a problem for air pollution. Water and land pollution tends to be fairly localized and easily traceable. That's not unpaid externalities, that's property damage.
Re:I burn in hell for demanding responsibility? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, rather than waiting for the damage to happen and suing the people who cause it, we could stop it BEFORE it happens through proper enforcement of regulations. You can trace pollution, but putting it back in the bag once it's loose is problematic.
Another problem is that externalizing costs lets an entity rake in unfair profits that can be used to fight any lawsuits, and in our legal system, David loses to Goliath more often than not. Goliath simply has to keep fighting until David runs our of money. I'd love to see tort reform that put the rich and the poor on even legal footing, but I'm not holding my breath.
Re: (Score:2)
And thankfully we have wise people with no personal agenda nor lobbyist influence making decisions about what is proper regulation.
Re: (Score:2)
Please try to limit your criticisms to things that DON'T apply to every single human social system ever invented. And, when responding to criticism of your favored system, please try to refute the criticism rather than deflecting it with charges that apply equally to all social systems.
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that we hear no end to complaints about adhering to environmental regulations, including in this case where Molycorp accepted the cost of updating the environmental controls but not without whining about it, suggest that while it is not perfect and free from corrupting influence it does at times have the desired impact.
But I will say that I agree with your sentiment in the original post, we do need to be reasonable with our decisions on regulations and environmental controls. But they must not be s
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
All I ask is that people pay all the costs they generate, rather than asking others to pay.
I disagree. A standard NIMBY tactic (perhaps more a phenomena since "tactic" implies conscious intent) is to build residential real estate next to a noxious neighbor (say an asphalt plant or adult store), then get government to impose harsh restrictions on the location's ability to do business, eventually leading to elimination of the business. Then the price of the neighboring real estate rises.
The noxious neighbor didn't have a choice in the matter of what the neighboring land is used for (unless they
Re: (Score:2)
Before we begin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality [wikipedia.org]
The noxious neighbor should never have been noxious in the first place. If you can not create a profitable business without making others pay for part of the cost, such as cleaning up pollution, you have no right to be in business at all.
What you define is not an "imposition of externalities." It is an "imposition to mitigate externalities." Your profitability is not a consideration, the damage you case is.
The idea that, sans laws prohibiting it, poll
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Likely took the alternate, RP101 (Rape & Pillage 101); This beginning course in self destructive economics will provide you with the foundation of modern day slash & burn or salt & till economics. Prerequisites include RJ101 (Religious Justification), IC101 (Inhibiting your Conscience), and RB101 (Robber Barons)
Re: (Score:3)
I call it "The Tragedy of the Privates." There is no incentive for a private owner to manage a resource sustainably when they can simply use their profits to buy another resource to exploit. Democratically manged resources will be managed sustainably, as everyone has an incentive to leave the resource usable by their children, and no one can withdraw all the profits and move on.
The better known "Tragedy of the Commons" is a fairly useless parable, as it compares privately owned resources with unmanaged reso
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Good! (Score:4, Informative)
The Mountain Pass rare earth mine [wikipedia.org] uses froth floatation [wikipedia.org], a water intensive process. For goodness sake get some facts right. Even in the high desert, we have these things known as "pipes."
Re: (Score:2)
It is not that hard to research the facts...
Mountain Pass Mine Environmental Impact [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
And me without mod points. +2 to you.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm amazed at how hard environmentalists and unions (back in their early days) had to fight against robber barons and corporate scoundrels in the US - a country that prides itself on its Christian faith. They are good and safe ways to do most things but it does drive the cost up. But, in the slightly longer run, it pays for itself in what does NOT have to be done - fewer expensive cleanups, less spent on health coverage, etc.
I suspect that your attack on the Prius is due to a long-refuted article. You can f
Re: (Score:2)
Quit being a whiny pussy and move. Each Foxconn suicide is just one more opportunity for you.
Stop being a cry baby and move. The Chinese share your 'screw the environment, profits rule' and 'screw human beings, profits rule' mentality.
Just get it over with and move your ideology to China and your suffering under environmental regulation will be over, you will be in a blissful heaven of pathetic wages, poisoned rivers and pollution choked s
Re: (Score:2)
Actually these people are following their Christian faith. That is the problem with religion and faith, it is open to interpretation...
If you don't make a profit for your master you will be cursed by the Christian God [youtube.com]
Environmental damage by humans is impossible because God said so in his promise. [youtube.com]
Environmentalism is deadly to the gospel of Jesus. [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like a high school friend of mine may have been right when he said all the sane people are in the asylums and the nutcases are running loose.
Here's the scoop on the mine's problems (Score:3)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_rare_earth_mine#Environmental_impact [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
What's the difference between letting the radioactive wastes in the ground and putting them back in the ground after you get the ore out?
They weren't putting it back in the ground, they were pumping it 14 miles away to evaporative ponds, except for the 60-odd times the pipe broke over 14 years [wikipedia.org].
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Ssssshhh, you'll burst the bubble that is keeping the stupidity contained to themselves.
Monazite (Score:2)
Luckily, when you spill thorium-laced water over a large area of desert, it never gradually turns into wind-borne radioactive dust...
You mean, like the naturally occurring monazite sands [wikipedia.org] from which rare earth metals are mined?
Re: (Score:3)
No one was claiming these were engineering problems. The problem is obviously not an engineering one, it is a profit motive problem. The owners would rather have someone else pay for the impact they cause. Even after numerous warnings, they refused to fix things. They were shut down as punishment, because they refused to pay for their mistakes the honest and easy way, they had to pay for their mistakes the hard way. You see, that is what civilized countries do to people who profit off of harming others: we
Re:Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
Who said we were a civilized country anymore? We're being run by a band of brigands intent on looting and pillaging rather than inventing and building, just like a third world banana republic. We ship raw materials and import finished goods, just like a banana republic. We lack any national health care system, when every other civilized nation has one. We execute people. We have more people in prison, per capita, than any other developed nation. We have a higher infant mortality rate than other developed countries. In all ways, we are becoming an uncivilized nation, and I didn't even mention reality television.
Re: (Score:2)
I see you got modded Troll for telling the truth. ;-)
That'll teach you to knock reality TV
Re: (Score:3)
I think that the moderators took "Run by a band of brigands" as an indictment of their favorite political group, when I mean it to apply to all political groups equally.
Re: (Score:3)
But don't try to pretend that engineering problems are intractable problems.
Don't try to pretend that capitalism problems are engineering problems. Replacing a 14 mile pipe costs money. Money you don't have if some company in China that just dumps the waste in the nearest ditch is undercutting you, but which might become available when the Chinese government tells their company to stop competing with you (by preventing it from exporting out of China).
Re: (Score:2)
What's the difference between letting the radioactive wastes in the ground and putting them back in the ground after you get the ore out?
You mean other than the fact that the relative concentrations of these radioactive wastes are many times higher afterwards than they were originally in the soil?
Re: (Score:2)
What's the difference between letting the radioactive wastes in the ground and putting them back in the ground after you get the ore out?
Leaving it in water lets it seep down into the water table and away from the site.
Re:better then buying for mines where works make $ (Score:5, Insightful)
Those workers aren't going anywhere. Those mines will not be shut down just because the US may produce up to 20% of our rare earths domestically. The rest of the world still needs rare earths, and we still need to get 80% of ours from someplace else.
The summary is way off. (Score:5, Informative)
The article says the mine will produce about 20% of China's current output, not 20% of the amount we import.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, it is all guesswork anyhow, and Molycorp has a fairly fraudulent past. More than likely, this mine will never open and the investors will see their money disappear into a giant hole in the ground. Molycorp will claim that the big bad government stopped them with its evil environmental laws, but I'm guessing they have no more intention of reopening the mine than they had any intention of running a clean mine in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
...Molycorp has a fairly fraudulent past...
citations please
With processes that can easily expose a great deal of toxic material we need adequate regulations and oversight to insure that negligence or greed don't lead to problematic behaviors. If the company has a troubled past, we should watch even more closely.
We have a need for a domestic source for this material. Hopefully it will bring us some new jobs making products that use it. With growth of demand for material used in magnets for wind driven generators and in motors for electric cars, th
Digging rare earths from the ground is easy part (Score:5, Informative)
The hard one is separating them. And they are hard to separate because of very similiar chemical properties. Currently there is problably no functional rare earths separation facility outside of China and rare earths concentrate (mine output) has to be brought back to China and thus becomes subject of China export quotas. There is one facility in construction (in Malasia as far as I remember) but going to production will take a while. Chinese have driven everyone out of business and then bought remaining facilities and know-how. And no one in intervened - utter stupidity and incompetence of western leadership has surpassed levels of lack-of-self-preservation-instinct in this matter. We are totally dependent on Chinese and this year we learned about this the hard way. Chineese limited their export quotas by 70% and rare earths prices jumped several times. Of course, you can buy them cheaper for producing your widgets, you just need to move your production facility to China.
I just hope we get full rare earth production chain up and working as soon as possible, but it will propably take a few years.
Bad (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the US should sit on this resource for now. China only has 37% of the world's proven reserves of rare-earth minerals, but they are fulfilling 97% of the world's demand. Let them burn through their easily harvested natural supplies, so a decade from now they will be reliant on other countries for a critical resource. This could provide one of the few checks and balances for dealing with China as a communist super-power.
Re:Bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
China is going to stop burning through anything soon because they're experiencing peak coal right now. The exponential growth we've seen over the last couple of years (>10% per year) is going to hit a wall real soon. That's going to be interesting.
Re:Good! (Score:4, Funny)
I am trying to bring a Rare Earths Elements Company online (I have two mineral resources right herre in the U.S. ....But sadly, I can't find funding to start operations.
Wait a second, I call shenanigans. We gave all kinds of tax breaks to the rich, just so they would have money to invest in things like this. Are you trying to tell me the rich aren't investing in American businesses? Next you are going to tell me that rather than funding businesses here, they are investing it all in foreign corporations in countries with cheaper labor and no environmental laws.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't judge all the world's powerful people by a few idiots. Most of them, even the evil bastards, are very well educated
Re: (Score:2)
I was unaware that the two attributes are somehow related. Some of the most "powerful" people in the world are not very trustworthy.
So you want to sell your nation away (Score:2)
So you want to sell your nation away people like you should go to a re education camp!
Re: (Score:2)
As we run out of oil, transportation costs will only go up. World wide demand for rare earths is rising, at the same time supply is dwindling. Previously, it was just not financially feasible to mine rare earths in environmentally friendly ways. The true costs were externalized. Mine owners got rich at the cost of other people's health. But we have gotten better at doing things in safe, clean ways now. So it looks like we are at the intersection of rising prices and demand for rare earth, and declining cost
Re: (Score:3)
If I'm in the market for rare earth metals, why would I buy from this US source?
It seems like the factors that drove them out in the first place still exist, no? They still have environmental regulations to deal with that the Chinese suppliers don't, they'll still have far higher labour costs than their Chinese competitors, and so on. So if China wants to drive the price back down and run them out of business, they can do so.
Shortly after acquiring their monopoly on rare earth supply China began demonstrating to the world how monopoly power can be used - raising prices at will, using supply as an economic/political weapon, etc. Companies and nations affected by these tactics (which are most users of rare earths outside of China) are not amused and will be willing to pay premiums for a reliable supply at predictable prices. Expect to see companies hedging their bets by entering long term contracts with MolyCorp even if they also
Re: (Score:3)
If I'm in the market for rare earth metals, why would I buy from this US source?
Illiterate troll is illiterate. From the first line of the summary: "With increasing prices on rare earth ore, tariffs raised by the Chinese government, and the threat of embargoes that would damage United States high-tech manufacturing..."
So if China wants to drive the price back down and run them out of business, they can do so.
The point of the embargo would be to threaten the US with. "Don't push us on human rights / Taiwan / copyright bullshit / economy stuff / national pride / corporate stuff or we'll stop selling you your precious metals." If we can credibly respond with "Fine, we'll just
Re: (Score:2)
Why is it that people like you don't move to China to live and work in their factories?
Re: (Score:2)
Because it's a commodity. As long as the cost of production is less than the market price, you will buy from them. The labor and environmental regulations will affect their profit margin. As the purchaser of a commodity, you don't care about that.
This is true for any fungible commodity. When you buy gold, you don't care if it cost $500/oz or $1000/oz for a particular miner to extract. You only care that it costs $1400/oz.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Over the mines themselves, a fairly limited number of sites, the state could probably just use the PLA if it came to that(and hope that half the officer corps isn't supplementing their pensions by doing a little smuggling on the side)...
Unless they felt like shutting down domestic manufacturing of a huge number of products, thou