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You'd better let Molycorp know. They've put a lot of time and money into it and are finally getting US production back on line.

Molycorp, which owns a big rare earths mine at Mountain Pass, California, is back on line. That mine used to supply 100% of US demand, plus exports. It was shut down in 2002 due to cheaper rare earths from China. Now it's back.

Rare earths aren't that rare. They're just present in small concentrations. So mining produces huge volumes of waste for small amounts of product. The big rare earths mine in China is an environmental disaster area. The one in California had to comply with US and California regulations. At current rare earths prices, that's not a problem. (They do, however, ship some of the sludge to Nevada through a 20 mile pipeline. Really).

A year from now, rare earth supplies won't be a problem. Then people will be bitching about the Molycorp monopoly.

in California there is a large rare earth mine still remain closed

Check again.

He won't be the first. A company you might not have heard of called Molycorp is doing that in California. Their stock was less than $20 (I seem to recall it might have even been a penny stock at one point), almost $80 and now it's pulled back to around $30. Mining is a volatile business. As other posters have pointed out, you don't just start this business. You have to acquire mineral rights and clear EPA hurdles, hire workers, actually know something about mining operations, etc...

google for 'California Pass rare earth' and then check out this. America's mine starts later this year, with products in early 2012. That will mean that this HIGHLY ILLEGAL BLOCKADE (which is what it is) will be done. By early 2013, America will produce about 1/2 of all rare earth and by 2014, probably around 3/4. Now, they just need products to take it since China will not be buying our rare earth.

The mine that closed down is owned by Molycorp and it is in California. Molycorp is racing to restarting it at full capacity and it is only months from re-opening. Molycorp stock is up from about $3 to $60 since China put a tariff on exports. There are talks from China about putting a stop to exports of alloys with RRE which has a potential of increasing prices higher.

There are other companies that are planning on opening projects relatively soon (within 5 years). RRE are not rare. What is rare is finding them in high concentrations. They tend to be found in ores rich in thorium, uranium and radium making extraction kind of radioactive and this has been one of of the major environmental problems for the Molycorp @ their Montainpass mine. This mine supposedly has enough resources to sustain *all* RRE yearly needs of US for a few decades, for the minerals that are available in that deposit.

http://www.molycorp.com/

Anyway, RRE is not "next gold" and not "next oil". It is a resource that is vital and is only in short demand due to export tariffs from the only major global source.

PS. I do not hold any interest in Molycorp :)

PPS. Also, this has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans or politics. The mine was shut down because Chinese exports crashed the price below US production costs primarily because of no environmental controls in China (bad for China - one of major reasons they added the export tariff!). It is as simple as that.

You should tell that to these guys http://www.molycorp.com/

They just reopened a rare earth mine in CA. Quick, go tell them they can't do what they've already done! Molycorp developed a way to extract the minerals without the pollution. Pretty smart considering pollution needs to be cleaned up and that clean up costs a ton of money. But don't let long term cost savings get in the way of your hippy hate. And no, I'm not a hippy, but I see the value in reducing costs by eliminating or reducing clean up. China will one day have to clean up the waste and it's going to cost a pretty penny. They love it now, but that debt will come due. Molycorp following EPA guidelines should reduce the total tally we owe.

Tesla has the advantage of taking over the NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA, a big, successful auto plant shut down for the 2008 recession, when Toyota, for the first time, had to close plants. They're only using a fraction of the plant, but they own all the buildings (although not all the land; they didn't buy all the parking lots). There are plenty of laid-off auto workers living nearby, so a workforce is available.

The cost differential with China has narrowed. It turns out that once wages in China reach a quarter of the US level, China manufacturing stops being competitive. The transport costs, the delays, and the quality problems make outsourcing manufacturing less attractive. With wages rising in the coastal provinces in China, (and wages dropping in the US) that wage level has been reached in some industries.

Also, with all the foreclosures, bay area house prices have dropped. Maybe by a factor of 2.

Operating in Detroit has its own problems. The weather is harsh. Crime is high. Most of the people with competence and ambition moved out when the jobs did.

Don't worry about the rare earth supply problem. Mountain Pass, California is already coming back on line.

From Great Western Minerals website it appears that supply and demand are fairly close, and that China is still the largest consumer as well as producer of Rare Earths. In fact it looks like MolyCorp has been ramping up production of Rare Earths for three years. They had been producing and processing Rare Earths up to 1998, but they stopped because they were no longer able to use "Off Site evaporation facilities."

Yeah, the current Chinese monopoly on current production for many of the elements is just because they've undercut all other producers, so rare earths are too cheap to be worth mining outside of China. There was quite a lot of rare-earth mining in the U.S. in the 1980s and 90s, and many of those mines are still waiting to be restarted when the price gets high enough to be worth it. Here's a timeline from the largest U.S. miner (currently not mining, but sitting around processing some existing stocks of ore).