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China Moving To Restrict Neodymium Supply
GuyFawkes writes with this quote from the Independent:
"Britain and other Western countries risk running out of supplies of certain highly sought-after rare metals that are vital to a host of green technologies, amid growing evidence that China, which has a monopoly on global production, is set to choke off exports of valuable compounds. Failure to secure alternative long-term sources of rare earth elements (REEs) would affect the manufacturing and development of low-carbon technology, which relies on the unique properties of the 17 metals to mass-produce eco-friendly innovations such as wind turbines and low-energy light bulbs. China, whose mines account for 97 per cent of global supplies, is trying to ensure that all raw REE materials are processed within its borders. During the past seven years it has reduced by 40 per cent the amount of rare earths available for export."
They have fought to secure those same elements and done their homework. it gives them an economic advantage with both manufacturing and raw mining/refining done in the same place. most western countries in the same position would do the same as would any corporate entity in the western hemisphere. they can export the finished products at a huge markup compared to what they would get for raw minerals.
China is mining a vein of Unobtainium!
Anybody want my mod points?
So, no export of raw materials so that we buy finished parts from them. And support all the industries in between mining and retail in in China. Sounds like the WTO could have a bit of leverage considering how much comes out of China right now that could be gradually restricted...
Shh.
I don't know what is.
After all, last time, all the Chinese did to warrant invasion by Britain was cut off the opium supply. (google it if doubtful.)
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The whole point of free trade was to unlink, fundamentally, resources from national ownership. Now that the Chinese have crossed the rubicon on the basic issue of access to materials on open markets, what is really the point of pretending that they are genuinely interested in free trade? Do we still want to pretend that they are interested in moving towards western liberalism. As much as Republicans called liberals Chamberlins on other issues, conservatives still ignoring the growing failure of free trade with the east are really, fundamentally, the genuine Chamberlins of our day. I hope they choke on their Walmart stock.
This is my sig.
With the world economy falling downward China may well soon be willing to sell their sisters' socks with their sisters still in them.
It seems to me that every country owns there own resources and it is a countries prerogative to keep them for them self. That being said, turn around is fair game. In the US, the interest of our citizens might be better served if we held on to a little more of our own resources instead of allowing them to be shipped off to the highest bidder with no return to any of us except the business who took them at pennies on the hundred dollar bill.
You are lucky, Ed Gruberman. Few novices experience so much of Ti Kwan Leep so soon.
very gooood. i think this is highly amusing, on several fronts. the first is just the irony of the country touted as having "A Bad Human Rights Record" (when in fact they are just using common sense to keep control over 1.3 billion people) happens to now hold a damocles sword over the rest of the world if it wants to go "green".
the second irony is that it takes rare metals, which are, by definition, in limited supply, to go "green" in the first place. the missing bit that is not specifically stated is, "if the world wants to 'Go Green' (tm) and still maintain a high level of technology".
there is a simpler way to "go green" and not be dependent on chinese exports of rare earth metals: a return to subsistence-style living and community-driven societies, with countries like Poland, who have just absolutely amazing self-reliant and vibrant communities, already leading the way in that regard, having not really changed their way of living for centuries in the first place as "technology" passed them by.
whilst this suggestion of a solution is pretty much guaranteed to provoke outrage in certain (lazy) 1st world westerners, such lazy individuals might want to think about this: that the combination of restrictions on supply of "rare earth" metals, and the predicted "peak oil" period due to hit only next year, i think it's pretty much on the cards that the "technological age" which consumes 50% of the world's resources in the U.S. alone is almost certainly coming to an end.
so the only remaining question to ask is: are you ready for that change; are you just going to "wing it", are you going to stick your head in the sand, or are you just going to sit there until you die, waiting for the lights to come back on, the phone to ring and the gas boiler to provide you with heating again?
Bummer. I use super magnets with Neodymium. Prices will skyrocket.
This has been discussed here on Slashdot before, but rare earths are not as difficult to mine and produce as the term "rare" implies; they are rare only in a relative sense compared to other common elements of the Earth's crust. They are mostly not rare on the same order as gold or platinum group metals, although there are exceptions. There are plenty of sources for most of these elements in the continental United States and other nations outside of China; it just costs a certain amount of money to mine and refine them. If China chokes off supplies from their own mines and processors then it will make those same sorts of mines and processors cost-competitive again here in the United States and elsewhere in the world. This really isn't that big of a deal.
Considering how much Japan's economy depends on rare earth metals such as Neodymium.
Take the Prius, for example -- it has about 50lbs of rare earth metals in it alone, and Toyota expects to sell them by the millions by 2012. Not to mention things such as all the consumer electronics Japan makes that also are dependent on them, particularly the flat screen televisions that adorn homes and restaurants alike.
The Japanese still haven't apologized to China to this day for what they did in WW2, and even deny things like the Rape of Nanking even occurred. The Chinese haven't forgotten, however -- state-run television there shows movies about Japanese massacres on a near daily basis. There's also other issues like Taiwan, leftover chemical weapons, national perceptions of one another, and the sort.
Japan had better begin rebuilding their relations quickly with the Chinese -- especially for the US's sake, considering how many high-grade/precision military weapons they use in Afghanistan require them as well. The hundreds of billions of dollars in war reparations the Japanese owe to the Chinese would be worth it to prevent what would be their total economic collapse if China cuts them off...
Time to explore for new deposits. If the price of rare earth elements increases enough, it'll be worthwhile. Australia, the American west, and Africa still have vast unexploited mineral wealth.
The following link is ESSENTIAL reading
http://seekingalpha.com/article/178225-on-the-rare-earth-crisis-of-2009
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Except in order to recover the rare materials in junked electronics we send them to...China because we've made it nearly impossible to conduct that business in the US. Of course now the focus of OSHA is to assist companies in complying rather than prosecuting them. Oh, wait, I was thinking of the Bush administration; Obama's Secretary of Labor has made it clear that they're "back in the enforcement business". I guess recycling isn't an option after all.
Right, we're pretty well pwned in this case. Even if we ("we" being the nation as a whole) were smart enough to deal with this, it's probably too late.
In theory though, your "and why not?" attitude suggests at least three solutions.
1. One obvious and somewhat suicidal solution is war.
2. Another solution in keistering. Keistering is what you do when you realize that these metals are already so expensive that it's no big deal to pay somebody to hide it up their butt.
3. Another solution is neodymium gold clubs. We can have them made in China you see. :-)
This was discussed previously on http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/09/08/2119201/China-Considering-Cuts-In-Rare-Earth-Metal-Exports
:)
If you hurry up and copy/paste a few comments from there, you may be able to get a cheap +5 Informative.
I hope we all got a lesson from Obama when he bowed to royalty. China will indeed allow limited exports of these precious metals - but only to proper nations who know how to kneel and bow to the superiority of China. China does not recognize and has no tradition of equality. Everybody is either superior or inferior. You think the Chinese didn't get the message loud and clear from Obama's bow? One only bows to superiors. And Obama did a really good bow too...the full 90 degrees (a most inferior position).
Study history, China was like this hundreds of years ago, too. They had no problem cutting the outside world off from trade. Hell, there were wars over it. China has no interest in joining the community of nations as an equal member. You will acknowledge China as superior and humiliate yourself, or you will get no Neodymium. And even then, companies owned by Chinese-Americans will be favored over companies owned by barbarians (that's you, unless you're ethnic Chinese).
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
http://www.choruscars.com/Chorus_NEO_WhitePaper.pdf
There are plenty of prospective or former mines around the world; it's just that China was so much cheaper that it made little or no sense to exploit those sites until now.
The real trouble here is the sudden change in price, but at the rate demand for it has been going up, it seems inevitable that engineers are going to need to find alternatives to it -- regardless of what China does.
--Greg
...when we rely so heavily on China for its exports. If they want to play this, levy tariffs on products coming from China (if they aren't going to ship anyway might as well show them how expensive their strong arming can be), and while we're at it, restrict their students coming to the US for education so they can't go back and show their countrymen how to process mined quantities or engineer mining safety equipment or safe mines.
Hold them to higher standards also when it comes to mine safety. There are probably some human rights violations going on in those "illegal" mines.
All it really means is that products which currently require large amounts of rare earths will continue to evolve and require less of the stuff over time. This has in fact already happened to some degree with mature technologies such as catalytic converters. The same thing will happen with newer technologies. An increase in the cost of rare earth materials will also push nanotech development over time, in particular nano-featured surfaces.
So it is hardly a catastrophe.
-Matt
What do you suppose the total use of "raw materials" in the US was in the last couple of years? Likely as not, nearly zero. Manufacturing of anything in the US has nearly ended and what manufacturing there is consists of putting parts together that were made in other countries.
So I guess you could say that Dell "manufactures" computers by taking the parts made in other countries and putting them together. Does Dell make any of these parts? No.
Most of the parts in cars which are assembled in the US come from somewhere else. It is just an assembly job other than metal fabrication.
Face it, US labor has pretty much priced itself out of the global market. It is cheaper to have the stuff made in China, Singapore or Malaysia and shipped here than it is to pay the incredible wages and benefits of US workers. Pretty much the same for Western Europe, except they have a low-wage state right next door in Eastern Europe.
The 21st Century will be marked by decreasing pollution from manufacturing in the West and dumping all of the polluting industries into the third world where wages make it practical to do labor-intensive operations.
How long are we going to ignore China's blatant flouting of trade and IP law? Laws don't exist if they are not enforced. The world salivates at the thought of having access to the anticipated Chinese consumer base and keeps letting things slide to not endanger that opportunity. Are they really going to give us access?
The article says
I can't believe it would be a big problem to find those are earths somewhere else.
Just how green is an energy that relies on a non-renewable resource?
Or are these rare metals, once used in green tech, easily recycled?
Having most actual mines don't mean that in the country is the only resource of the mineral, just the place that have in this moment most mines of it. If you can't build new mines for it in your own country or in a willing to sell country, you can try alternate approachs if can be done in an efficient way. Not sure if there is feasible to mine under the ocean (if could be there) or filtering it from the ocean itself, but in both places should be enough "rare" resources to make them look abundant.
There are ways around. Just dont even think in the usual historic way to get resources from "others".
It could be that China will be able to continue controlling the supply of these types of elements as long as they pay their folks € 0,25 a day to dig it out.
The cost of going green may go up if production has to shift to the more expensive-to-operate mines in Western countries.
Looks like there is a lot of the stuff around: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium#Occurrence_and_production
Bad enough they are presently the worst global polluter, now they are hampering green tech materials? If there is one thing I know, it's that when the U.S. wants something, the U.S. kills lots of people to get it.
Why doesn't China make whatever it is they want out of lead? It's not just for toys you know.
The Federal Government has told low life dirt bag Software Engineers to "Retrain" ourselves. I guess maybe when this logic is applied to other areas, it appears to have some unforgiving flaws. Would T.Boone Pickins like to have the phone number to the "Wally Thor School of Trucking?"
Please don't flame, this is genuine curiousity. I wish I fully understood the fundamentals of the relationship between China and the US. It seems to me, even through my veil of misunderstanding, that the Chinese economy has a stranglehold on the US economy due to inflation (or something along those lines). I want to know why this is incurable. Is it true that I could take $10,000 from the US and go to China and have x10 the shopping spree than I could in the States? Is that where the problem lies? I'm all about reading and doing research, but I just don't understand where to begin. I'm simply confused by the whole situation.
Not looking for rude comments, also not looking for a hand-out, but if someone more versed in economics than myself could give me a brief explanation or a step in the right direction I'd be very grateful.
This strikes me as a very convenient excuse to keep using petrol.
We'll just make neodymium out of lead.
So China is the new Microsoft. Copycat indeed.
I dunno whats more funny: idiots here who still use words such as "free trade" when describing USA or idiots who are going along with the corporate owned media in bashing CHina when it's obvious this is just another article to create some kinda problem to try to impose some kinda sanctions on CHina at WTO level.
I got permanently modded -1 because I dared to question Israel on
Or does the summary sound like a briefing from a C&C Generals mod? Is it just a coincidence that high tech devices require an element with an abnormally sci-fi sounding name?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
What "4 to 5 times of" do western industrialized nations produce more of (limited to manufactured articles), and of those, how many "things" that are still produced in the west are in at least part dependent on Chinese manufactured components? Remember it takes all of the parts to make a "whole". "Assembled in western nation" is not the same for the economy as "totally manufactured in western nation". Or just "rebadged and sold in western nation with a corporate name that reflects a contract in a drawer in Delaware" is not the same as totally manufactured and sold in western nation.
And within that ratio, how much of a percentage of various national economies does that really represent? Example,. if western nation A produces 4-5 times as many automated shoe lace tiers, is that really something to brag on? Ok here's one that still really exists, big commercial airplanes, still mostly made in the west, this is a gimmee, (although china's domestic airplane production is rapidly advancing), but how much of a big new airliner is dependent on chinese parts? How about autos? How about high tech new medical equipment? Stuff like that.
Or are you including such things as **AA "copies" being worth such and such according to their figures, along with casino banking paper financial theoretical products like those wonderful collateralized debt obligation pieces of paper, all of those non product products, and just printed up pictures of dead political leaders being passed off as real products?
There's this rosy picture wall street and DC talking heads "economy" that includes debt being called an asset, the same one that needed trillions in emergency inflationary pictures of dead political leaders to "keep afloat" (same in Europe), then there is the real no BS economy, so which are you referring to?
...due to its reserves in rare earth ores. Future wars will be fought not about oil but rare earth materials. And china is just too strong for the US to tackle...
Another dastardly country is about to exploit its natural resources to its own advantage...what if other countries follow suit???!!! I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN LIVE THAT WAY, BATMAN!!!
Freedom is spelled N-E-O-D-Y-N-I-U-M. And I'm sure the Americans have a duty to secure it!
Let's nuke em!
Fortunately, researchers from Leeds' Faculty of Engineering have discovered how to recover significant quantities of rare-earth oxides, present in titanium dioxide minerals....
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091215101708.htm
-Erik -- --This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--
Another lesson learned from film.
It's very unlikely this is malicious. Companies' raw material stockpiles have been growing this past year as our consumption has fallen->they have fewer people to sell to. It's more likely they are simply protecting themselves from a a deflationary spiral where one group seeks to preempt another and unleash all their raw goods onto the market, and then everyone else does. In other words, they're restricting supply, sorta like the banks are now allowed to do with the suspended mark-to-market rules: allowing banks to keep homes off the market artificially reflates the price of homes so that you and I have to pay more. This protects them from further writedowns-- they can just "pretend" that the houses are worth something, when in fact if they had to list the actual values of those homes on their books, they would be forced to go bankrupt causing the houses to enter the market causing a collapse in housing prices.
The global economy is an illusion. China controls its exchange rate. If they let it float, chinese products would double
triple or maybe even 10X in price almost overnight. China controls imports thru numerous techniques (as do we and everyone else).
They just recently clamped down on even what web sites will be visible. China is a tightly controlled economy which plans on being number 1 in 5 to 10 years. They think long term and are willing to abuse its citizens in the process. My big worry is once they get those subs they are bulding up & running, the west is screwed. They will now be able to offer the one "product" that up until now, only we could offer. Security. Imagine if you are the Arab nations with all that oil and you can either trade with the US and collect "dollars in an account" and a guarantee of protection or you can get "computers, cars, boats, appliances, furniture, pillows, blankets, screws, bolts, steel, aluminum, pipe, tools, and pretty much anything you want" AND protection from the chinese, who would you sell your oil to? For that matter, ANY raw material producing country will do biz with the chinese, not us. China has played the capitalists over the past couple of decades very well.
Rare Earth Elements are not all that uncommon. At least that isn't why they are called rare.
They are called Rare because they are so non-reactive, unconcentrated that finding them is rare.
I saw a documentary a few months ago where the Chinese had secured much of the lithium (as in batteries) mines and were negotiating in Bolivia if I remember correctly for their undeveloped resources which apparently are enormous. The problem here isn't China hoarding up the resources.. imho, it's our next quarter mentality.
The factory I work in (central Illinois) manufactures mass produced machines for the automotive and marine industries. We use inconel from UK, steel from Canada, and aluminum from Wisconsin. Even the packing we use is made by International Paper in Texas. I'm sure we use products from China in support of our operations, but the Lion's share that goes into the finished product is NOT from China. The AS400 that runs the factory may be made in China, I don't have the bill of material. The cleaning supplies; same thing; no BOM, etc. Your results may vary. I drive Chevy's, Buick's, GMC truck, Harley bike, and a Winnebago. At least I try to buy AMERICAN. How bout you?
JH
No... Really...
I want to see United States of America where you walk into a store with a bag of money and come out with a single egg.
Where economy has gone the way of the Dodo taking with it any industry not directly involved in self sustainable food production (small farms).
The world where the price of oil and all those other raw materials whose price is calculated in dollars would skyrocket.
Yeah... sure... It might be the end of our civilization but what the hell.
All that awesome would be highly nutritious and it would also cure any and all ailments AND it could be used teleport us anywhere within a 10 light years radius.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
So what? We should start reopening some of our own mines in the US. For now we should continue buying them from the Chinese. The great thing about this economic relationship is that we get the minerals and China has to deal with the pollution.
Dear State Funded Trolls,
we know you are out there and no matter how long you tell your fibs-we will bear witness to that-peacefully.
Your colonization of Tibet is as obvious and will fail, as has the Tiananmen Square massiacre. Freedoms flame lingers.
Leave Tibet peacefully.
If it was blacks doing it with say Peanuts (far better for them to produce peanut butter then raw peanuts) or chocolate (most of the worlds chocolate if turned from cheap cocoa beans into expensive chocolate in holland) then it would be considered a good thing. The higher value the product you export, the more money the local economy makes. It is a good way for third world economies to get their fair share of the world trade.
But oh no, now it is the yellows doing it, it is mean and cheating. The entire world consist of trade restrictments that profit the western countries but bad chinese for doing exactly the same thing.
And you got to wonder why the mines are all in China. I would find it highly unlikely that China just happens to have the only locations with those metals.
Seems to me somebody fell asleep at the wheel (we, the voter) and let our whole economy collapse and be controlled by a single country.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Umm, we may have a global economy but with vested national interests. Whoever could have thought that something like this might happen? Oh my..
Anything that focuses on short-term isolated results (think national borders, corporations, quarterly statements etc.) will cause interesting situations like these, where the supply-and-demand chain will collapse if there are no rules to restrict monopolies. And there are on national levels, but not international, and again, with vested "individual" interests in "groups", an outcome for the greater good is decidedly not a given (think COP15 in Denmark..)
Q: How does a Unix guru have sex? A: unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;more;yes;umount;sleep
It's a competition and lately we've been hobbling ourselves trying to protect the income of existing corporations by killing new businesses.
Software / business model patents are not helping us compete. They're crippling our new businesses.
And how much of that stuff is dependent today on Chinese supply of components? And how much is stagnating in the west, and just being shifted to China? How much is "assembled here" as opposed to really "made here"? And what have the trends been? That's the main point and is related to the entire topic.
Here's one example from your list, Caterpillar, two articles that should to to show what I am talking about
http://www.chinasourcingnews.com/2008/08/29/12503-caterpiller-expands-its-global-business-model-in-china/
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/CG24504.htm
And you can go back and look, or remember, Cat was one of the primary lobbyest forces to restrict imported steel tariffs. Using them as an example of "all made in merika!" is just false. They use a lot of foreign sourced, and are gradually shifting production eastward, just like every other manufacturing industry has been doing. Of course not all the way yet, but this is the trend, and thousands and thousands of abandoned factories in the US prove this.
When I was a kid, and the US was the largest creditor nation, we really *did* have a lot of "all made here" things, heck, most everything was. As manufacturing keeps getting outright offshored or has become dependent on imported components so all there is is the last stage assembly, we have gradually replaced produced wealth from the "vertical stack" manufacturing model we used to have with *debt*, national and private, and running trade deficits, and have been sneaking up on economic collapse. This economic situation has exactly paralleled the shift in manufacturing.
Manufacturing is the big kahuna on producing wealth. You stop doing it, you start to go downhill. You increase doing it, you prosper. The more that is vertically integrated within your own area, the more those currency units get spent and respent and respent where they improve the over all local economy. The more you ship them out, the more the local economy goes sour and the more in debt you go.
There is going to come up a point where the manufacturing nations like china will no longer be interested in IOUs and will only want to do business with such areas as provide them with real wealth, the raw resources and energythey need, for their products (a few billion people, a good market size), and that combined with their own internal markets will be *large enough* for them to just say "thanks, but don't really need ya anymore as customers old western nations, see ya!" to the nations that previously made stuff..like the US.
Now I know this doesn't matter to the top 1%, they are globalists and can just move, they don't care. The rest of the people though..
This is the deal, is this economy, the "official" numbers, a reflection of the good deal for wall street, their economy, or of main street? Which is more important, making sure the top 1% keep getting richer, or trying to maintain a better balance, especially within your own middle class?
"there shouldn't be one .... due to the false economy ..."
Statements which look to be made from your world view. Unfortunately, those that have the power make the rules. If China has a strangehold on a limited resource, they make the rules (or at the very least have something to negotiate with in a bigger context).
I'm afraid your world view doesn't count for very much if you don't have the resources or influence to enforce it.
At the end of WWII the industrialized world had been literally blown to pieces, except in the U.S. because the war hadn't reached any of our industrialized regions. Additionally, major powers such as China and Russia began to experiment in earnest with Communism. The U.S. was able to supply the world with what it needed and it prospered greatly, with 1950-1965 being one of the most prosperous periods in our history. From the wealth gained out of this temporary position we decided that we would build a 'Great Society' that would guarantee minimum standards for all citizens.
However, Communism failed, and its leaders knew they had to make changes or suffer a revolution with them on the receiving end, so they began to embrace certain aspects of Capitalism to increase the standard of living and gainfully employ the citizens.
China was one of those countries. It had the most people, the most unemployed, uneducated, impoverished people and loads of land worth next to nothing, with lots of resources to boot. It employed its capitalism through free-trade zones. These zones were actually as difficult to leave and enter as the country's border itself, with fences and checkpoints the whole way along, although this policy would change later, it illustrates how they did not truly embrace Capitalism.
As if the advantages of a huge population of desparate workers and millions of acres of available land weren't enough, the Chinese Government drew up a clever scheme to make their production costs even lower on an international scale. They required all foreign transactions to be transacted in U.S. dollars. Since they had a huge trade surplus, especially when considering this was for all transactions with customers from all countries, they could quickly amass a significant number of U.S. dollars. They then used the dollars to purchase U.S. debt. This debt could then be used to maintain an artificially low exchange rate on the Chinese currency (called Yuan or Renminbi (RMB)) with respect to U.S. dollars, conveniently the only currency the factories could use.
Meanwhile, the cost of doing anything in the U.S. increased substantially, spawning from things such as the Great Society initiatives, laws to encourage unionizing, and various other policies that made sense only for a nation with no industrialized competitors. For all intents and purposes we stopped allowing legal immigrants to come to our country, cutting off a key labor supply used throughout the Industrial Revolution.
(I always like to point out that "Made in America" all too often really means "Made by Illegal Aliens").
So with high costs to employ people, a nearly non-existent bottom-end production workforce and deficits to build and maintain pegged currencies, substantial amounts of production has moved offshore, with much of it going to China. China is really just the most visible because of its size. Many people talk about all the things they purchase that are 'Made in China', but the real test is to look at all the things people purchase that are not made in China. After posing this question to a friend he declared that the only thing in his house that was Made in America was the house itself. China is often just the final assembly point for a manufacturer, who probably gets chips and other components from Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. The very, very bottom production, such as clothes and shoe manufacturing, rarely comes from China now, and even the Chinese factories are moving basic elements of production to nearby Vietnam. I ran into a toilet paper manufacturer that had moved final production to Vietnam, leaving the more difficult production stages in China.
Another factor in China's growth has been the apparent increase in value of the Euro. Since China still requires trade in U.S. dollars, the Europeans are seeing no increase in the cost of Chinese made goods. In fact, most importers I've met have told me that the rate of inflation in China has been about equal to rate of increase in the Euro to the U.S. Do
This sounds like a job for a WAR, uh, I mean, for the good 'ol USA to handle.
Let's go in and kick some Chinese ass, take names, n' git 'er done!
Even the Saudis don't have infinite levers over oil pricing. If the global price goes up too much they make a short term windfall but at a certain point it becomes feasable for the rest of the world to develop technologies to reclaim "less cheap" oil which over a longer term can be detremental to their profits.
China isn't the only place in the world Neodynmium can be obtained to meet world supply. It may currently be the cheapest but the world will simply not sit on its hands and not increase their output as a result of scaracity of supply caused by artifical hoarding. Markets don't work that way.
What is smart about this specific equation is that it may be possible to control demand for the raw materials by making it economically sound for companies to simply go thru China for finished product and the worlds markets might possibly tolerate such schemes to some degree if done right but I think more likely than not this will only put pressure on the rest of the world to increase their production to compensate which ultimately hurts China.
Hoard your broken hard drives?
Just not by right wing governments. Clinton fixed the Nixon/Reagan deficit. Bush has left a bigger mess, but it can be fixed.
China currently has unprecedented influence on the US, even if none of us wants to come right out and say.
And the US has enormous influence on China. Happens anytime two countries are major trading partners and world powers. What exactly is your point?
"Future wars will be fought not about oil but rare earth materials."
Nonsense. The model for getting those already exists in Africa, where one pays the locals what the market will bear and they handle the light work,
War disrupts mining, while unconventional logistics route around inconvenient situations.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
California Has Enough a Neodynmium at the Mountain Pass Mine to supply all US needs for the foreseeable future. Though the environmental movement has shut down the mine, it can be opened back up in very little time to provide these materials to the US.
First, though, I have a question: How many of these "Rare Earth Metals" are only rare on Earth.
My question is how many of them are abundant in space, but are simply limited on the planet?
While the doom and gloom scenarios I've read concerning this (not just this incident of hoarding with the Chinese, but also Oil in the Mid-East, etc. -- anywhere where the "haves" are attempting to limit how much gets to the "have nots") and I don't see it as scary as all.
I'm a liberal-Capitalist. What makes me different than a "Conservative" Capitalist is that I don't allow myself to be boxed in.
Conservatives bitch and moan regarding the United State's government's declining to tap the piss-dribble of oil still left in places like Alaska as though that's all that stands between being dependent on the Saudis and being completely liberated of oil dependence (feel free to read a healthy dose of sarcasm into my preceding statement).
They speak as thought the essence of Capitalism is doing the exact same thing forever and any voice to change the status quo is somehow un-Capitalistic! Forgetting of course THAT THE ESSENCE OF CAPITALISM IS OPENING A WINDOW WHEN SOMEONE OR SOMETHING CLOSES THE DOOR!
The only reason we use petroleum today is because we almost ran out of what we used before petroleum (for the curious kids out there, that would be Whale Oil).
This is no different. I feel we're quickly coming to a crossroads where things such as this will force us to finally stop squabbling over the piss-dribble of resources found on Earth proper and start to explore near-space. I'm not talking about going to Mars, Venus, or anything as outlandish as that. I'm talking about near-earth astroids (some of which are little more difficult to reach than the moon was).
While I don't know about "Rare Earth Metals" in particular, we *do* know that in easily reachable orbits are asteroids with literally TRILLIONS of dollars worth of Nickel, Iron, and Platinum. Resources (especially Platinum) which are also closely tied to the so-called "Green" economy.
In my humble opinion, I say let the Chinese have their day in the sun (after all, we once held the World's largest reserves of oil -- bet you kids find that hard to believe, huh!) Allow them to control anything they want within their own borders and we'll simply follow the Capitalist moniker and "open a window to get around their closed door".
I guarantee you, once we start (speaking of not having to squabble on Earth, but can simply search out ever increasing frontiers throughout near-Earth, and eventually the entire Solar System and beyond), things will never be the same.
Imagine never having to go to war because one country can literally cut another off from vital resources. Imagine (speaking as an American,thank you) being able to combine our entrepreneurial spirit with unlimited resources and potential.
I don't mean to sound goofy here, but there there really would be no end to what we could achieve.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
The factory I work in (central Illinois) manufactures mass produced machines for the automotive and marine industries. We use inconel from UK, steel from Canada, and aluminum from Wisconsin. Even the packing we use is made by International Paper in Texas. I'm sure we use products from China in support of our operations, but the Lion's share that goes into the finished product is NOT from China. The AS400 that runs the factory may be made in China, I don't have the bill of material. The cleaning supplies; same thing; no BOM, etc. Your results may vary. I drive Chevy's, Buick's, GMC truck, Harley bike, and a Winnebago. At least I try to buy AMERICAN. How bout you?
Your last thought intrigues me. What's special about American? I was born in, raised in, and still live in the United States, but I don't understand why you would give blind allegiance or stronger preference for stuff made in your own country. If a product from another country genuinely outperforms a product from the USA on all fronts (cost, efficiency, etc.), why would you stick with the American product? The only conclusion I can make from classical economics (i.e. not behavioral economics) is that you have a higher utility for patriotism than I do.
It's redistribution of wealth, wealth is streaming out of the US to China/India/Mexico/etc the thing Americans should have hated Bush over was continuing and even speeding up Clinton's destroy America China most favored nation trade status and the north american free trade crap. For the last 40 years we should have taxed the hell out of everything from china and refused to send them any raw material, instead, we paid them to take our raw materials, and offered their crap tax free, while taxing the hell out of stuff made in America. This whole global warming green economy is just another way to redistribute wealth to the places like dictator ships all over the world, after all the progressives hate the middle class, and there is no faster way to destroy the middle class than raising the cost of energy.
You need to take a look at how money is created and destroyed. Running a deficit is how the US government creates money (it is borrowed into existence). If you destroy money, you get a recession, so under the current monetary system (i.e. the fed), the US government is pretty much guaranteed to run a deficit, leading to exponentially increasing national debt.
hth.
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... to stick up my nostrils in polar alignment?
They've already started. They're buying stuff all over the place. Particularly commodities, raw materials etc.
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China is cornering a NUMBER of important minerals. Sadly, the west is not taking notice. We still have idiots running around on this site claiming that this is not a big deal, even though this is PRECISELY the kind of actions that lead to wars (restriction of access to goods). Most nations can handle having goods go up in prices, and then they will find alternatives (bring it in-house, etc), but having a gov. actually buying up rare earth mines for the last 10 year and then shutting them down, or sending all the output back to that govs is a fast way to cause the rest of the world to call it quits with working with that nation.
That is also why 6 months ago, I was suggesting sending sats to asteroids to start mapping these and figuring out what resources are where. We need the ability to know where we can get resources when they are needed. Sadly, we are quickly headed there.
One last thought, Australia has several new rare earth mines that China tried VERY HARD to buy, but the Australian gov shut that down. But it turns out that several American companies have found rare earth ores in North America (America and Canada). Not sure what the contents or to what percentage, but at least that will allow the west to keep going without seeing wars come around until we can find it elsewhere.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Enough said.
"Read Chinese history and see if this happened before by any chance" ...
Although, if you want a good night sleep, it might be adviseable not to do so. China looks damned huge on a map, doesn't it ? I wonder how much those borders changed in 100 years ... (again, if you want a good night sleep, don't check)
Realistically, there are tons of situations that are powder kegs. There's always the middle east, but there's also the muslim situation in Northern Europe, and frankly if the economy doesn't recover there will soon be a "latin" situation in southern united states. Russia is another powder keg, controlling much of the energy supply of Europe (without which much of Europe would be uninhabitable to 90% of it's population don't forget). There's the enormous tension between "the gulf" of the middle east and Iran (and let's not forget, Iran has a barely functioning army, which beats the crap out of the "no army" approach of the gulf for obvious reasons). Iraq, thanks to Bush, is stabilizing for now. Everybody knows that it doesn't take much to blow that keg. Pakistan, and especially India and China's reaction to Pakistani agression (which are constant) are another wild card.
It seems likely that at least one keg will blow up. It seems likely that will happen soon.
We mostly don't have a command economy, while China mostly does. China is able to have long-term coherent planning that we can only dream of.
Here in the USA, who would buy up the supplies? Maybe a few speculators with no real use for the metals would do that, but they'll sell to the higest bidder whenever they please. They won't work together to control supplies for the good of the nation.
Suppose the government took control of the supplies. OK, how do we use the supplies? We'd auction them off! Even if we did limit the auction participants to US citizens, we wouldn't stop those people from selling to China or even acting as agents for China.
The human mind is not even able to comprehend 6 billion people, let alone feel any allegiance to them. For my part, I try to take my custom to my family and friends first, town and local area second, country third, and others last. You can stuff your economics where the sun don't shine. Lord knows I am no selfless champion, but it feels good to conduct business with people I know. I don't feel BAD about buying world products from faceless suppliers, but I feel better about buying local WHEN POSSIBLE.
I travel to China all the time. All you do is go there with huge, empty suitcases and return with them full. If you're returning with more junk than you can fit in the suitcases, just wrap it up on a pallet and ship it LCL back home. Heck, if it's light enough, just air it home. There are a ton of things you'll save money on.
I'm wondering if PPH is trying to claim that you can't get cash through a border? Only $10,000? Are you serious?
Well of course it's a statement made from my world view. It happens to be the same world view as millions of other people.
Let China push us just a little too far and then see what kind of influence we have.
Something tells me Alkane [ www.alkane.com.au ] will be going up in value soon!
This is an issue of natural resources. China has the right to restrict exports of their raw materials; they'll have to because by 2012, some of the major rare-earth mines will be nearly exhausted in China. Motors and generators don't need to use rare-earth magnets; they can use ceramic or no magnets at all. Car alternators use no magnets as I understand, but they aren't very efficient either. Battery powered and hybrid vehicles may green but there is even concerns for peak Lithium (Lithium ion batteries) and even the supply of lead for lead-acid batteries will be gone in 30-40 years. The supply of lead will end much sooner if off-grid solar power takes off because of the use of deep-cycle lead-acid battery banks. Fuel cell vehicles with average-efficiency electric motors may be feasible. We may be able to work-around dwindling raw resources using other materials that will eventually dwindle. The only sustainable solution is adopt the lifestyle of the Amish. Using real horsepower buggies, mechanical energy from water wheels and donkeys, lighting/heating from lanterns, torches, and wood stoves will curb the demand for materials used for electricity production and storage.
Regards, Vincent
Our democratic system contains a serious flaw because budget deficits are allowed, enabling instant gratification for all elected officials with payments beginning only after their term of office. Since tax payers and voters are different electorates, iterative evolution preferred parties exploiting it to the fullest for which is what we had for almost 20 years now in all Western countries. All types of government struggle hard when the budget is strained too far and has to be cut back, but I seriously doubt a Western-style democracy is able to do that, especially as there is no more defined "demos" anywhere that could come to a finite set of consensuses, but a gaggle of minorities clamoring for their share of the loot.
Yep. The fundamental difficulty in fixing this is that redistributing power requires consent of those who currently have the power. This rarely ever happens without major revolution-style violence.
The fix is pretty clear though:
Votes are weighted by contribution to the budget. The taxes you pay, minus fedaral-related (contractors included) salary and/or benefits, are your contribution. If your contribution is positive, that is the weight of your vote.
Politicians collect most of their pay after leaving office, proportional to sustained GDP improvements.
Replace "American" with "local" and the GP's position might become clearer to you.
If not: because if a local product is "good enough", buying the foreign product risks damage* to the local economy in any situation where foreign trade is subject to hostile interests**, which is unfortunately all too common.
*flesh wounds add up, see also: tragedy of the commons
**anyone more interested in their own profit than your wellbeing, or worse at the expense of your wellbeing***
***see also: dunbar's number, corporate psychopathy
Note also that I am not saying one should never buy foreign goods. Just that one should avoid preferring foreign over local solely on face value (which sadly a lot of people base their buying on) when local is good enough and within your budget.
From:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/178225-on-the-rare-earth-crisis-of-2009 [seekingalpha.com]
and that's why I have no sympathy. As usual, ignoring the elephant in the room. They're deliberately empowering China. They gave them nukes. They're offloading jobs, and technology galore to China as we speak. I love you will get your wake up call. You din't believe in sub-prime, you didn't believe in the corruption with the Fed. Nothing gets through to you and it may never will.
& even though it's your fault, you will still cast a nasty eye to people like me for being right. "You were only right because you believe in coonspiracy theory mumbo jumbo"
"you just guessed". "I knew it all along myself, I just didn't want to open my big mouth, unlike you"
The thing is I'd give anything for you to get your way, and for me to look stupid. That's fine. I'd happily take that if it didn't mean becoming a complete slave. I don't want Chinese labor law - slavery. I don't want a cruel metalic, spiritless slave society to dominate Earth, but unfortunately what I think doesn't matter. It's what YOU think.
I sure as hell don't want to be the one to say I told you so, but you just don't get it...
There are lots of places that could serve as battlegrounds for a US/China war. Some of them could involve nukes, either homegrown or supplied by US/China. Lots of these are likely, and many get the "oh fuck!" designation:
South Korea / North Korea
Japan / unified Korea
Taiwan / itself
Colombia / Venuzuela
Cuba / itself
Iran / itself
Israel / Saudi Arabia
Chile / Bolivia
anywhere in Africa
The CIA can fix this. Pakistan, separatists, quality scares, price fluctuations, small wars in Africa, cults and color revolutions. :)
As the Germans sent Lenin into ww1 Russia, the CIA can send in NGO's, cults, fads, fashion, media, music, porn and drugs.
All this will chip away at the CCP (Communist Party of China) as they keep their wages low to keep jobs and exports up.
So the CIA knows just where to put its efforts.
China ia not India, with an election to at least have the public option to try and flush out the system.
China is just the race for cash in a toxic wonderland.
Sure they can hire smart people to build pretty things and export on demand, but deep down the Party is spooked.
Their only trick is 'we fail, its all gone". That works for a few decades, but its cracking.
So never worry, if things get tight in the West, the CIA and its whispered about friends can get your precious back, until then let China produce all your junk and keep the toxic mess far away.
Africa is the key and expect to see many 'anti terror' wars on some really nice soil thats just waiting to be mined.
China is trying to buy up all it can, but Africa is the CIA's playground.
For every cold war dictator who get roads for mines from China, a band of freedom fighters are learning and cashed up by CIA front groups.
If that fails, turn on clan, group, tribe on another and watch the mines burn.
Then send in the NGO's. All past contracts will be useless in a new democracy
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Good, China cornering the market on rare earth metals will make it highly profitable to mine asteroids for the same. With the profits we can build a true spacefaring civilization and improve condition on Earth. http://www.tricitiesnet.com/donsastronomy/mining.html
In the short term, yes, having cheap goods is nice. Long term, we have lost manufacturing expertise, which china has gained. How can we fight a war without products from others now? I am not a hawk, and yet even I see the danger in this.
This interesting article http://www.australianrareearths.com/china-attacks-australian-rare-earths.html talks about the aggressive chinese companies that are buying heavily into the australian rare earth mining concerns. Sober reading if you think that it's easy to switch to other suppliers...
most western countries in the same position would do the same as would any corporate entity in the western hemisphere
Well, America wouldn't...
That is, as long as the labor costs involved with making or building whatever from whatever is artificially cheaper someplace else, then our right - our CEOs, our Wall Street boyz, our bankers (in short, our Republicans) - will happily export whatever strategic metals we have as well as the industrial infrastructure required to utilize it.
I feel quite comfortable in making that assertion, since that is precisely what they have been doing. China is well aware of their greed, and has been playing it like the proverbial fiddle.
I just hope that China is content with the prospect of the economic domination of the world, and doesn't go into the harvesting-of-land-and-wealth-with-a-bang game once they feel they have accumulated sufficient strategic metals to withstand embargo or interdiction of any further supplies for a time. A time defined, of course, by the period required to convert the technologically-advanced industrial infrastructure that our corporate government gifted them with into history's largest armaments plant.
If China's less-than-public master plan does include such a strategy, then I am afraid that I would face a bit of a moral dilemma. I would have a really hard time convincing myself that protecting those of us who have sold us out in order to ensure that they have the most to lose is worthwhile.
Especially in light of the fact that this would be the second time that they've put it to the American people in order to enrich themselves. Actually, it is a little worse this time; the warping of our inequality curve has surpassed that of 1929.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
The only green metal I need is CroMoly Steel for my bicycle. We don't need all that energy. We use so much to do so little: If we worked less we would do more!
We need a paradigm shift but likely this is just going to be another crisis of Capitalism that continues with new branding, just as we greenwashed oil burning cars into coal-electricity burning nuclear cars.
Stupidity is its own reward.
...and fits on your back!
Stupidity is its own reward.
I hate to be denigrating computer processes here on slashdot but...
That is exactly the sort of logic that stupid designers who have no real knowledge of materials and real world production/limitations/strengths use. They have no experience designing except in Solidworks. That is a great program but if you start that way you miss so much, it costs so much more, it eventually doesn't work when you lose the old guy who still remembers what the real world constraints are. Look at all the crap designers put out that is supposed to be the next big thing and is supposedly well thought out. For instence the Segway. Things get designed by designers who are just out of touch. That is what my Art/Design School was like. I like to weld. I was totally frustrated by the attitude. I like computers too. The school is all computers though, and I don't mean linux, and programming and actual smart computer. It's just pay a bunch of money for Solidworks and a suite of other Professional looking programs that could be useful in the hands of the right people but are just window dressing on bad ideas... that is what we are teaching now. Superficial success through ignoring experience and blindly embracing the new off the shelf technology that we are hooked on and don't understand. My school was a bunch of hipsters posing as geeks. Welcome to the post-modern.
Stupidity is its own reward.
Yet another reason to stop buying crap made in China - "Designed" in California or otherwise.
In my country I at least have a choice. I hope you do too.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Can't one just use Caesium oxide? The electron behaviour ought to be the same as Neodymium.
I love how China warned/pleaded with us not to have protectionism-style economics back when our economy first fell apart. Now here they are, starting the same thing up....Guess I should have figured, everyone else will look out for themselves first....except us.
As I said, someone has been asleep. It is the old idea that England had pre-WW2. They thought they could outsource all the boring stuff like farming to their colonies, because they controlled the seas. And then they didn't and they had to dig for victory.
Outsource your economy at your own peril.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
All must bow to thier Chinese masters!!
Have a look at farm subsidies. One reason why third world farmers are poor is because first world subsidies have made the sale of foodstuffs uneconomic for the third world who don't have anything to subsidise their food production with.
Unlike coal, you still have the rare earths. The amount you have is a limit on how MANY you can have operational at one time.
To INCREASE renewables, we need more of the RECYCLABLE components like neodymium. But to MAINTAIN coal power, we need MORE COAL.
What a fucking moron.
They go WAY out of their way to protect wall street and the casino gambling industry and the offshoring industry. When have you EVER heard of an emergency need trillions of dollars no questions asked do it right now or else deal like they got? Where is all their capitalist free market rules where if you screw up, you go bankrupt, smarter people take over whatever assets you have, at a real fair true market price? It was strongarm *extortion*.
We got "protectionism" for wall street, with their socialized risk but private profits model, this non stop continual exploitation and ripoffs of main street to make the multi millionaires into billionaires while our trade deficits soar, while little guy bankruptcies continue, while evictions continue, while entire commuinities get wiped out when their manufacturing core base gets offshored, so that a few "investors" can squeeze even more short term profits out. Then when it is destroyed, They get bailed out with further golden parachute bonuses for all their "good work", and go get annointed to some other company to do the same thing, lather, rinse, repeat.
They just don't want to call it protectionism, but if it walks like a duck....
And look at china and their policies, how is that anything *but* national protectionism, where they are partners with those traitors on wall street who are ripping off the rest of the nation? And yes, I said *traitors*. They aren't just normal thieves and scumbags, they are traitors. Their employees have infested and infected government to make sure they get everything their way, they run the fed, the treasury, the sec, all of it, the most obvious and blatant revolving door "jobs" policy ever, the largest encouraged and tolerated and officially approved "conflict of interest" ever thought up.
I don't consider "protectionism" to be a bad word, it is *exactly* what I want government to do, that's is the contract we are supposed to have, to be MY government, protect me and my neighbors, else, what is the point of even having a government? The only thing they do now is make sure the top wealthiest 1% international globalists stay that way, no matter what else happens to everyone else. It's a globalist corporate kleptocracy hiding behind a very thin and transparent facade of "elected representational government" with the two completely corrupt major parties constantly selling their votes for cheap, to keep them fatcats happy. Blatantly obvious, everything from the top **AA stooges to the casino banksters to the international weapons industry to big pharma. FDA, revolving door back to big pharma, old fart retired political career military officers, revolving door to the military industrial blood profits establishment, USDA, revolving door to the terminator seed and spray everything toxic known to man dudes, and etc, you can go up and down and sideways of the list of this "necessary government" and see all the ripoffs occurring.
Just freakin blatant
They are bound and determined to wipeout the middle class here and turn the US into a two class masters/owners and serfs/renters/peons/economic always in debt for life to "them" feudalistic type society, something I call "technofeudalism". The old two class medieval model now with new and shiny better tech, including a more advanced command and surveillance and control police state apparatus, now being pushed on everyone due to "security" and "terrorism" boogieman stuff, their excuse that they go out of their way to create to "prove" these measures are needed, just like this last mind controlled zombie patsy airplane bomber. Eyewitness accounts, a handler got him on the plane, another one was filming the scene, another one got caught by low level security at the detroit airport..all of that has now poofed away down the regular rathole they always use and they are in denial and their controlled tame propaganda press is going along with it. Nuts, seen this before, their standard crap, Hegelian dialectic at work.
This is why those skunks just love china, th
well, hell, if you want to go pedantic, you can head off any number of directions and hit "Asia" eventually, including both east and west and tangents thereof. Go over the polar area, starting from the central US, head mostly north and a scosh west and you'll hit some reasonably populated area in Asia. Go exactly straight north you will eventually hit way the heck out in the boonies Asia, for another example. Got any other points to make? I'll make a note of this and next time instead of using the commonly accepted "east and west" terms referring to global regions, I will use a proper noun instead. Fair enough?
The model for getting those already exists in Africa, where one pays the locals what the market will bear and they handle the light work,
War disrupts mining, while unconventional logistics route around inconvenient situations.
What model? You mean like cotton from Burkina Faso? Where big corp suppressed the development of a local textile industry and are forcing them to repay their development loans in cotton at a price below the international mark?
What if Madagascar resists export of rare earth ores like China is doing?
Within fifteen years, we will probably have an open insurgency somewhere in the Greater London, Brussels or Paris when their Muslim reaches the size of a small Arab state like Lebanon and Syria.
I'm tired of the "eurabia" sabre-rattling crowd. It's a ludicrous proposition. The US absorbs more Vietnamese immigrants than Europe has Muslims, but you don't see any chest-beasting & flag-humping "patriots" warning us against the imminent cultural collapse of Vietnamerica. Nope, you just hear the rants about "Islamofascist" (a lame word if there ever was one) "takeover" of Europe. I have several acquaintenances who repeat this meme and none have spent any measurable amount of time in Europe and thus have no idea what a crock of horseshit is is that they are spewing.