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Japan Begins Recycling Rare Earth Metals From Electronics
Black Gold Alchemist writes "Dowa, a Japanese mining company in Kosaka, has begun the recycling of rare earth metals from used cellphones and computers. This is in response to a recent, temporary trade embargo from China, which is the leading supplier of rare earth metals needed for production of products including hybrid cars, wind turbines, and LCD screens. Because of the shortage of rare earth metals, Japanese trade minister Akihiro Ohata is asking the government to include a rare earth strategy in its supplementary budget for this year."
Using them as a policy-making tool has done no harm to Japan, and potentially a lot of harm to the credibility of China as an economic player, especially to its counterparties in Asia, but also anyone who may have a reason to expect potential future clash of interests.
I know it is a common theme here to bash China for anything and everything, but restricting exports due to national interest is SOP for every single country on this planet!
Are you going say US restrictions on crypto/hi-tech export is doing "a lot of harm to the credibility of the US as an economic player"? Are you going to say Russia's restricting food export due to projected shortage, or Thailand's restriction of rice export due to poor harvest is doing "a lot of harm to the credibility of these 2 countries as an economic player"?
Restricting export to Japan, which Chinese officials keep denying BTW, is just a simple message to Japan saying "we are not going to let you slap us in our face and then expect business to go on smoothly".
Separating rare earths out of electronics waste is actually not that difficult: hit it with acid; do some basic purification first to get rid of Fe, Cu and a few other "usual suspects"; after that ion exchange chromatography does the deed.
Separating them from other stuff is easy, usually because these elements are very reactive. Separating them from each other is another, much harder task. Actually, using ion exchange chromatography I doubt you can get tonnes of chemically pure metal. You need a lot of fancy chemistry. Actually this is the most polluting part of the industrial process and one of the contributing factors to closing US and European refining plants.
Are you going say US restrictions on crypto/hi-tech export is doing "a lot of harm to the credibility of the US as an economic player"?
It most certainly did. Did you miss the few years in the 90s when it spurred a large body of crypto research and work outside of the US by all parties, who were affected by the ban?
Are you going to say Russia's restricting food export due to projected shortage, or Thailand's restriction of rice export due to poor harvest is doing "a lot of harm to the credibility of these 2 countries as an economic player
Having a reason for the restriction (shortage due to a crop failure) is something quite different from using trade limits as a policy tool. I am not sure why you can't see the difference.
For example, the attempts of Putin to use gas exports as a policy tool in Europe has certainly brought more than a few frowns from the EU. With Ukraine, it exploded into a full-blown trade war.
is just a simple message to Japan saying "we are not going to let you slap us in our face and then expect business to go on smoothly".
It is my understanding that the arrested captain tried to ram a Japanese vessel. This is certainly a crime in Japan, and probably one in China. In this case, it seems China is applying laws more selectively than Japan.
I don't think it's wise to thank countries for exacerbating a territorial dispute. The world has enough of those now, we don't need another escalation or spat between countries.
Are you American? Perhaps it would be educational for you to realize that the whole territorial dispute mess is intentionally created by the US to start with?
Use some common sense here, Japan lost WW2. Why would the losing country still have any territorial dispute with other countries in the region? Wouldn't everything be settled (to the disadvantage of the losing side) when WW2 ends?
Well, consider this imaginary scenario. France was controlled by Germany during WW2 and was eventually liberated, so let's imagine that the US army controlled all France territory when WW2 ends. Now, instead of returning all former France territory to France, the US decided to keep, say, a few islands to itself. At that time, France being devastated after the war, was in no position to protest. Cue 20 years later, imagine France and US being not in very good relationship, but West Germany became a lapdog of the US, so US returned those island, not to France, but to Germany! Now, will it be a surprise to you that France and Germany will have territorial dispute for decades to come?
This was essentially what US did to the Diaoyu Island after WW2, in 1972 they returned it to Japan instead of to China, which has claim over the island since hundreds of years ago. Not surprisingly, China and Japan has been squabbling about it ever since.
It's really not that difficult. A waste-energy plant I have as a client already separates out glass, copper, brass, zinc, ferrous metal, and aluminum, and this is an old plant, built in the late 1980s that was really only designed to produce power plant fuel. The material separation is more about protecting the furnaces at the generating plant with a refined fuel product than recycling. I think most of the metal separation is targeted at cash value.
It is my understanding that the arrested captain tried to ram a Japanese vessel. This is certainly a crime in Japan, and probably one in China. In this case, it seems China is applying laws more selectively than Japan.
One thing to note is that there is a video of the event but it hasn't been seen by anyone other than the investigating parties. The Diet has asked to see it and there is a debate over whether or not to let the government see the video. Apparently there is some worries that making the video public (even to just the government) could incite China further. However, part of me wonders if that's the whole story. After all this fuss, I'd certainly like to see it...
In fact, we should say thank you to China on this one.
Recent news reports have Japan accusing China of this being over a territorial dispute. The traders are saying that things have resumed but that this is just an excuse for China to harass traders and outbound exports with "preshipment" checks. China denies this has anything to do with the dispute but the timing is more than a bit suspect and why is this only directed at Japan?
China is in territorial dispute with every SE-Asian country that has a shoreline. They claim sovereignty over every island down to the Philippines. For example, they have claims over Paracel islands which in theory, belong to Vietnam. Recently they started to harass fishing boats, hold them at ransom, very similar to what Somalian pirates do. Vietnam has historical documents to prove their claim - irony is, that actually some of the documents the Chinese produced to prove their point turned out to be validate the Vietnamese claims (they mention these islands as "foreign lands" in their records). Also, they threatened foreign companies (oil exploration) that had contracts with Vietnamese oil companies to back out. Finally - this started this year - they began to organize "tours" to these islands, showing the beauty of these "most remote Chinese lands." In reality, there's nothing to see there actually. Except Vietnamese fishermen who lived there for generations. Well, not anymore, actually, but you get the point ... just trying to illustrate how territorial the Chinese are... and how arrogant.
Electronics is easy. You take it to the electronics shop and they take care of it for you. I'm not sure exactly what they do, but I'm assuming it's fairly rigorous. Japan just doesn't have any landfill space...
Often, it is sent to China http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/10/video-chinas-toxic-wastelands-of-consumer-electronics-revealed/ . It is supposed to be illegal now, and presumably regulations are being enforced http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_Convention
Interesting.
That's a novel. I had no idea what it was (thought maybe movie, book, video game).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_a_dark_background
Based on the amount we pay for trash pickup, the 40% tax rate, Norwegian's compulsive honesty I'm pretty sure it's being dealt with appropriately. Every large kommune also has a bio-gas plant where a good deal of the gas-able materials go. As for the E-Waste, I don't rightly know. In the USA, a good deal of the E-Waste is just dumped in third world countries.
But again, based on the typical Norwegian compulsive and inescapable honesty, they probably recycle the computer bits using a method that is five times more expensive and six times cleaner than the international "standard".
The most environmentally unfriendly thing Norwegians do is hunt whales.
This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes