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California Rare-Earth Mine Reopens
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.
Finally, someone bringing radioactive waste water releases back to America!
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.
So you want to sell your nation away people like you should go to a re education camp!
The more we mine them, the less rare they will be. Doesn't this defeat the purpose? .... ;)
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.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Don't you guys read articles and look at infographics? All technology and infrastructure instantly hits a standstill the second those articles and infographics are released. By opening this mine they are destroying the fragile web of stupidity created by the idiots that make those things. Just think, somebody may even try to create technologies that use less rare-earth minerals!
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.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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 costs of environmental technologies.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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
Oh look. They also signed deals with Sumitomo and Mitsubishi: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/T101219002181.htm
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
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
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?
Please help metamoderate.
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.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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 continue to buy from China.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
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 dig up our own in our backyard," that makes the threat pointless. We could go back and forth with it, China says we won't sell, we start digging, china sells, we stop digging, china stops selling etc, but that's not really in anyone's interests to stress the market like that, you'd just be introducing chaos to a big economic sector.
Whether or not the right actors realize that and are mature enough to deal with the problems rather than playing games with billions of dollars is one thing, but assuming the Chinese diplomats and government isn't completely bullheaded about it, they'll either back off from threatening the embargo once they see it won't be that big of a deal for us, the US will the the mature one and not make too big a fuss out of too many issues (ideally focusing on human rights rather than unimportant corporate/copyright issues, though that's doubtful), or both will compromise.
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.
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?
I have a feeling that they're banking on China getting mad that the US will have a significant mine. If they say "Oh, you want to make your own? Fine, BANHAMMER!" and stop all rare earth exports, that mine will turn into the sole source for the US and they can charge whatever they want. If they start getting materials and China doesn't do anything different, the US company still has to compete with China's current prices which aren't THAT high right now. It's all just theoretical that China could skyrocket the prices if they wanted to. So since they won't make much money otherwise, they definitely have to be speculating that China will try to retaliate and it will work in their favor.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
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.
They probably closed the US operation because China could manufacture it cheaper. Kinda puts the California company in a position to exploit the market.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
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.
Better known as 318230.
Considering the mutual hatred the Japanese and Chinese share toward each other, it's not surprising that the Japanese would want to buy rare earths from us rather than the Chinese. In my narrow view of economics, any time we can export something it's a plus. Our trade deficit hasn't exactly been ideal lately.
The game.
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.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
DEAR MR. FRANK_TUDOR, MY NAME IS NIMBU-ADAMINABI, I AM THE SON OF THE LATE FORMER DIRECTOR OF RARE EARTH MINING, EXECUTIVE MBUDAH-ADAMINABI OF THE NIGERIA RARE EARTH MINING COMPANY. DUE TO POLITICAL REASONS, MY MINING COMPANY, ESTIMATED TO BE WORTH IN EXCESS OF 78 MILLION DOLLARS, CAN NO LONGER OPERATE IN COUNTRY AND IS IN NEED OF ASSISTANCE TO BE RELOCATED TO THE USA FOR START UP. WE ARE WILLING TO FUND STARTING OPERATIONS FOR YOUR COMPANY, BUT REQUIRE ASSISTANCE TO LIQUIDATE AND TRANSFER THE 78 MILLION DOLLARS IN ASSETS OUT OF THE COUNTRY. ALL I NEED FROM YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE IS:
1) YOUR BANK NAME
2) ACCOUNT NAME
3) ACCOUNT NUMBER
4) BANK ADDRESS, TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS TO ENABLE ME TO TRANSFER THE 78 MILLION DOLLARS INTO YOUR ACCOUNT.
AS COMPENSATION FOR YOUR SERVICE, I AM OFFERING 20% OF THE ASSETS OF THE MINING COMPANY, I REALLY WANT TO INVEST IN YOUR COMPANY AS IT IS LOCATED IN A STABLE GOVERNMENT, SOCIAL, AND ECONOMICAL REGION. TO PROVE MY TRUSTWORTHINESS, I HAVE ATTACHED A COPY OF THE ASSET CERTIFICATE FROM THE BANK OF ADIJUBA IN NIGERIA WITH A LIST OF ALL COMPANY ASSETS. MY LATE FATHER CALLED ME TO HIS BEDSIDE BEFORE HIS CALL TO GLORY (R.I.P) THAT I SHOULD PRAY TO GOD FOR FIRST, BEFORE FINDING A PARTNER IN THE WONDERFUL COUNTRY OF USA. GOD GUIDED ME TO YOU AND HELPED ME AVOID EVIL MINDED AND GREEDY PEOPLE WHO MIGHT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ME AND MY COMPANY.
THANKS AND GOD BLESS.
BEST REGARDS,
NIMBU-ADAMINABI (NREMC)
We may finally see some devices that bear the sticker "Made in America"?
Boredom is bliss.
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.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Are miners not people?
The courts have often rules that minors aren't people.
*rimshot*
More Twoson than Cupertino
It looks like they are standing in one of the evaporator ponds for the radioactive waste.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
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.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
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
Oh look. They also signed deals with Sumitomo and Mitsubishi: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/T101219002181.htm
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
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
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?
This smacks of isolationism and ignorance as to how economics work. My guns and butter are more valuable being sold to Japan than in America, then sell to Japan. I get more money out of it, Uncle Sam gets more taxes out of it, my American employees get paid for creating the product, and I don't have to worry about Japan suddenly stockpiling MY products in order to stifle trade. It's literally the biggest amount of Win/Win that can occur. China made mining in America not as profitable as importing it. Now that that is over, the mine is reopening. It's as simple as that. That radioactive waste water snippet did raise my eyebrow though.
My kingdom for a donkey!
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.
Did you sleep through the part of EC101 where they talk about "externalities"? Or were you attending the "You can't make an omelette without killing some people" school of progress, where they skip that part entirely?
Luckily, when you spill thorium-laced water over a large area of desert, it never gradually turns into wind-borne radioactive dust...
Why should we trust someone who can't spell or punctuate a short post correctly to handle radioactive waste properly?
I think he must be buying it in a WOW auction. He'll probably do more damage there anyway.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
The Mountain Pass rare earth mine uses froth floatation, a water intensive process. For goodness sake get some facts right. Even in the high desert, we have these things known as "pipes."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Your points aren't really relevant. The US is once again producing something and selling it to another country. That's a good thing and lowers our trade deficit. While we'd all love for all the materials to be mined here, and all the equipment made here that goes into our military equipment... the fact of the matter is, the loop that goes: Mined in the US, made in Japan, assembled in the US is a heck of a lot better than: Mined in China, Made in China, Assembled in the US.
As far as the pollution goes, simply forcing the industry into a country that has no environmental regulations at all isn't solving the problem. We all share the globe. Even if MolyCorp only cleans up half what they should, that's still 50% better than what they are doing in China.
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.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_rare_earth_mine#Environmental_impact
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If I could, I would grant you points. Consider what we import from Japan versus what we export to them. It is balanced in their favor at the moment.
The game.
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)
Can we finally admit that we're in a cold war with china? Finally?
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.
It is not that hard to research the facts...
Mountain Pass Mine Environmental Impact
"Golly... this mine is in the high desert. There is no
such thing as hundreds of thousands of gallons of water...."
I have to assume you don't live in California. I'm an hour away from the high desert, and the WHOLE REGION has just had two weeks straight record rainfalls that beat anything in the past decade.
TRY MILLIONS OF GALLONS OF WATER, n00b.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Ssssshhh, you'll burst the bubble that is keeping the stupidity contained to themselves.
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 they will close again once the stock sale scamming has peaked.
Why is it that people like you don't move to China to live and work in their factories?
<HECKLER> If they were Incorporated then they would be legal individuals! Instead they prefer to be commie unincorporated human beings. </HECKLER>
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 resources, as opposed to comparing them with democratically managed resources.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I was unaware that the two skills are somehow related. Some of the most "powerful" people in the world have terrible grammar and punctuation skills.
People jump to a lot of conclusions on the internet.
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 stop them.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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 get them for cheap, while other people get sick and die. I'd rather pay more and have less of the getting sick and dying thing.
So, were you deliberately ignoring the obvious third choice, "Pay the full cost for what you use rather than harming others and refusing to pay for it" and are therefore dishonest? Or could you really not see that choice, and are therefore stupid?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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).
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The article says the mine will produce about 20% of China's current output, not 20% of the amount we import.
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 unemployed population to keep wages (and worker demands) very low.
But China's not stupid, they're plowing this money and tech into their military. Their submarine navy for example isn't made to carry nukes, but they ARE made to act as underwater troop carriers.
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.
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.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
There is nothing tragic about my privates.
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.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
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.
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?
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.
And me without mod points. +2 to you.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
"Are you trying to tell me the rich aren't investing in American businesses?"
What businesses? There are almost none left.
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 find links to the various counterpoints at
answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080115163841AAaTOdb
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I see you got modded Troll for telling the truth. ;-)
That'll teach you to knock reality TV
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Don't judge all the world's powerful people by a few idiots. Most of them, even the evil bastards, are very well educated
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
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 skies, Your fantasy world come true.
There is no reason to piss and moan endlessly about the rest of the populace who want nothing to do with your crap, your vision of a perfect world is already practised in China, just move already.
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.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
NIMBY STFO
I was unaware that the two attributes are somehow related. Some of the most "powerful" people in the world are not very trustworthy.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
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
Environmental damage by humans is impossible because God said so in his promise.
Environmentalism is deadly to the gospel of Jesus.
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.
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.
To do what? Do you really believe China's more interested in starting WW3 than increasing the standard of living of its population?
I am trolling
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.
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 from which rare earth metals are mined?
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.
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. Just because they did not mention the obvious solution of "Mine rare earths without polluting" does not make that solution any less obvious to most of us.
In closing, please try to pick a more original defense than "I was just joking!"
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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.
I'm not overreacting, I'm always this much of a bastard.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Well I guess we can agree on something...
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.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Fantastic. If you'd written that in a slightly more disjointed way it would pass as the real deal.
"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes." Douglas Adams
You'd buy from it because it was cheaper. The technology to keep the mine running in 2002 was too expensive to keep up with China's prices, but since then the price for the technology has gone down and China's prices (for export, at least) have gone up. Now they think they can be cheaper then China even with CA's labor and environment laws.
But more then that, the China threatened to cut off our supply of rare earth metals, and because they are used in many military applications this really is a national security issue. If I were an investor, I'd bet my money that even if China drops its tariffs back down, the US government will either tax foreign rare earth metals or subsidize their production stateside. Especially if someone donates to the right campaigns.
Does a line appended to your comment give your post meaning in and of itself, or only in relation to those without?
per capita? We imprison more people than China period.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
There is a reason we call it exploitation.
To hide the benefit? Why is it ok to be exploited by the local businesses, but not ok to be exploited, with better wages and benefits, by a multinational?
Often times intent is lost when posting. The original post struck me as one that cries about pollution but still continues to use the products. Very much a NIMBY attitude, but they have no problem with someone else's yard. That may not be what was intended, but that is the way it sounds.
I am all for responsibility in companies and individuals. However, I am not for causes, movements, etc. Most of these are composed of mindless sheep who oppose anything that they think harms the cute cuddliness of the moment.
Find a clean responsible way to extract resources and present the product to the market in a fair manner where profit can be made, reinvestment can occur and innovation can happen.
Captain Planet did a huge disservice to a generation. Too many people see companies and corporations as evil for no other reason than they fact that they are companies or corporations. Some are good, some are bad, but that can be said of anything. Judge the company or corporation by their actions, just as you should with people.
The majority of Americans are not San Fransisco based Apple Fags. The majority of Politicians though seem to be.
And you're better because you want to have sex with old dead prophets?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Yeah.
In China you don't go to jail, you just get executed.
Actually, it is a bit of an engineering problem too.
You see, it's not that the pipes couldn't be upgraded, it's that if the pipes were in place before regulations changed, then upgrading or doing anything besides bringing them back to whatever the grandfathered spec is, could trigger a crap load of other requirements to be met without touching the pipes too.
This is particularly problematic for electrical generations facilities. An attempt to put misters in the exhaust plumes of one coal burning facility to catch more fly-ash and introduce some reagent in the process supposedly to make the exhaust cleaner ended up being sidelined because they would have been forced to re-engineer the entire plant to meet 2003 regulations when the plant was built in 1955. Since then, there has been approval to use plain water to catch fly-ash but they couldn't use any chemicals without losing their grandfather status on the regulation.
So fixing things back to the way they were instead of fixing things to be better seems to be the way to avoid unnecessary costs in this regulation swapping world.
And yes, that would be an unnecessary cost. If the pollution wasn't a problem when the plant was built and put into operation, then even though it's seen as a problem today, shouldn't effect that operation.
No, it's not all going to Japan, just some.
Really? Then show me a list of US companies Molycorp has announced deals with.
Show me what US companies Molycorp has secured hundreds of millions of dollars in financing from.
*insert sound of crickets*
Please help metamoderate.
Since when is China a developed nation?
fine; pick any other country. We still jail more people than them.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Any bets that the Government of China will drop the price of rare earths once Molycorp has invested the greatest amount of capital in it and then has huge, bankruptcy risk. Expect those in the know to buy shares early and then dump them latter just before the stock price collapse.
Once into receivership a Chinese company will buy the mine and decommission it, the reduced supply will result in a substantial price increase in rare earths.
face it folks, this is standard corporate economics 101. Free market thing guarantees that it will and the greed of local investors (Americans stabbing Americans in the back and betraying their own country) ensure it will happen. Corporate law, have to buy the cheapest source of supply regardless of consequences, just invest smartly to profit as a result of those consequences.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
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.
Why is it ok to be exploited by the local businesses, but not ok to be exploited, with better wages and benefits, by a multinational?
When did anyone say being exploited by local business was ok?
GP didn't say don't do it, GP said if you make a mess clean it up. But we see time and time again that corporations cut the cleaning up corner just about every time. A corporation that wants to be responsible can't compete since they do foot the bill for the clean up, and finally the general public will still buy the cheapest item no matter how bad the corporations are.
Bottom line. Most people don't care as long as it affects someone else. That is not progress. That is short sighted.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Wow. How did that slip by the caps filter?
FYI, infant mortality rate comparisons are mostly meaningless. Everyone has their own standards when deciding if an infant is "stillborn" or not. Generally, if the baby is in a condition that they can't treat at all, it isn't counted. That's what the U.S.'s rate is comparatively high -- they try to save more infants.
http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/060924/2healy.htm
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
You did, when you considered employment by multinationals out of context. If these workers aren't being "exploited" by someone, then they aren't working.
Well, I'm a graduate student, and I own some of Molycorp (MCP). I bought in at 29.20, and look where it is now ... it looks like a hell of an investment to me. It's not just the rich who can invest in these things.
Cool. So you have decided that with zero evidence to support your position that I am a religious person. Just because I share conservative fiscal views with the right dose not make me a religious person. I know that the left loves to tell me that all points of view are the same. That all people are the same. Not true. Some people are fucking stupid. Some people take no responsibility for themselves and want the government to do it for them. There are even a few fucking idiots out there that accuse people of having certain beliefs with out any evidence.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
That article is blatant pro-America propaganda, and it cites no actual studies. It's complete bullshit.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Actually, grandfather clauses don't work like that, despite what anti-government wing nuts like to claim. Citations or shut up.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Corporations are evil by design. They cause huge moral hazards by their very structure of limited liability. It creates a diffusion of responsibility that makes it very easy for people to make very bad, very harmful decisions without having to think too hard about the consequences. We have allowed corporations to amass too much power and control over our society. As major centers of power, corporations attract all the high functioning sociopaths. They are evil, through and through.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
No. You can't wander into a discussion and demand the participants give citations for you.
Why don't you provide some counter-citations instead?
I'm telling you, anything presented with no evidence can be dismissed without evidence, and I can wander into any fucking discussion I want and demand citations. If you can't prove what you are saying, why bother saying it? Maybe that shit flies where you come from, but here at Slashdot, we demand proof of wild accusations. And one final question, who the fuck are you to wander into this thread and tell me what I can and can't do? No one, that's who. Your opinion doesn't matter, and this thread is yesterday's news, it is only the wingnuts like you still commenting.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_parachute
http://www.irstaxattorney.com/bankruptcy/Golden_Parachute.html
http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/times-mirror-exec-payoffs-revealed-tribune-bankruptcy-filing
http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2010/07/tribune-co-proposes-severance-packages-for-top-execs-if-they-are-dismissed.html
http://www.politicalwrinkles.com/economics/8338-former-wamu-execs-sue-golden-parachutes.html
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1458937/how_to_cure_the_golden_parachutes.html
But perhaps the best explanation, and the most damning to your case, can be found here:
http://definitions.uslegal.com/g/golden-parachute-payment/
I'll reprint the relevant bit here, because it is such an absolute and direct refutation of your silly, uninformed opinions.
According to 12 CFR 359.1 [Title 12 -- Banks and Banking; Chapter III -- Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Subchapter B -- Regulations and Statements of General Policy; Part 359 -- Golden Parachute and Indemnification Payments], golden parachute payment means “any payment (or any agreement to make any payment) in the nature of compensation by any insured depository institution or an affiliated depository institution holding company for the benefit of any current or former IAP pursuant to an obligation of such institution or holding company that:
(i) Is contingent on, or by its terms is payable on or after, the termination of such party's primary employment or affiliation with the institution or holding company; and
(ii) Is received on or after, or is made in contemplation of, any of the following events:
(A) The insolvency (or similar event) of the insured depository institution which is making the payment or bankruptcy or insolvency (or similar event) of the depository institution holding company which is making the payment; or
WOW! So, "Golden Parachutes" are actually (among other things) meant to protect executives in the case of bankruptcy.
I just have to ask, why do you bother? I mean, every. single. time. you try to argue with me, you lose. Doesn't it get tiring?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
How do they work then? Because what I am describing is reality. So show me how they do work.
And Yes, I am speaking from personal experience when I said a power plant in Ohio had to get a special permit to introduce the fly-ash containment and couldn't touch the reagents because the EPA would have requires a complete redesign of the stack and facility in order to comply with newer emissions regulations that would be forced on them. I was a member of the hazmat response team and we were in on most of these things as it pertained to our jobs at the plants.
Here is a good paper on the subject. Generally, only modifications that increase pollution void the grandfather clause.
https://www.law.northwestern.edu/lawreview/v101/n4/1677/LR101n4Nash.pdf
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Yawn.. Did you even read your paper?
It specifically talks about modifications pertaining to the various defined routine maintenance verses life extension repairs. It even cites Wisconsin Electric Power Company v.
Reilly (WEPCO) in reference to it. It then goes on to show that in the years after WEPCO, the EPA applied the courts four factor test to several industries and determined that the repair and maintenance performed before now qualified as Major modifications require a new site performance review.
And the cases you mentioned about the increased emissions, it's not only increased emissions, it's increased potential for emissions. In other words, if you expand or extend the life of a grandfathered facility, then it needs to undergo the current regulation reviews and meet the current standards. In the case of expanding, only the new portions would need to be under the new regulation unless it's interconnected to the old grandfathered portion in which it all goes.
This is all listed quite clearly and plainly in your article.
Yes, and that is as it should be. Grandfather clauses apply to unmodified facilities, if you modify it you need to bring it up to code.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Wow.. That's what I originally said..
however,.... Should one completely ignore ALL business considerations, then all businesses will do just that: move to China. Then, a certain amount of years from now, the Chinese companies ( read government) that have replaced these businesses will simply move back here and dictate that you take all your environmental considerations and stuff them. Because they will hold the money.
Have you ever worked for a corporation? They are no different from any other group of people working together for a common cause. You may not agree with the cause, but that does not change the fact.
Corporations are not entities, they do not live, there is not one living organism that you can identify as a corporation. Therefore a corporation cannot make decisions.
People are entities, they do live and make decisions. Any action of a group is only a result of the individuals in the group. Be it a collective, a commune, a family or a corporation. If the members of the corporation decide to make bad decisions, that this the fault of the members.
If, as you say, all the high functioning sociapaths gravitate to corporations, is that the fault of the corporation, or is it the fault of the society that breeds the sociopath?
If these workers aren't being "exploited" by someone, then they aren't working.
"Employed" does not equal "Exploited"
I do not think it means what you think it means. Raised wages, higher standard of living, better working conditions, how is this exploitation? Unless you're using the worldview of the noble savage, and that people in other parts are somehow being "duped" by the wily westerner, and are too stupid to notice and thus need to be protected by the other wily westerners who actually CARE.
"Employed" does not equal "Exploited"
You didn't give me that impression earlier. Recall:
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.
I call it "employment".
Society has very little control over how many sociopaths it breed, because they are bred, not made. Every society has around the same amount.
Actions of individuals are influenced by their setting. Different settings prompt different actions. Corporations create a moral hazard, as I said, due to their structure. They diffuse responsibility. They are also authoritarian, and can prompt the same sorts of behaviors that were seen in the Milgram experiments.
People do not have one nature. They have many different faces that they put on or take off as circumstances dictate. A corporation is structured differently from other types of groups, and creates different types of behaviors in its members.
While I agree that any action of a group is only the result of the individuals, the difference between a group and an individual is that in a group, the interactions of the individuals creates a dynamic that is not present in a single individual.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I call it "employment".
If workers are poorly treated, the environment is damaged, and all the wealth flows out of the country then its also exploitative.
If workers are poorly treated, the environment is damaged, and all the wealth flows out of the country then its also exploitative.
There's no evidence that multinationals contribute to the above problems any more so than local businesses. Instead, we find the opposite. Workers are treated and paid better than by local businesses; that most of the pollution is by local or local government controlled businesses; and that because a multinational is hiring people, investing in local infrastructure, and contributing to the local tax base, we find that wealth is moving into the country.
Consider this thought experiment. Suppose some alien society with alien businesspeople discovers us and outsources some of their labor to us. From our point of view, their jobs would be awesome. You get to play with cool alien tech and they give really generous compensation. But the aliens have their own protesters who complain because we're being "exploited" with terrible 40 hour work weeks and lack of the incredibly generous benefits that the aliens have come to associated with work. Further, human society benefits greatly from the association as our society and us, personally improve with the knowledge and wealth provided by these aliens. Horrible exploitation versus fat city. Which is the real perception?
The key is that the worker enters willingly into the contract with the multinational. The latter, to insure quality of the product and reliability of their employees, has to offer considerably better compensation (along the lines of Ford's "five dollar day"). These things are always to the benefit of the employee.
Just as I would willingly sign up for "exploitation" by the generous alien employers so Third World workers are signing up for multinational employment. You can call it "exploitation", but the word has no meaning from the employee's point of view.
Consider this thought experiment. Suppose some alien society with alien businesspeople discovers us and outsources some of their labor to us. From our point of view, their jobs would be awesome. You get to play with cool alien tech and they give really generous compensation. But the aliens have their own protesters who complain because we're being "exploited" with terrible 40 hour work weeks and lack of the incredibly generous benefits that the aliens have come to associated with work. Further, human society benefits greatly from the association as our society and us, personally improve with the knowledge and wealth provided by these aliens. Horrible exploitation versus fat city. Which is the real perception?
Right, they ship their piles of medical/industrial/military waste, radio actives, and toxic chemicals to your earthly processing plant where you glibly crawl around on it scavenging valuable bits for your alien-corporate-masters without protection or medical coverage.
Eventually the poisons render the entire region a desert wasteland. Earth has no regulations prohibiting this stuff, the country is nearly bankrupt anyway, and besides the leaders get to ride around on space ships and have sex with space hookers.
You, of course still do it willingly, and are grateful for the "generous" alien employers because you need a job, and it puts food in your mouth for now.
"Its a good thing."
The thought experiment can get pretty ugly if you let it.
Not all outsourcing is exploitation, but don't pretend none of it is.
Right, they ship their piles of medical/industrial/military waste, radio actives, and toxic chemicals to your earthly processing plant where you glibly crawl around on it scavenging valuable bits for your alien-corporate-masters without protection or medical coverage.
Remember for the analogy with multinationals to hold, we have to remember that the alien businesses conform to the laws of the land. So the above would happen only in places where it is already legal.
War is almost never economically worth it. The amount of destruction caused by WW3 would outweigh any benefits that could be gained from winning. I very much doubt the US would surrender its citizenry into slavery without using nuclear weapons first.
I am trolling
The comment about religion was not for you. The slashdot comment system seems to be cracking under pressure.
That comment was in response to haruchai who seemed to be suggest that people were not following Christianity.