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Rare-Earth Mineral Supply Getting Boost From California, Australia
An anonymous reader writes "In recent times, the world's supply of rare-earth minerals has suffered from both increased demand, due to their use in modern technological devices, and uncertain supply, as China restricts the flow of exports. Now, Molycorp's mine in California has re-opened, and another in Australia is set to open later this year, easing — but not erasing — worries about skyrocketing costs. '[The mine had closed] in 2002 following radioactive wastewater spills and price competition. The largest spills, from a pipeline to Nevada, occurred in the late 1990s, in protected lands in the Mojave Desert. The company has since changed its ownership structure. ... It's being rebuilt to produce up to 40,000 metric tons of rare-earth elements by 2013, which would be a 700 percent increase from its production target for the end of this year."
And they are sponsoring this little rebuild how? Want me to tell you what they will be oopsing about in 5 years?
Duh!
China has the ability to remove their restrictions on exports, pulling the bottom out of the price for these elements and putting these companies out of business again. What happens then? Does the US subsidize them? Yes, trade wars and subsidies are bad, but we don't have many options if someone else starts them.
This isn't the only key industry that China has undermined via mass subsidization and unashamed trade policy.
That popular political punching bag Solyndra faces the exact issue that drove nearly all of the worlds rare earth production to china.
We'll need to be more careful in the future, and not let china control entire sectors that become indispensable.
Ok, management was replaced. Fine. Probably needed. But that doesn't tell me if the pipes were fixed or how the new management proposes to not have that kind of issue in the future. Nor does it tell me if the new management is proposing any kind of additional cleanup that may be needed in those protected lands (doesn't matter that it was a while back - Bhopal still suffers from uncleaned pollution and Florida has a gigantic oil sludge that will haunt it for a long time no matter how much it's officially declared gone).
In short, yeah, new sources of Rare Earths are great but the Earth is also fairly high on the Rare list and I'd rather not need a new source.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=35.475,-115.53&spn=0.01,0.01&t=h&q=35.475,-115.53
... probably thought they were awfully clever for a while.
Nice to see the good guys get up once in a while. Here's hoping that government policy makes it easy for these guys to get started and start producing economically and profitably. The less that hostile and aggressive foreign powers have over us, the better.
the reason it got shut down is because you can't outcompete a country where environmental activists are put into labor camps.
pretty simple, and yet, almost every media story on this thing hides the truth in vague generalizations like "cost competition".
its not cost competition, its fucking slavery.
see also: Kerr-Mcgee and Tronox
and we pretend we have a 'green economy' with our space-ship apple headquarters that run off of sunshine and unicorn farts.
fucking US hypocrisy is astounding.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese are pumping huge amounts of money into this venture right now. With the Japanese economy being heavily invested in industries that use these minerals Japan definitely wants to wean itself off of reliance on China, and the insanely strong yen makes investing in the US incredibly cheap right now. Japanese companies would be incredibly remiss if they weren't taking advantage of this opportunity(and they may even get support for the government who wants to weaken the yen)
Monstar L
Remember how in the 70s people complained we'll be out of gas by 2000? Then again in the 90s, we should be out of it by today. Now we have just enough gas to last us 'til the 2030s.
Do we keep finding so many sources? Well, not that many. But what we find is more sources that get profitable with rising prices. Oil sands in Alaska, you think anyone would have even thought of exploiting that while the barrel was at 20 bucks? Of course not. It's not profitable. At 140, we're talking.
It's almost the same with REMs. First of all, the name is misleading. They're not rare by definition. Well, aside of the radioactive Promethium. Cerium is amongst the most abundant elements on our Earth's crust. The problem with them is that they're fairly evenly distributed. There are few places where they can be extracted economically. With rising price, maybe sieving them from desert sand might be commercially interesting.
A "shortage" of REMs means about the same as a "shortage" of well educated personnel: There's only a shortage if you are unwilling to pay the price required to get what you want.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'd still like to know where all that silicon and rare-earths are going from that past 20+ years of old technology that has been thrown out.
Yes, I'm aware of the shipments to Africa and Asia where they hobby smelt out gold and the like to scrape by a living, all the while getting lead/arsenic poisoning. Why are we not keeping all that here, in the US, and recycling it?
Here's an idea. subject all of said electronics to liquid N/H and shatter it. In a good closed environment, you could also re-purpose the N/H that goes into the air, and put it back into liquid form. Yes, this is reaching, but isn't part of the whole problem with re-using silicon and the like, getting it back to its constituent parts, i.e., elements?
How is there not a legitimate market here????
such a policy would probably work quite well.
It makes more sense when you realise that Australia is the 51+Nst state of the US, so the headline is actually just listing the states of the US, not implying cartographical closeness.
Plan My Week for iPhone
Or even better ones..
We hear the refrain that jobs lost overseas are 'never coming back.' Yet the first time an impediment to supply appears mines get reopened, and in CA no less. Despite the fact that those workers will be paid living wages and probably have union representation you'll still be able to afford your iPhone. No, California's precious 'environment' won't be destroyed. The next time some wag claims this or that job is lost forever you'll know better.
There is an undercurrent building in the US. The effect of >70% of all imports being tariff free is too obvious to ignore any longer. The US has been trading away its prosperity for dubious diplomatic achievements for decades. People have caught on. The 'oh noes trade war!' cry won't work any more.
When you get down to it with the common leftist they'll tell you they don't want industry returning to the US. Exporting pollution to Asia is just fine with them. Their leaders never hesitate to sign away more of our trade leverage. Today the left's union allies are mostly service sector and government; they simply don't care about the industrial base.
While the big-business wing of the Republican party is all about 'free' trade, the party also harbors a buchanan wing of anti 'free' trade types. Curiously, that stripe is completely unrepresented among all of our presidential candidates today. I predict that will change; when someone that can articulate the problems inherent in trying to compete with disposable workers and indifferent regulation finally appears they will discover a broad and deep well of support.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, so far.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/T101219002181.htm
We need a more robust semiconductor industry. More locally-available REs would hopefully (idealistcally) cause a price drop from local suppliers, making their equipment more affordable. For the local LED industry, this could be a MAJOR boost.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
was recently discovered in Nebraska.
"Quantum Rate Earth Developments (TSX-V: QRE; OTC: QREDF) acquired the rights to what the U.S. Geological Survey called one of the largest deposits of niobium globally. The rare earth property, a 14-square-mile track of farmland in S.E. Nebraska, could employ hundreds once the mine is developed. ..."
Running with Linux for over 20 years!