China cut's off supply of rare earth metals

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Not news... and the funny thing is that the "rare earths" are not rare at all. Their extraction and processing is extremely toxic hence us not mining them.
 
"...the world is at China's mercy for now when it comes to rare earth supply..."

Don't believe the media hype. We're supposed to be at China's mercy for metals that have been so overproduced (by China) that the global price of those metals has now collapsed? If China was truly able to corner the market on these rare earth metals and could be able to dictate an artificially high price, our California rare earth mines would quickly ramp up production to pick up the slack.
 
http://www.miningweekly.com/article/rare...says-2011-10-21

Article detailing the most recent news of the California rare earth mines coming back into production. This latest China move to reduce the global supply might be beneficial to U.S. production of rare earth metals. The worst thing that could happen (from Molycorp's perspective) is that rare earth prices continue their recent downward slide and force a shutdown of this mine just as it's being refurbished back to full production.
 
Isnt this why china has huge toxic lakes that poison thousands?

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/china-sitting-on-huge-toxic-waste-pile/839781/
ETC.
Quote:
China may be sitting on a potential environmental disaster as one million tonnes of untreated toxic industrial waste has piled up across the country, non government organisations have warned.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that more than 5,000 tonnes of chromium residue were illegally dumped on roadside and in mountains by a chemical factory in Yunnan’s Qujing city, causing deaths of 77 livestock, state-run China Daily reported.

Official tests found “excessive sexivalent chromium” in water in the area where the waste was dumped.

Tests of the groundwater near the factory by Greenpeace, an environmental protection organisation, showed that the concentration of sexivalent chromium in the water was 242 times the national standard.

Chromium residue is heavy metal and hazardous waste residue generated in the production of chromium metal and chromium salt.
 
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Yes, it is. But it wouldn't be like that if they weren't so corrupt internally. They are a real environmental mess and getting worse quick.

Mining of any kind can be done cleanly, it's just more money.

As prices move upwards it will become profitable and we can get back to work here. We have huge resources being neglected due to our political situation.
 
Quote:
“excessive sexivalent chromium”

Anybody catch this? I'd like to get some of this metal. The correct term used in industry is "hexavalent".
 
Personally I think the price is demand supply based, and as soon as people started using more mobile devices and less computers, the demand for hard drives will "collapse" and so would some of the rare earth magnets (neodymium).

My 2cents is bet on the reduced demand is already happening when people move from desktop to laptop and from 3.5" HD to 2.5" and SSD. Computers just last so much longer these days as well.
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear

My 2cents is bet on the reduced demand is already happening when people move from desktop to laptop and from 3.5" HD to 2.5" and SSD. Computers just last so much longer these days as well.


But how are we going to produce all the motor-generators on electric cars? I was kind of under the impression that the need was more in rotating machines and power electronics...
Im sure computers use a LOT, but its the upcoming tech areas that will become possible big users.
 
I think the moral of the story isn't whether china can be effective doing this, but that they're bent on and will stop at nothing to corner all our markets. We shouldn't be so aiding our competitor and potential enemy.
 
Originally Posted By: mechanicx
I think the moral of the story isn't whether china can be effective doing this, but that they're bent on and will stop at nothing to corner all our markets. We shouldn't be so aiding our competitor and potential enemy.


+1.
 
Originally Posted By: dwendt44
Quote:
remind me again why China still has "most favored nation" status?



Because they lend us money!


And we let them use slave labor to build many of our products.
 
I thought there is supposed to be lots and lots of rare earth metal under Afganistan; don't we own that country?
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
But how are we going to produce all the motor-generators on electric cars? I was kind of under the impression that the need was more in rotating machines and power electronics...
Im sure computers use a LOT, but its the upcoming tech areas that will become possible big users.


I guess either recycled scrape or make do with less (high voltage, etc)? High price doesn't prevent us from using precious metal in 3 way cat. If electric motor is more expensive than battery, we'd probably use more battery and less motor mass to compensate for the overall efficiency.
 
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