From Slashdot:
The NY Times reports that the Chinese government has placed a trade embargo on all exports to Japan of a crucial category of minerals used in products like hybrid cars, wind turbines and guided missiles.
China mines 93 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals, and more than 99 percent of the world’s supply of some of the most prized rare earths, which sell for several hundred dollars a pound.
The embargo comes after a dispute over Japan’s detention of a Chinese fishing trawler captain whose ship collided with two Japanese coast guard vessels as he tried to fish in waters controlled by Japan but long claimed by China.
The Chinese embargo is likely to have immediate repercussions in Washington. The House Committee on Science and Technology is scheduled to review a detailed bill to subsidize the revival of the American rare earths industry and the House Armed Services Committee is scheduled to review the American military dependence on Chinese rare earth elements.”
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Well, in fairness, this cuts much broader than just green technology. The silver lining will be if the situation restores some independence from China in this critical sector.
The situation appears to be still moot. On 23 Sepember, a media officer of Chinese Ministry of Commerce reportedly denied the embargo, at a phone interview with the News Agency Bloomberg.
Sorry,
This is incomprehensible and largely inexcusable. OMG, as my teenager might say.
We are supposed to be captives of mid eastern oil and must reduce dependence by moving to smart technologies, that rely on a 93-99% market control of essential rare earth materials by China???
Was this exposed in the Algore Inconvenient Truth?
It looks like these rare earths are really rare and we missed the boat. I noted there appears to be some prospects in the US, probably precluded from mining by environmental laws.
What a mess!
We ain’t seen nothing yet!
A few minutes ago I heard a news that our prosecutor’s office has determined to release the Captain.
An embargo on rare earths? That’ll put a Prius at a premium price. Or any other Hybrid come to think of it.
Super magnet production has also been shipped over to China http://www.chinamagnet.in/i-News-229212/The-development-and-applications-of-Rare-Earth-Permanent-Magnetic-Materials-244616.html
Over the last 10 to 20 years companies have been quietly purchased and slowed moved off shore. It is great that the Republicans have started to promise to protect this great nation, sucks that they will have to buy parts from the Chinese to do it.
We have the most creative engineers and scientists in the world, I just hope we don’t have enter miracle mode to recreate the manufacturing prowess we once had.
There are many who think the world was a more dangerous place when the US was the clear military leader, we are no longer that leader, both China and Russia have caught us in many areas, and it is believed China has better, possibly much better anti ship missiles.
China can’t keep lending the US money. China may require a unifying purpose, sadly that purpose could be Taiwan, Japan, or the US. Not sure on this one.
But what is clean Russia, Iran, and China have had their foot on the gas working on military advantage or their neighbors and us.
Let’s see, subsidize an industry whose product sells for several hundred dollars a pound. Oh wait, I forgot; there are those pesky environmental impact statements that have to be submitted. With all that red tape from all those underworked governmental worker bees (federal, state & local) out to save the planet, they do need some sort of incentive to take all those risks. And any project will be tied up by any third rate political hack for at least several years. But why bother? In a decade, assuming the industry starts to become viable, they’ll get screwed … again … by some crusading activist with a cell phone camera. So, the question is, why should anyone take any risks with capital (or anything else for that matter) in this new spread the wealth America?
There might still be some thin semi-precious metal lining to current US policy on mining and energy extraction. We will become more dependent on foreign sources of metals and hydrocarbons, but when everybody else runs out, we will still have fairly significant reserves.
The trick of course will be to get them without triggering a civil war with the greens – assuming they still are in control.
Bill Sticker says:
September 23, 2010 at 10:57 pm
An embargo on rare earths? That’ll put a Prius at a premium price. Or any other Hybrid come to think of it.
—–
Or any other “green” product that relies upon rare earth materials to make it happen.
This is, on the one hand, a brilliant shot by China to show that it controls world technological development in the non-oil based energy field, and that every other country should look into their own natural resources reserves of rare earths.
I expect that we loose this encounter until some date in the future when we develop our own rare earth industry. If possible.
There is a shortage of rare earth elements. What is this telling you?
Allow me to also suggest that the countries of the world and their major industrial entities have long known of this variability in the supply choke hold of China and rare earth materials.
On the country, to country diplomatic, if not just de facto level, this has been known for a long time. I wonder how our country will respond? Even if it supports the fishing vessel there is still alot of collateral damage.
You could ask the Australian Navy. Just saw video of those very missiles firing.
I read the article. Interesting. Thanks for posting this. What amazed me was the claim that rare earth metals from scrapped hybrid autos were not being recycled!
My guess is that will change. 🙂
In my not-so-humble opinion, the Chinese Lanthanide embargo has precious little to do with the fishing trawler captain, and a lot to do with flexing their economic muscles in order to see what they can get away with. I wonder if the Chinese leaders have ever heard of OFEC? That’s the Organization of Food Exporting Countries. Yes, you are quite correct; OFEC does not exit–yet.
RE: Main Article
“China mines 93 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals, and more than 99 percent of the world’s supply of some of the most prized rare earths, which sell for several hundred dollars a pound.”
I wonder if this indicates that there are no other possible sources on Earth, or if it only means that no other sources have been identified yet. It would seem unusual for these minerals to be concentrated in just one spot in the planet, unless that was due to a special event like a giant meteor impact.
China has shown interest in rare earths for some time and not only nationaly. Chinese companies are now well established in Africa for rare earths as well as Chile for copper (where they exchanged a mountain for the construction of a new town + jobs). It seams that they have a strategic plan for high technology industries and are playing the long game. Viz:
“At the same time, it would aim to boost cooperation with African nations with a view to gain a foothold on the extraction of rare metals held in their territory, currently dominated by Chinese companies.” From;
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/321164,eu-to-pressure-china-africa-over-access-to-rare-earth-metals.html
“Earlier this year, the increasingly tight rare earths supply situation prompted one environmental journalist in the US to exclaim that we should all kiss our wind turbines goodbye.
To be fair, he did lean towards the more apocalyptic scenarios favoured by the more extreme proponents of the green agenda, but he did have a point.
Last year, China produced 97% (120 000 t) of the world’s rare earth oxides, while it also controls half of the earth’s known reserves.” From;
http://www.miningweekly.com/article/sa-mine-may-make-dent-in-chinas-rare-earths-market-dominance-2010-09-17
GM says:
September 23, 2010 at 11:15 pm
“There is a shortage of rare earth elements. What is this telling you?”
Prior to ‘greening’ only low demand for rare earth minerals, so made sense to buy from cheapest source – China. However, these minerals can be found all over the place, and if China decides to politic by embargo or massive price hikes, other countries will explore and start to exploit their own deposits.
China is heading for a fall as the expectations of its population grow and its overheated economy heads for meltdown.
GM says:
September 23, 2010 at 11:15 pm
There is a shortage of rare earth elements. What is this telling you?
You’re killing me! 🙂
The greenies make a lot of noise about all things being sustainable. How is the rare earth thing working for them then? There’s been nary a squeak from the likes of WWF or FoE. Haven’t heard about greenies protesting outside Chinese mines and factories. Maybe because the Chinese authorities aren’t as understanding as the suicidally bureaucratised West…
Rare earth magnets are nice but there are still self induction motors too. Either version can power a car or any other machine for that matter. Induction motors tend to be cheaper and more durable while PM motors have a wider efficiency range.
FYI, the use of rare earth elements has very little to do with “green tech”, it is a common requirement for everything that is usually called “high tech”. That includes most of the cool gadgets we so much like to use and which are so loved by economists for the way they “drive economic development”.
And before anyone raises the tired canard about rare earth elements not being that rare in the crust, yes, that’s correct; the problem is that concentrated deposits of rare earth elements aren’t at all common.
Just another one of the limits to growth most people here are blind to. What is especially ironic (outright hypocritic if we are to put it bluntly) is that this fact is touted by this blog as a failure of the “greens”, those pesky enemies of the progress of free-market capitalism when in fact it is a very nice illustration of the failure of the latter to recognize the physical limits of the environment it is situated in
There are other places of course, but not that many of them and they have been either depleted or not developed. More will be certainly found in remote areas as demand increases, but it will not make much of a difference due to that same old problem of the mismatch between exponentially increasing demand and finite and very limited supplies
We are constantly warned about a new economic power that will push the West to the margins. In the seventies, the Arabs would buy us all, straight out. Well, they got Harrods.
In the eighties, clever people talked of how Japan planned to make Europe its shopping centre and Australia its mine. I can’t remember the bon mot to describe America’s marginalisation by the Japanese, but the chattering set found it delicious. Sadly…
In the nineties, here in Oz, you couldn’t cast any doubt on the viability of the Tiger economies of S. E. Asia without being called a racist. By the end of the decade, those casting doubts on the Tiger economies were called newsreaders.
It’s a bit like predicting an Arctic death spiral. By the time people notice it didn’t happen, the cranks and finger-waggers are on to another subject.
Problems are solved unpredictably, though you can bet the agents of change will likely be a couple of college dropouts, tinkering day and night in a garage, maybe somewhere in middle America: horny, unhygienic, and the despair of their parents.
The danger for Western societies is within: the eclipse of the individual, the trust in Big Levers. When we move from tolerating the corporate to becoming corporate, China and the others won’t have won. Everyone will have lost.
We have known about this increasing monopoly for some years but are too fixated with AGW to deal with it and other more pressing problems.
tonyb