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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GM,
Supply & demand & the commodities market is a target that centrally planning green orgs can’t achieve. They did not get the lesson history taught in the 20th century with the authoritative gov’t failure thing.
Supply & demand & the market for ideas is the reasons not so many anymore are investing in your ideas. I recommend you invest in more intellectually productive ideas.
John
There was a rare earth mine in the California desert, about 75 miles east of Las Vegas. Cheap rare earth materials from China and environmental regulations shut it down. If the commodity price is right and the proper protection money is paid to the green lobby, it will re-open.
Below is an extract from a statement on Lynas Corp announcements. (LYC). They have a big deposit in WA, hopefully the Premier will look after this better than the Thompson family at Narrogin…Rare earths are not actually that rare, sounds silly but it’s true. It’s the concentration that makes the difference. Is it worth digging them out and processing them. Obviously now the answer is yes:
‘Rare Earths’ is the term given to fifteen metallic elements known as the lanthanide series, plus yttrium. They play a key role in green environmental products, from energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) to hybrid cars, automotive catalytic converters and wind turbine generators. They are also essential in the development and manufacturing of many modern technological products, from hard disc drives to flat panel displays, iPods and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.
Dont worry we might loose some useless and over hyped car models but it will drive technology somewhere usefull. Hybrid cars are dishonest, they are , like solar and wind power well subsidised to appear usefull but in the real world a rich persons plaything, none can compete with my 1994 Citroen turbo diesel I owned in the UK, 50 MPG at 100 mph, that is sustaunable economy, throw 10% of the PC budget hybrids have wasted at turbo diesels and the particulate emissions will go away and you have a commercial development of real use.
GM,
Some people are stuck on “we can’t”. Sad to say you are one of them. Your additude would have lost WWII. Study “rubber” as an example. And it is clear from the comments that POLITICS is the biggest reason for this problem. Really, you are annayllop in your negativity. I know you think you are the “educated” realist
Anyway your post are fine, just to often, throttle back a little, you may even be more effective.
The Mt Weld deposit in West Australia goes 4.5% rare earths and is close to start up with refining in Malaysia. Naturally I have a bunch of shares bought when this looked likely. Thank you Greens. Greenland may have the largest deposit which has a fair bit of uranium mixed in and has not been developed because of Danish feelings which I believe are about to bend to reality. The deposit belongs to an Australian company so we may be upside down but not always slow. Old North Queensland Doctor
GM, also when you say this, “The sanity of many posters here is under serious doubt”
you become somewhat of a troll, and certainly lose effectivness as well as demonstrating that your mind is closed to many educated comments made here.
GM said in reply to me
“September 24, 2010 at 1:24 am
tonyb says:
September 24, 2010 at 1:14 am
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.
And how exactly are we going to solve this one if it is not a secret?”
By realising there are other problems in this world that need attention and dealing with them. It is perfectly possible to find other sources but that will not happen overnight. Having one group with a stranglehold on our windpipe over oil and gas is bad enough but allowing another party to do the same is plain silly.
tonyb
How ironic, the world is worried about the ice in Greenland melting and so are turning to rare earths to make “green” cars and modern equipment in order to prevent pollution and limit the melting of glaciers….If the ice melts it may be easier to mine the minerals and therefore go “greener” to save the ice melting. But then the ice is not melting anyway so you can leave it in the ground and carry on driving a diesel engined car.
One of the biggest sources of Rare Earths is in Greenland (GGG). Unfortunately (in my opinion) there is a lot of uncertainty of who owns what and who has paid what to get a permit etc so this is a buyer beware share. No recommendation here, move along nothing to see.
I personally like LYC. (again, not a recommendation although I own a few shares)
“Rare Earths” are not rare. Cerium, for example, is as common as zinc. They were called rare earths because they seldom form concentrated ores like more familiar metals. This in turn means that somewhat more sophisticated techniques have to be used to extract them, and it makes increasing sense to use co-production. In the limit, we should forget about ores and just separate out the whole gamut of elements from the same bulk material (which can be any rock or soil, though municipal and industrial waste is ideal, since it will have all the desired elements in the right proportions, close enough). The energy requirements are not prohibitive; to overcome the entropy of dilution we need just -RTlnC/mol. Even for the rarest of the rare earths, that’s less than 20kJ/kg, which is negligible, bearing in mind that the chemical enthalpies for reduction of the oxides are in the MJ/kg range. We’re talking fractions of a penny per kg. There is no long-term technological or economic problem here. Political, regulatory and capital investment problems, maybe.
GM says at 11:15pm, 12:23am, 12:26am, 1:24am, 2:02am, 2:23am, 2:39am,
2:41am, 2:50am
Slack day in Academia, is it?
One small thing – I see here misunderstanding. Term “rare earth metals” does not mean that these metals are rare (in small quantites). It means that they were initially found in rare earth minerals, which are called so because lanthanides occurs in them.
Please use terms correctly,
Regards
Sorry, didn’t see Paul Birch post.
Relax, Genus Malthusian, stop hyperventilating and releasing that excess CO2. Trust me, your combination of running around like a chicken with its head cut off while portraying Chicken Little isn’t near as endearing as you think.
Nothing you can do matters. Your opinion does not matter. Really. Our new Chinese masters will have their own plans for dealing with these problems you have imagined. If they want your opinion, they will give it to you.
Now, don’t you feel better?
What really bugs me is as being environmental friendly is that everyone would do the same we’d be [snip . . messing?] up the environment truly bad.
Anti nuclear freaks and anti coal freaks alike usually use the old mining argument, yet it is numerous times worse a bigger problem mining rare earth metals due to there scarcity meaning bigger areas/volume to mine. But that’s ok though they say because it’s for a good cause, right? Pfft.
Personally I’d rather be more environmental friendly and drive a 5 year old 3.5 ton hummer rather then slashing down some African rain forest for ion battery materials.
No but it was exposed in this book I wish everyone would read,
Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future (Robert Bryce, 2010)
GM says “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.”
GM I don’t agree. China became the dominant supplier of rare earth elements (as much as 95%) primarily through aggressive pricing (i.e. cheap prices). There are other deposits of rare earths around the world that could easily be developed, but in the free world there is no money in it. China raises prices, exploration and delineation of these deposits recommences. China drops the prices and forces these companies out of business. They are very clever.
GM says “BTW, I am not posting in this thread from the perspective of someone who thinks that civilization will collapse due to shortage of REE, it is just that they are a good illustration of first, the concept of the mineralogical barrier, and second, of how complex and how interrelated the multiple crises we face are. We have a problem with AGW, and we have a problem with Peak Oil, what are we going to do – no problem, we’ll move to renewables… wait a minute, we don’t have the raw materials to do that at the required scale. That sort of thing.”
GM, this doesn’t hold together. You refer to “multiple crises” and then invoke only a few false ones. If you think we have a shortage of oil go stand in the middle of a busy freeway.
The rare earth problem is one of tight control by China and a lack of a back up plan by other countries who have been relying on China’s cheap prices to subsidize their own economies.
GM
“UK Sceptic says:
September 24, 2010 at 12:08 am
The greenies make a lot of noise about all things being sustainable. How is the rare earth thing working for them then?
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”. ”
But aren’t greenie approved electric cars all about “green tech”? It seems that some unsustainable commodities that are ripped from the screaming womb of Gaia are more vital than others when vested interest and political aspirations are at stake. Has mining become an environmentally friendly industry now? Or are some mines more equal than others when it comes to progressing the climate alarmist agenda?
Tomasz Kornaszewski says:
September 24, 2010 at 4:49 am
“Sorry, didn’t see Paul Birch post.”
That’s all right. Your explanation for why they are called “rare earths” (that they were initially found in rare earth deposits) is more accurate than mine (that they didn’t form concentrated ores like other metals), though they’re complementary, really; the reason why they were initially found in rare earth is that they didn’t form concentrated ores that would otherwise have been found sooner elsewhere.
The EPA is the problem
Under pressure the EPA cause out last mines to close. Don’t blame China.
http://arizonageology.blogspot.com/2009/11/congressional-earmark-to-reopen-calif.html
The shortage of rare earth minerals prompted Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Jerry Lewis (R-CA) to add an earmark to the House Defense appropriations bill (H.R. 3326) for $3 million to help reopen a California rare earth mine [NB – I have to believe this is Molycorp’s Mountain Pass Mine – LA]. According to Lewis the controversial funds were necessary for Molycorp Minerals, owned in part by Goldman Sachs, to quell national security concerns. This appropriations bill is still awaiting conference committee approval. [right, projected gap in RE supply and demand. Credit, Molycorp]
See the example? California will interfere The EPA will interfere. If it is beneficial, the eco wackos will fight it.
Looks good for RE dev outside of China but once we start digging holes in the ground the “exploiters” will be branded Big Dysprosium or some such tag.
Sound’s little like the 30’s. People never change. They don’t learn so good neither.
“DirkH said on Bad news for green technology
No immediate halt for civilization:
“Companies using the rare metals are believed to have stockpiles that could last several months.”
GM says:
September 24, 2010 at 2:02 am
Because of course several months are completely sufficient for changing all of our technology to not use rare earth metals (which isn’t even possible to begin with)…
The sanity of many posters here is under serious doubt”
GM, i don’t care much for your lack of understanding of market mechanisms. But you insult me personally, so i think i should answer you.
So you had problems understanding what i said. Fine. What did i say? I cited an article that says that there are enough stockpiles for a few months. Now, did i want to imply that this solves all problems? Of course not. In that case, i would have spelled it out for comprehension-challenged people like you. It will help the industry limp along for a few months; which is good news. This will also give politicians a chance to resolve the conflict in time. See? Was that hard to understand? Fine.
What we will see is a re-assessment of the stratecigal importance of rare earths and the reliability of China as a trade partner. If there are not already strategic reserves for these materials, various governments will start to build them up, or build up some reserve mining caparcity. We will also see projects and regulations to improve the recycling of old electronics, which is a good thing IMHO.
BTW, does the GM stand for Girl Magnet? (Oh, i WANTED to say that…)
Shortage of resources or longage of humans, pick your definition…
there is neither a shortage of resources, nor a longage of humans.
Rather a longage of regulations preventing the discovery/recovery of resources for the use of humans.