China Halts Shipments to U.S. of Tech-Crucial Minerals
From LiveScience by Jeremy Hsu
A nasty trade dispute appears to have prompted Chinese customs officials to block shipments of rare earth minerals to the U.S.
The move underscores a deepening U.S. vulnerability because of its dependence upon China for tech-crucial rare earth minerals (also known as rare earth elements). Small but significant amounts of the minerals go into creating everything from PCs and cellphones to wind turbines and hybrid cars, as well as U.S. military technologies such as missile guidance systems.
This latest news came from three rare earth industry officials cited by the New York Times. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of backlash from China.
China currently controls about 97 percent of rare earth production.
…
U.S. rare earth companies have begun looking to reopen old mines and search for new deposits, but industry experts say that relaunching an independent U.S. supply chain could take 15 years.
The latest Chinese action follows a similar move last month, when China halted shipments to Japan during a political dispute over Japan’s arrest of Chinese fishermen. Among the affected Japanese companies was Toyota, maker of the popular Prius hybrid cars which incorporate the rare earth element neodymium, among others.
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So the big green quandary is: Prius, or practice what you preach and do without?
Addendum – This license plate I photographed on California’s Interstate 5 back in 2008 may prove prescient:
This is probably just the beginning. Mining is moving out of the US because of perceived environmental nightmares. Much of our uranium can’t be touched in northern Arizona because of a 2 year study on the dangers)???). The Grand Canyon has a lot of uranium, low grades from the shale and high grade from the outcropping breccia pipes. But that is natural(?) uranium, I guess the stuff 20 miles from the canyon is perhaps not natural so we can’t mine it.
The view from China
That’s twice I’ve forgotten my manners. I hope all is well with you and your’s Anthony.
Care to suggest the country that seizes Afghanistan and adsorbs it into their empire. (Rumored to have more rare earth deposits than anywhere else on this planet.)
Russia?
China?
Pakistan?
India?
USA?
Iran?
Germany?
Israel?
France?
Indonesia?
___ ?
Agree with many previous comments. Environmental lobbyists and legislation have stiffled mining of the not so rare earth minerals. At least one benefit in the short term is that windmill construction will be delayed and be even more uneconomic.
How will the eco-fascists organise their protests without mobile phones?
Richard
Sorry, I was unaware the yanks won in Vietnam.
I will live with not buying a new mobile phone, a Tesla car or the building of 44,000 wind turbines in my country.
Thank you, China. Perhaps this is the wake up call our politicians need.
It’s definitely time for the Obaminator to take a little lesson in “Political Science”
tty says:
October 21, 2010 at 2:12 pm
One of the largest consumers of REE are wind turbines for their powerful permanent magnets. We can simply tear down all those useless windmills and use the REE for something useful instead.
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LOL, I seconded that suggestion!
We aren’t rare earth poor in the USA- but this will be-interesting.
As in “may you live in interesting times.” China may have just shot itself in
the foot.
“China currently controls about 97 percent of rare earth production.”
While that is true, they don’t control 97% of rare earth deposits. It is just cheaper right now to pay someone in China to mine and process them than it is to pay someone in the US or anywhere else to do it so yes, they have the most “production” currently. If China continues to disrupt supplies, other sources of supply will ramp up as it becomes economical to do that.
Bob Parker says on October 21, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Sigh. The US mostly left Vietnam in ’72 or ’73, and certainly by ’75.
I was, of course, referring to China’s little adventure in northern Vietnam in 1979 (as I said) near their respective borders when they (China) tried to teach Vietnam a lesson.
Since the Vietnamese had a lot more experience fighting a war at that stage it was the Chinese, in my opinion, who got taught a lesson.
At that stage the Chinese also had a much larger standing army that the Vietnamese.
Raving says:
October 21, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Care to suggest the country that seizes Afghanistan…
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I’d have to say China since they already do a big poppy trade but Pakistan or Iran would be my next guess.
From Tom B:
“Maybe we’ll learn (like South Africa has, in regards to their coal liquifaction) not to depend on the capricious whims of those who have clearly made themselves our enemies.”
Yeah, like we learned from the Arab Oil Embargo in 1973. We realized we had to develop our own resources so as not to be dependant on the whims of foreign despots for energy.
Oh, wait…
Firstly @ur momisugly Richard Sharpe October 21, 2010 at 2:00 pm,
With regard to the military spat ‘twixt China and Viet Nam in1979 … The biggest problem which the Chinese faced was the bottlenecks imposed by their own infrastructure as they were trying to cycle as many new and ‘unbloodied’ units through the “war” as they possibly could. Not one principal front-line unit participated in this campaign on the Chinese side. Much work has since been undertaken to ensure that armoured regiments can be moved swiftly to any part of the Chinese mainland.
As for the rare earth embargo, all I can say is “Hahahahahahah!!!” All those greenies crying for less dependence on foreign oil, urging everyone to buy a Prius to “Save the Planet” now know that they remain in the thrall of a power not known for being a friend of the USA. If all of the ludicrous rules and regulations pertaining to mining were relaxed the US could be self-sufficient in these rare earth minerals in two years or less.
When are the scales going to be cast from their eyes?
Welcome to Australian Rare Earths 🙂
The eco wackos are scared to death when a hole is deeper than 6 feet for a standard grave. North America has the metals. We don’t have active mines. Most months of the year, some japanese companies find a bone fragment in a beef shipment and create an embargo. We need to exercise our rights to embargos. If we find lead in the coating in toys, embargo toys for about 14 months.
Bob Parker says:
“Richard
Sorry, I was unaware the yanks won in Vietnam.”
Bob, I believe Richard was referring the Vietnam’s war against China in 1979, not America’s war with itself in Vietnam, ending in 1974.
Has Gollum weighed in on this yet?
(hisssing on)
Precioussssss…..
(hissing off)
The age of Uncle Sam is ending.
Fred says:
October 21, 2010 at 1:49 pm
It would be far easier to fire up mines and mills than it would be to fire up political willpower to get the ball rolling.
We have been painted into a corner by external lobbying that favored handcuffing capitalism for a pawn shop payday.
Most of the world’s REE production used to come from Mountain Pass, off I-15 between Los Angeles and Los Vegas. That mine was closed largely because it spilled thorium contaminated water into a dry lake bed and had issues with leaking pipes. It’s set to reopen soon but had to go through 18 environmental agencies and will have to spend $2.4 million a year in monitoring.
I had an interesting chat in the early 80’s with an exiled fish-farming expert from the former Rhodesia. He was employed by the Snowy Mountains trout company for which I was working casually.
The gentleman – he truly was a gentleman – told me of how Rhodesia dealt with the problems of total economic isolation from the boycotting West. They remained quite prosperous by refusing to waste or overlook any possible resource. Everything was limited and everything was “peak”…
So those bright and resourceful creatures called humans simply adapted! And there’s a pretty good chance that we’ve been doing mostly that throughout our long development as a species.
We’re pretty special.
paulhan says:
October 21, 2010 at 2:05 pm
“The major way they manipulated their currency was by buying American T-Bonds (they hold $750billion according to
this site) from the proceeds of their exports to America, which had the effect of lifting the US Dollar vs the Yuan.
That policy is now coming home to roost. They can’t dump their holdings, and every time they revalue the yuan (it’s at about 6.65 vs 6.83 a few months ago), they take a haircut on their foreign reserves. Tough, they should have known that nobody can buck the market.”
You really do not wnat to contemplate what would happen to the US economy (and the rest of the G20 economies) if China dumped all their US Treasury holdings. I wouldn’t be just a “double-dip” recession we’ld be worrying about!
The USA can’t mine and we can’t drill but the crazy environmental kooks want us to be dependence free of foreign nations. We can’t have it both ways. If we want to be truly free we have to get our hands dirty.
Where did all these commi trolls come from?
Molycorp can take care of this non-problem.