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.
==========================================================
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:
Richard Sharpe says:
October 21, 2010 at 2:00 pm
You need some history lessons on Vietnam and not the liberal dogma , and as for China physical size is not the only thing that matters but they are becoming a concern and this is one example of them starting to flex their muscles.
Rare earth mining has enviro issues and this is one example where big green chased mining to other parts of the world, out of sight, out of mind while playing with their ipods.
David Jones says October 21, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Yes, it would be a Pyrrhic victory, wouldn’t it.
Steve Crook says:
October 21, 2010 at 2:08 pm
“I can’t believe the Chinese will be dumb enough to throw their weight around too much. If they do, and it looks as if the supply will become irregular or expensive for an extended period, people will find new sources. There’s no evidence that China is the only place these minerals can be found…”
You have to look at this from the point of view of the Chinese “leadership.”
They gain kudos by beating up on the “west” and particularly USA. They get to control what Chinese people read. (I originally wrote “citizens” but that dosn’t seem right). THEY DO NOT HAVE TO BE RE-ELECTED by any system that we in the west regard as “democratic.” They “the leadership” ONLY wish to maintain the staus quo in China. If that is not maintained what happens in China? They dare NOT face that prospect!
And so it begins.
Richard Sharpe says:
October 21, 2010 at 3:19 pm
David Jones says October 21, 2010 at 3:14 pm
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!
Yes, it would be a Pyrrhic victory, wouldn’t it.
“Victory?” An interesting choice of word in the circumstances! “Pyrrhic” it would certainly be.
Stephen Brown says:
October 21, 2010 at 2:51 pm
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?
=======================================================
I can’t help but think the anti-Americans in America, at least many of them, were fully aware this would happen. They no more want a self-sufficient America than I want a windmill with a “Made in China” sticker in my back yard.
Much more to say, but off to shoot some pool! To echo B. O’Reilly, if I offended……..ahh screw that. Oddly enough, today I prefer to echo J. Williams, “I said what I meant.”
If China sells REEs to anybody, then everybody will have access to them through resale. If not, production will ramp up outside China. Prices will go up, then down. Civilization will not collapse any more than it did during the Arab oil “embargoes”.
(Yawn) Next “crisis”, please…
I smell a rat.
Dump the East/West dialectic and we have Global cronism
By time this came to the media’s attention, the US/Chinese stooges would of had some frank and free conversations, arrived at
something like a working solution, and moved on to fabricating the next fake emergency.
China is gobbling up nearly every resource it can buy, borrow or steal….a lot like the European Empires did, and PAX AMERICA
has.
Same crooks, playing at Nationhood, in practice just hoods.
This looks like a publicity stunt to me, one more reason for the US govenment to “dislike intensely the Chinese position (we’re still eager to meet though, man i’m addicted to their Dim Sum)”, and at the same time carve up whats left behind the scenes.
Since China’s Politicians are as crooked as the US, i’d say they’ve already made lucrative deals that screw both nations Tax payers over.
Bogus Brinkmanship….
The Chiefio – E. M. Smith recently posted a fine analysis of rare earth elements and their potential sources of supply:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/are-rare-earths-rare/
Well the USA has a history of letting its holier than thou attitude get in the way of global reality.
Not so long ago, many US companies declared that they would not do business with nor invest in the Republic of South Africa; because of its Apart-hate race policies.
Well in that case, there were only 43 strategic minerals for which the RSA was the primary US source. Well there were secondary sources for some; the second in line was an outfit called the USSR.
So which of those two would we say was the #1 bad guy on the planet at that time. We had the absurd situation of The Soviet Union being our main source for Titanium with which to build our State of the art aircraft like the SR-71.
But all sorts of do-gooders cut off commerce with RSA. Guess how beneficial that was to the economic interests of the Black people of South Africa.
Nobody on this planet; holds apart-hate in greater contempt than I do; but we didn’t help black Africans or ourselves by cutting industrial ties with that country.
But people having been warning of the China RE Syndrome for years; and the dumb***** in Washington have been too busy getting themselves re-elected to the gravy train; than paying attention to “…providing for the common defense and general welfare of the United States……….”
And the corporate dummies haven’t gotten any smarter either.
California’s leftist greenie legislature with the blessing of our “girlie man” RINO Governator enacted AB-32; a carbon Tax and Spend Bill to fund their socialist largesse; which is slated to go into effecvt in 2012; and which has started a massive exodus of business from California to more enlightened States.
So the People proposed Proposition 23 to be voted on this coming election; to put AB-32 on hold until the unemployment rate in the State; which is now over 12%, comes down to something like 5.6% which is about the State norm (baseline). Some wanted to simply repeal AB-32 which is completely anti-business; but they settle for just a delay till the unemployment crisis is past.
So guess who is working to defeat Prop 23, and implement AB-32.
Why Bill Gates; bless his little heart, has put up some $700,000 to help defeat the measure, and not to be outdone, Gordon Moore of Moore’s Law has put up $1meg.
Now Prop 23 happens to be supported by a couple of Texas oil companies that do business in California. Oh the horror of it; BIG OIL interfering in California’s internal affairs. Well yes they interfere in CA affairs; since they supply Californians with much of our oil needs, since producers are not allowed to expand their operations in California; so we can’t use our own oil or gas, and have to import much of it from Texas.
But why would some big fat cat “entrepeneurs” want to see AB-32 go into effect; and impose its punitive carbon taxes on Californians, and California Businesses ?
Well lookie here; look at all those welfare parasite silicon valley solar companies who plan to make themselves a fortune with their taxpayer subsidized, but uneconomical solar power free clean green renewable energy projects.
Now there are a couple of Si valley solar cell producers that I believe will do well, and have good efficient technologies; that should succeed in some measure; but most of them are nut jobs that don’t seem to understand that solar energy comes in at about 1 kW per square metre, and you only will get a small percentage of that onto the grid.
But those carbon tax swillers at the public trough will feather their nests with the fruits of their opposition to prop 23.
So the exodus will continue; and accelerate. I have a Niece and her very talented movie script writer, who currently live in LA are pulling up stakes and moving to a “better environment” in which to bring up their family. They won’t be the last; nor will I.
I don’t understand why this is supposed to hurt the U.S…. outside of research institutions that use rare-earths for research, we don’t have any electronics foundry’s left in the U.S., those were all outsourced to Asia long ago.
We simply don’t produce anything, so why would halting imports of rare-earths from China matter to us?
The Chinese Experiment continues. Maintain a strong government that is arguably run as a meritocracy with swift removal of incompetents. Pursue economic and social policies that keep the peasants cared for thus quiet and under control, with the use of governmental might when the peasants are unruly for what the leadership considers no valid reason. Being rational, they have accepted that the influences of the Outside World are disruptive to their control, therefore they have rationally decided the solution is to eliminate the Outside World. Using the subtler and slower might of economics, they are gathering other nations into their sphere of influence by acquiring financial obligations of developed countries and providing aid to poorer ones, garnering political favoritism and concessions. Once they have achieved unquestionable financial dominance with unbreakable crucial political agreements, they can begin assuming direct governmental control culminating in the non-existence of any Outside World.
And now they are flexing their governmental might. Those who will be serving them are being unruly, insolent. The return of the Eternal Chinese Empire is inevitable, it is foolish for their soon-to-be-servants to oppose their soon-to-be rulers. Thus the ruling class acts to remind the peasants who is really in charge, as they are accustomed to do.
This will prove to be a mistake.
Article contains info on sources of thorium and phosphates too.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/are-rare-earths-rare/
Are Rare Earth’s Rare?
September 25, 2010 by E.M.Smith
China Embargoed Rare Earths
In a recent ‘spat’ over water and fishing rights, China put an embargo on sales of “rare earth” elements to Japan. These have economic and strategic importance in that they are widely used in electric motors, high performance magnets, and a variety of electronics. Since China is presently the source of over 90% of the rare earths, this was a significant boot to the neck of Japan.
So, many folks have leapt to the conclusion that China has some special lock on the global distribution of rare earth minerals. Are we in fact slave to China having the natural abundance and the rest of us impoverished?
John from CA says on October 21, 2010 at 1:50 pm:
…two other obscure elements, tungsten and antimony…
These metals are not obscure and are readily available. Tungsten is used for filaments of lightbulbs and for hardening tool steels.
Antimony is used for hardened lead for battery terminals and in some Babbit metals for bearings.
“industry experts say that relaunching an independent U.S. supply chain could take 15 years”
Are these guys crazy? Building the first nuclear bomb has taken less than three years, starting from scratch (plutonium was unknown until February 26, 1941). It was a pretty large scale operation, at one point Oak Ridge uranium enrichment plants alone were consuming 1/6th of the electrical power produced in the entire U.S. Still, an experimental fission reactor, Chicago Pile-1 went critical on December 2, 1942 while the gadget was detonated near Alamogordo on July 16, 1945. And it was a government project.
Fifteen years, of course. Having fallen victim to such a defeatist mentality, the US would never win a war again.
Don’t spoil all the fun.
One day the West to wake up and realize that it has turned itself into a human resource gutted, bankrupt service economy that bolsters the profits of multinationals and subsidizes developing economies by off-shoring labor costs (I.E. The exporting of “income creation”).
Globalism wins. Western world goes bankrupt.
The Chinese have for a number of years been somewhat less than impressed with certain US officials publicly lecturing China on how it should run its economy.
A comparison of the two economies over the last 20 years might suggest who should have been lecturing and who should have been listening.
Which government beuacracy makes it easier for its people to compete in the world market? Which one makes it harder?
And on the point of China not being a friend of the US. Has the US been a friend to China?
The greatest threats to the affluence and lifestyle of American people do not reside outside of the US (and how many of them do you think do not rely on a government paycheck?).
The embargo rhetoric is a bit overblown, China does produce nearly all the rare earths, but as there internal demand has rapidly increased they are also close to using all of them internally – pretty hard to criticise them for prioritising their own industries over those in other countries.
And as many have mentioned it is only a matter of a year + political will to turn on production elsewhere. There was a massive find in Greenland last year now being developed.
China is not anyone’s friend – they’re totally amoral, believing only in power and it’s use in all forms. Their global bullying will intensify massively over the next decade (move over America, they believe in manifest destiny and ruling the world more than you ever did). But apart from raising awareness restricting supply of Rare Earth’s doesn’t rate as even a skirmish in the context of the coming Dragon Age.
Interesting how the warmists’ comments at the top of the thread ooze with anti-American glee.
Too bad this is more of a set back for the alternative “energy” crowd.
We won the foreign military war, Bob, but lost the domestic political war.
We can’t do much about this. However, we should stop recycling our recyclable waste because much of it ends up in China where they use it to build things to sell to us. If they get less recycled goods, their products that use them will cost us more meaning we’ll by less of them and maybe save some American jobs.
We should especially stop recycling our electronics goods. Better to keep them here since we can extract some of these needed materials from them.
That would be about as much and as little as Wal-Mart is a friend of both.
As for myself,
– I don’t work at Wal-Mart
– I don’t invest in Wal-Mart shares
– I avoid purchasing Wal-Mart products
It’s a free planet. Don’t let me stop you from a love affair with the multinational, UN, Chicom, WWF consortium of global conspiracy.
(Regards go out to Comrade ‘Grand Conspirator’ Maurice Strong, PC, CC, OM, FRSC and former head of Ontario Hydro.
“Vive le complot mondial libre!” mon amie.
You are the environmental movement’s greatest hero.
PS. … Any chance of getting a discount vacation at our province’s Costa Ricca rain forest hideaway resort? My rising hydro bills and your comrade world class co-conspirators are stressing me out. Must be nice using all that wonderful coal fired Chinese utility huh. )
I lay this all at the feet of unfettered capitalism (the utopian dream if the Tea Party). Companies in our intense capitalist system can owe no allegiance to any country – only to profit if they want to survive. Driven by stockholders expecting immediate profits, they seem always to seek always short-term gain.
When the vast Chinese labor market opened up, our American (and European) companies could not wait to build manufacturing plants in an ultra low-cost labor arena. They used profits gained in America to build shiny new high-tech manufacturing plants in China, killing many American jobs. The Chinese had only to accept this largess from the great capitalist giants and put their people to work. China was modernized overnight. China is now flexing its new-found muscles.
Raving says:
October 21, 2010 at 4:38 pm
David Jones says:
October 21, 2010 at 3:14 pm
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.
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!
Don’t spoil all the fun.
One day the West to wake up and realize that it has turned itself into a human resource gutted, bankrupt service economy that bolsters the profits of multinationals and subsidizes developing economies by off-shoring labor costs (I.E. The exporting of “income creation”).
Globalism wins. Western world goes bankrupt.
=======================================================
Ravings, you don’t have to be so blunt nor cryptic. While there are boundaries here, there aren’t many if you simply articulate your meaning. I’ve read your posts, some I agree with, others, perhaps may require clarification. Slow down. Many here may be sympathetic towards your assertions.
Owen says:
October 21, 2010 at 6:50 pm
I lay this all at the feet of unfettered capitalism (the utopian dream if the Tea Party)…..blather…blather…blah, blah.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Really? Did you not notice the several billion dollars the socialists took from yours, mine, and any other capitalist a$$ to facilitate such nonsense? We called it a stimulus package! Your unfettered socialist being feeling stimulated yet? If you want to check a bit of reality, the Tea party was against this insanity. But feel free to live in your alternate reality if you will, it must feel better to live there.