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Post by naughtyfox on May 30, 2019 18:30:53 GMT
I have mentioned this before, comes to light again: "Beijing threatens to stop exporting the products to the U.S. which relies heavily on the Chinese resources" "China accounted for 80 per cent of rare earth imports between 2014 and 2017 to the United States." Here are the element and some of their uses: Scandium. Found in aerospace alloys and car xenon headlamps Yttrium. Used in energy-efficient light bulbs, spark plugs and cancer treatments Lanthanum. Found in camera lenses, battery electrodes, and catalysts used in oil refineries Cerium. Used in self-cleaning ovens and industrial polishers Praseodymium. Used in lasers and cigarette lighters Neodymium. Used in electric motors for electric cars, hi-tech capacitors Promethium. Found in luminous paint Samarium. Used in the control rods of nuclear reactors, lasers and atomic clocks Europium. Used in fluorescent lamps, MRI scanners Gadolinium. Found in computer memory chips, steel, X-ray machines Terbium. Used in sonar systems on navy vessels, fuel cells on hi-tech cars Dysprosium. Used in hard disk drives and lasers Holmium. Used in mass spectrometers by hospitals and forensic scientists Erbium. Used in catalysts for the chemicals industry and in batteries designed to store power for the electrical grid Thulium. Found in portable X-ray machines and lasers Ytterbium. Used in stainless steel, thyroid cancer treatment and earthquake monitoring Lutetium. Used in LED light bulbs, oil refining and medical PET scans www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7082897/Inside-Chinas-capital-rare-earths.html
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Post by naughtyfox on May 30, 2019 18:34:10 GMT
Here's what I posted earlier (2 years ago? but the article is from around 10 years ago):
China presently produces more than 95% of all rare earth materials that are vital in the creation of a big variety of electronic technologies including lithium car batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, flat-screen television, compact fluorescent light bulbs, petroleum-to-gasoline catalytic cracking, and military defense components such as missile guidance systems. It also dominates abilities to process them. This enables it to attract product manufactures to operate there as a condition of doing business, ration exports to maximize prices, and punish nations that don’t go along with its policy interests through supply embargoes. Beijing reduced rare earth shipments by 9% in 2010 over 2009, and has recently announced plans to reduce exports by another 35%.
China produces the vast majority of two particularly important rares, dysprosium (99 percent) and neodymium (95 percent). The motor of a Prius requires about 3 pounds of the latter. While other countries, including the U.S., have significant amounts of these, China’s low-cost labor and lax environmental restrictions has afforded it a big advantage in this mining-intensive industry.
Last year Congress required the Pentagon to examine the use of rare earth materials in defense applications to determine if non-U.S. supplies might be disrupted and identify ways to ensure adequate supplies by 2015. In response, the Pentagon sent back an unpublished report last month titled “Rare Earth Materials in Defense Applications” which concluded that the military is in pretty good general shape except for yttrium, an element used mostly in lasers. While China produced about 98% of the world’s yttrium in 2011, U.S. natural reserves of that material are about half as large.
Is it time to end that Chinese monopoly control of materials important to our military and to high-tech manufacturing? Following years of unsuccessful efforts, the Obama administration now appears to realize the importance of doing so, announcing on March 13 that it intends to press the World Trade Organization to force China to discontinue levying restrictions on rare earth exports. While WTO rules technically permit export quotas on natural resources for environmental purposes (which China claims to be the case in regard to rare earths), trade lawyers argue that China’s caps on its export violates that spirit. They note that while Beijing has been cutting access to these vital materials by other countries through quotas, it has been slow to limit rigid production limits at home that might help to protect the natural environment.
Some other countries are also working to ensure access to rare earths. After China enacted a 2010 embargo on rare earth shipments to Japan for leverage in a territorial dispute, Japan now maintains a stockpile of seven rares and is talking about offering government loans that encourage companies to fund foreign investments private reserves. The Toyota and Sojitz Corporations have already entered into tie-ins with Vietnamese rare earth claim-holders. Toyota is also operating a small rare earths mine in India.
Elsewhere in the Far East, South Korea announced plans last year to stockpile 76,000 tons of rares over the next five years, about 10% of all global production. The country has allocated a huge $8 billion war chest for this purpose, an amazing sum considering that its economy is one-fifteenth the size of ours.
In Europe, Sweden has declared a Norra Harr heavy rare earth project owned by Tasman Metals, Ltd. to be in its “national interest” under the Swedish Environment Act; and German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently inked an agreement to obtain rare earths from Mongolia.
American companies are on their own in the rare earth race, and some of them, along with taxpayers, may reasonably prefer to keep it that way… so long as government will get out of their way. A 2010 U.S. Geological Survey Report estimates that known reserves of rare oxides are about 1.5 million tons, and total domestic resources might be 13 million tons. At peak 10,200 2007 U.S. consumption levels, supplies from known reserves would last nearly 150 years, and possibly more than one thousand years if other resources are explored and exploited. In addition, other friendly, stable countries like Australia and Canada have substantial rare earth deposits as well. The Australian mining company Lynas Corporation aims to annually produce 11,000 tons of rare earth oxides from its new Mount Weld mine.
Up until the 1990s, the U.S. dominated world rare earth production, primarily drawing upon the Mountain Pass mine in southern California. The mine was closed in 2002 in response to a combination of environmental restrictions and lower rare earth prices, although processing of previously mined ore from the site has continued. Molycorp Minerals, the current owner, is now reopening it with the goal of producing 20,000 tons of rare earths in the near-term, and 40,000 tons by mid-decade. It claims that a new milling process will enable material production at half of the cost that the Chinese are currently charging. W.R.Grace has announced a deal with Molycorp that could lock up three-quarters of Molycorp’s planned lanthanum production.
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Post by Mr Stabby on May 30, 2019 18:38:14 GMT
There aren't any telephones in China.
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Post by bodger on May 30, 2019 18:57:35 GMT
dilligaf ?
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2019 19:10:36 GMT
China trumps Trump! Shock horror, read it first here!
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2019 19:38:31 GMT
Minn kota outboards don't use neodymium magnets they use strontium ferrite. Nothing to worry about. A few small neos in the phone though.
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Post by patty on May 30, 2019 19:46:15 GMT
Do we need to worry? R we included in Chinas shutting door ...wonder if they can afford to stop exporting valuable stuff Is it connected to Brexit? (everything seems to be)
Is this another Daily Mail cut n paste...?..aah...
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2019 19:57:18 GMT
Do we need to worry? R we included in Chinas shutting door ...wonder if they can afford to stop exporting valuable stuff Is it connected to Brexit? (everything seems to be) Is this another Daily Mail cut n paste...?..aah... It's not a Daily Fail issue. If China is pushed to shutting the door then significant changes will be needed which will take at least a decade to resolve. Very spurious link to Brexit both sides will have there arguments but it is about the might (or not) of the great old USA.
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Post by bodger on May 30, 2019 21:23:29 GMT
Minn kota outboards don't use neodymium magnets they use strontium ferrite. Nothing to worry about. A few small neos in the phone though. I can breathe easy then. PS having removed about 20m of fishing line from an angler last year when I was creeping along the Thames in stealth mode, and then having to remove same from the shaft seal, I have just line-proofed my motor - a large aluminium stockpot has been cannibalised to form a shroud, looks like something out of Batman.
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Post by naughtyfox on May 31, 2019 4:09:45 GMT
You will when you can't get any more Rare Earth elements.
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Post by patty on May 31, 2019 5:36:57 GMT
Do we need to worry? R we included in Chinas shutting door ...wonder if they can afford to stop exporting valuable stuff Is it connected to Brexit? (everything seems to be) Is this another Daily Mail cut n paste...?..aah... It's not a Daily Fail issue. If China is pushed to shutting the door then significant changes will be needed which will take at least a decade to resolve. Very spurious link to Brexit both sides will have there arguments but it is about the might (or not) of the great old USA. The USA has thrown its 'might' and weight about for so long that perhaps countries want to bring it down a peg or two. Trump seems so arrogant ..he irritates me and I only view from a distance...
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Post by naughtyfox on May 31, 2019 7:04:43 GMT
Patty - has anything amusing ever happened to you in connection with a Rare Earth element?
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2019 8:07:03 GMT
You will when you can't get any more Rare Earth elements. It depends on your life style and how much you rely on rare earth elements. So long as we have oxygen, food and water I’m sure we’ll survive. ....written on iPhone...
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Post by bodger on May 31, 2019 9:29:33 GMT
what on earth did we do when China was a closed isolated country?
it must have been a spartan existence for us westerners in the 60's. ................. oh no, that was when I was a teenager and come to think of it, it was absolutely brilliant.
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Post by naughtyfox on May 31, 2019 10:58:18 GMT
Dogless will appreciate Chinese Rare Earths when he gets his leg shoved in an MRI machine.
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