
Rare earth crisis: Innovate, or be crushed by China - llambda
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/111029-rare-earth-crisis-innovate-or-be-crushed-by-china
======
sakai
This article consists of speculation, factual misstatements, and some
jingoistic China-bashing. Terrible journalism:

"Many rare earths are also geochemically rare". No, they're actually as common
as many industrial metals, including copper.[1] China does control 97% of
world supply, as the article states several times, but that's largely due to a
lack of developed mines in the Western countries.

"If geochemistry and politics weren’t enough, though, we even have to factor
in ethical concerns: Just like blood/conflict diamonds — diamonds that
originate from war-torn African nations, where forced labor is used and the
proceeds go towards buying more weapons for the warlord — some rare metals
could be considered “blood metals.” Tantalum, an element that’s used to make
the capacitors found in almost every modern computer, is extracted from coltan
— and the world’s second largest producer of coltan is the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, the home of the bloodiest wars since World War II." True that
the mining of these minerals has occurred in the midst of some of the worst
conflicts of the 1990s and 2000s, but neither tantalum nor coltan are rare
earth elements, as the diagram immediately above the text clearly shows. This
is just hysterics.

"Just like oil and energy, this will probably require drastic technological
leaps. Instead of reducing the amount of tantalum used in capacitors, or
indium in LCD displays, we will probably have to discover completely different
ways of storing energy or displaying images. My money’s on graphene." That's
nice, although again neither tantalum nor indium are "rare earth elements",
nor does graphene possess many of the unique geochemical qualities of rare
earths.

It's very difficult to accept any of the author's articles on face given this
level of inaccuracy and distortion (and that's only errors via a quick skim).

[1] <http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2002/fs087-02/>

(Edit: Added last line)

------
nwlinux
The U.S. has sizable rare earth metal reserves [http://topicsnw.com/r/map-of-
rare-earth-metal-reserves-in-th...](http://topicsnw.com/r/map-of-rare-earth-
metal-reserves-in-the-united-states/). However, when China began selling them
on the cheap, the U.S. shut down those mines. Environmental regulations will
make reopening these mines costly and a long-term endeavor.

~~~
leoedin
Essentially, environmental and safety standards, along with mandatory wages,
have driven almost every activity that the Chinese can do to China, because
they'll do it cheaper. It won't last forever though - Chinese standards are
rising, and while there may be a shortage for a short while, if the Chinese
don't balance their exports right, the high prices they're forcing will drive
other mines to open and destroy any control that they had over the market.

Westerners like to think that we have great environmental standards, but
that's only because we export our environmental atrocities elsewhere. There's
a large embedded cost in our gadgets, and we ignore it because it makes us
uncomfortable.

~~~
joe_the_user
Yes, the hypocrisy here is just screaming...

The US and/or the WTO could have created trade/tax structures that would have
penalized environmentally devastating activities like poor mining practices
and removed the incentive to shunt these things to poor countries. This would
have also removed the "monopoly" that China is now "exploiting". Crocodiles
tears all round...

Edit: typos

~~~
yzhengyu
As I see it, its not really crocodile tears, but the end result of evolution,
becoming the apex predator on our planet, and with a society based on our
innate dichotomous nature.

Someone else bears the true costs - example, say some random Chinese factory
worker at Foxconn who though is able to survive on meagre wages, is unable to
spread his genes since he is not able to find a wife and set up a family -
while you reap the rewards and go on to sire a new generation which has the
incentive to behave in a similar manner.

I use to be very high falutin about all this thing, thinking some true Marxist
society will emerge eventually when capitalism collapses. Now, after looking
at all the neuroscience and psychology research that has been done, I'm not so
sure if we can ever escape the more primal and insidious parts of our nature.

------
kayhi
We operate in this space and have certainly seen an increase in prices. A
product not mentioned in the article that has had explosive growth is solar
panels.

We've see the price of Tellurium dioxide move from $13 to $215/KG from 2002 to
today. Manufacture's are now requiring that all broken panels be returned for
recycling.

~~~
pcowans
Tellurium's not a rare earth element though. It is currently produced only in
very small quantities, but my understanding is we just don't know much about
how much of it's available due to the fact that we didn't really use it for
anything until CdTe photovoltaics came along.

Worth noting too that this is only one of a number of thin film solar
technologies, and that silicon rather than thin film still accounts for the
vast majority of all production.

------
jessriedel
> As a result, demand outside China now outstrips supply by some 40,000 tons
> per year

This statement doesn't square with an understanding of basic econ 101. It
renders the rest of the article pretty suspect, if it wasn't already due to
the breathless tabloid tone.

~~~
orijing
It's just a statement that we aren't at equilibrium... i.e. that prices would
have to go higher to reach equilibrium.

------
zobzu
The article might not be the best, but the problem is very real, at least on
the commercial level for now.

I use rare earth magnets and also buy motors and the like.

The availability went down recently and the price went very much up.

They all come from China, because, well, can't really get it anywhere else
right now.

I also got a few warnings over the past couple of month from the distributors
that "prices on this are going to rise and probably wont go back down, if you
wanna get more stuff before the current stock's out, feel free".

------
kulkarnic
Well, rare earths are not all that rare. I think the actual short term problem
is actually Lithium. AFAIK the only economically feasible producers are Chile
and Bolivia. But I actually don't believe these crises are all that bad: if
the electric vehicle market becomes large enough, we'll find a way to use
another more abundant resource.

Related link: <http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/1124/034.html>

------
d5tryr
What the hell have they done to that website to make it impossible to read on
an iPhone?

------
jasonkeene
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4&t=1h42m05s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4&t=1h42m05s)

(skip to 1:42:05)

Thorium comes up with rare earth minerals.. we can use it as a sustainable
source of energy.

------
adaml_623
What a ridiculous tabloid article.

~~~
vixen99
Clueless I might be about the article but it seems to me that there's really
no point in offering a public opinion that 'it's ridiculous' while not
providing the slightest support or argument as to why that might be so. I'm
none the wiser for your contribution. Who are you that we should be interested
or persuaded by your unsupported light abuse?

