PiSigma
"the engineer"
It takes 1 year for each phase of engineering design. So to start from scratch, at least 2-3 years for design. And where are they going to get the engineering expertise? Chinese engineers with the patents?
Can the US derail 2025?
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
All those analyst are day dreaming and wishful thinking. sure there are tons of rare earth potential all over the world
But the key word here is potential The difficult thing here is converting the ore into real rare earth element
It need mining, processing, tailing, water, waste management,pollution abatement . Even the Australian mine need to send it to Malaysia for processing and then bring it back for further processing because Malaysia won't accept Thorium release into their water. they can do it for small production batches But to satisfy world demand for lithium battery and magnet they need to increase the production hundred times.
Just because you are smart does not make you a surgeon You need hard work to get into college and money to pay for the education
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
That is a good question because the process are patented and I am not sure if the west own any technology in extracting the rare earth element. Because there are not that many Mining school left in US or Mining Consulting company
China definitely has the technology that is where Xi went last week
Back then, it was a big business for local smugglers to make a quick buck.
It would definitely be a different story this time around.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Agree but there are newer technology in the work that alleviate or reduce poisonous waste water that is difficult to recycle resulting in environment degradation
According to Sun, the standard way to extract rare earths from ore involves submerging them in a solution of toxic chemicals to separate out the useful elements, a process that can take up to a week.
But using a new material developed by Sun’s team, they can be separated out with unprecedented speed and efficiency, he said.
Seen under a microscope, the material – a mix of alkyl phenoxy carboxylic acids – contains countless solid particles just a few micrometres wide. When the material is mixed with the fine grains of rare earths ore, it starts a process known as “extraction and precipitation strategy”.
“The job can be done in 20 minutes,” Sun said.
It can also be used to extract rare earths from mining debris, and trace amounts of the metals can even be obtained from leached waste, Sun said.
“[Finding a] low-cost and clean production process for rare earths is a worldwide problem,” Sun said. “Traditional extraction requires a large amount of volatile organic solvents … which are difficult to recycle, and the waste water they produce has a negative impact on the environment.”
Sun said the new extraction method would reduce production costs as well as pollution.
The industry is known for its heavy environmental cost. Pollutants in waste water are difficult and expensive to safely dispose of, but Sun said the new material could be recycled and the process would easily meet environmental standards.
“We’re taking this extraction process to the mass application stage,” he said.
Industrial testing has already been completed by some of the world’s largest rare earths producers, including Ganzhou Rare Earth Group in Jiangxi province and Baotou Steel Hefa Rare Earth in Inner Mongolia.
President Xi Jinping visits China’s rare earths mining base in Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, last week. Photo: Xinhua
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There are challenges, including producing the extraction material on a large scale and modifying existing equipment at rare earths refineries, but Sun said they had government backing.
“The government takes the rare earths industry very seriously, and our research has received stable and sufficient funding support,” he said.
Rare earths could become a new flashpoint in the trade war between China and the United States. Beijing has
that it could retaliate against Washington by restricting rare earths exports after US President Donald Trump imposed new measures to cut off the supply of chips and processors to Chinese telecoms giant Huawei.
The National Development Reform Commission said on Tuesday that while China adhered to the principles of “open, coordinated and sharing” in its development of rare earths, the domestic industry would get supply priority.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Here is interesting article why it is so hard to beat China when it come to rare earth element
Explainer: Can the US take back some control of rare earths from China?
Published: 8:00pm, 26 May, 2019
A rare earth metals mine in Nanchang county, in China’s eastern Jiangxi province. The country accounts for 90 per cent of the global supply of rare earth elements. Photo: Reuters
What will it take for the US to regain self-sufficiency in rare earths?
In order for the US to stop relying on Chinese materials, without significant domestic production, it will require Lynas to roughly double its output, as well as a significant output boost by its downstream Japanese magnet producer customers, according to Adamas.
“It is possible, but it will take a lot of time and investment,” said Ryan Castilloux, the consultancy’s managing director.
“It is always a concern for new projects and their investors. If China feels threatened by the emerging competition, as the lowest cost producer it could lower prices to put emerging rivals out of business.
“China may not make a lot of profit mining rare earths and separating them into market-ready oxides, which as an industry is worth just US$4 billion per year. But China dominates all the steps to turn oxides into metals, alloys, magnets, motors and electric cars, and in each of these steps the profits are much greater than at the oxide level.”
Explainer: Can the US take back some control of rare earths from China?
- Beijing, as the lowest cost producer, can lower prices to put emerging rivals out of business
Published: 8:00pm, 26 May, 2019
A rare earth metals mine in Nanchang county, in China’s eastern Jiangxi province. The country accounts for 90 per cent of the global supply of rare earth elements. Photo: Reuters
What will it take for the US to regain self-sufficiency in rare earths?
In order for the US to stop relying on Chinese materials, without significant domestic production, it will require Lynas to roughly double its output, as well as a significant output boost by its downstream Japanese magnet producer customers, according to Adamas.
“It is possible, but it will take a lot of time and investment,” said Ryan Castilloux, the consultancy’s managing director.
“It is always a concern for new projects and their investors. If China feels threatened by the emerging competition, as the lowest cost producer it could lower prices to put emerging rivals out of business.
“China may not make a lot of profit mining rare earths and separating them into market-ready oxides, which as an industry is worth just US$4 billion per year. But China dominates all the steps to turn oxides into metals, alloys, magnets, motors and electric cars, and in each of these steps the profits are much greater than at the oxide level.”
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... that’s just wrong.
China delisted sales from a few categories for Japan to get their fishermen returned. Japan’s electronics slowed to a crawl for a few days, and Japan returned all of them without a scratch.
That is the textbook example of sanctions done right.
Although it will not have the same devastating effect on America, as the US economy is heavily agarian in addition to a middle sized high tech sector. Just sinking the latter might not be enough, compared to Japan which is exclusively high tech.
Why am I sceptical? I don't have a clear picture how China plans to implement this, without antagonizing bystanders. They would have to enforce a serious crackdown on the black market and shutdown all Alibaba entities selling rare earth or rare earth compounds to begin with.
Then they would need to police the world market to ensure the US cannot source it's need from intermediary sellers. Effectively they need to lower their export quota by the amount the US imports, if they can estimate that right. However, according to:
the US imported 100% more rare earth's in 2018 than in 2017. Quite obviously a stockpiling measure. That alone gives them a year worth of supply. The unknown is how fast can they get the refinement facilities up and running to process the ore from US and Australian mines to weather a long term decoupling. Also, not to discount are recycling initiatives. There's plenty of this stuff in junk electronics
Then they would need to police the world market to ensure the US cannot source it's need from intermediary sellers. Effectively they need to lower their export quota by the amount the US imports, if they can estimate that right. However, according to:
the US imported 100% more rare earth's in 2018 than in 2017. Quite obviously a stockpiling measure. That alone gives them a year worth of supply. The unknown is how fast can they get the refinement facilities up and running to process the ore from US and Australian mines to weather a long term decoupling. Also, not to discount are recycling initiatives. There's plenty of this stuff in junk electronics
"Plenty" is relative. The rare earths are typically used in small amounts. One example would be erbium doped optical fibers. An essential component in modern fiber optic networks. People often talk about neodymium used in magnets but there are other applications.
China tried to ban exports a couple of years back. They should just repeat that playbook. Reduce the export quota and try to mostly export manufactured goods (i.e. export magnets and optical fibers) instead of raw ores, and ban sales to the US. That would ensure that even if there is a black market the costs would significantly rise for US companies.
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