RealClearScience – The Looming Rare Earths Train Wreck.
An article to cheer us all up:
China controls 95% of the world’s rare earths. They have cut back exports by 40%. The USA’s massive subsidies towards “green” technologies which rely heavily on rare earths, means that in their attempts to reduce reliance on petroleum and gas, they are heading for a huge train wreck with China directing the rails over a possible cliff…
Author: coldwaterjohn
CWJ travelled extensively with his family, having worked in eleven countries over thirty years. A keen photographer, holding a Private Pilot's Licence, he focuses mainly on landscape and aerial imagery. Having worked in the Middle East extensively he follows developments in that region with particular interest, and views with growing concern, the radicalisation flowing from Islamic fundamentalism, and the intolerance for opposing views, stemming from it.
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Boadicea's Chariot 
Very scary; frying pans and fires stuff.
The perpetual story of unintended consequences…
Thanks cwj, I read this. Not terribly “green” technologies though, are they?
The thing about “green” technology is that it should be sustainable – and that doesn’t mean plundering limited global sources until they are all used up – especially if they all happen to be in China!!
You took the words out of my mouth, CWJ.
Jan, I don’t quite understand. If we find a use for a limited resource, and use it up, where is the beef? Once it’s gone, we find something else. What is the alternative? ‘There’s not much of it left, so leave it where it is and don’t use it?
You can’t have milk on your cornflakes because there’s only half-a-bottle left. leave it in the fridge to go sour?
There is plenty elsewhere, most of the mines were closed or mothballed because it was cheaper from China.
They are just going to have to open them up again or sink new ones. Most of it used to come from California and Sweden originally.
Very bad alarmist reporting.
CO, yes. Unsafe extraction is OK in China, where wages and human life are cheaper. Same old…..
Christina, the word “cost-effective” in describing alternatives, is what is relevant. You can extract oil from shale, but it is not “cost-effective” at current world pricing for oil – Ditto for alternatives to China’s rare earths.
Just to thoroughly confuse you all, here is a link to the Anti-Bryce Brigade’s camp:
http://www.cleantechblog.com/2010/04/robert-boyces-5-myths-show-ignorance.html
You will need to decide for yourselves whom to believe!
The current ‘cost’ outside China is only relevant since China became the main source. The latest hoohah about world exchange rates is the result of such activities.
China presently supplies 95% of the world’s present consumption.
That strikes me as putting rather a lot of your eggs in one basket…The USA is clearly agitated enough about it to have Mrs Clinton in urgent discussions on it.
Open the coal mines.
You are absolutely correct. They are finding more and more of these metals in Australia and Canada as well — both vastly nicer countries with which to work. Sweden, Spain, and California also have a lot. The problem is that California is putting up so many restrictions on any sort of mining that mining companies are pulling out of the state fast. Perhaps the watermelon counties of California can be given to China in lieu of cash, especially since they are politically closer to China than the rest of the USA.
Meanwhile;
“while California has lost nearly 1 million jobs during the last decade, Texas has gained 1 million”
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/
Well, I’ve read more on this and as Christina points out – the reporting of the China angle is very misleading as there are plenty of these minerals elsewhere.
But Bravo, answering your point “If we find a use for a limited resource, and use it up, where is the beef? Once it’s gone, we find something else. What is the alternative? ‘There’s not much of it left, so leave it where it is and don’t use it? You can’t have milk on your cornflakes because there’s only half-a-bottle left. leave it in the fridge to go sour?”
Using your own analogy, leaving milk to go sour isn’t necessarily a bad thing – you can make cheese! I would never support the “using up” of a natural resource in case future generations can make more efficient use of it. The planet’s resources are finite. We *have* to find alternatives.
🙂
It looks to get a lot, lot worse, too. The California legislature is operating under the idea that it is the only state big enough with enough infrastructure so that companies can do well. The problem is that other states such as Texas, Nevada, Arizona, and Idaho have much, much better infrastructure than before and much, much better business laws. Even the education gab isn’t what it used to be. These states have improved their own higher education dramatically and educated people from other states (California included) have chosen to settle there rather than in California.
Sorry, Val, but if we followed that line of argument we would still be living in caves, bashing you ladies over the head with clubs and living only to provide ample supplies of fresh meat for any predator that cared to come along and help itself.
“Ohh, Ug, mustn’t use that tree for firewood, our boy might be able to build a windmill from it.”
“Ohh, Og, mustn’t use that tree for firewood, our girl Felicity* might be able to build a boat from it.
“Ooh, Felicity, mustn’t use that tree to build a windmill, our girl Honaria might be able to…
“Ooh, Honaria, mustn’t…
* I’m sure that cavemen had nicer names for their ladies than Uggga or Ogga.
In the time of the cavemen the men were beaten over the head by the women, not the other way around. The decline in the position of women came in tandem with economic changes which made men’s labour roles dominant. As that waned so did the gap in the position of women and men.
Val? Val?!!! Do keep up Bravo. I was just about to cave in (geddit) and admit my point was a bit flaky when you address me as Val! Pass me that club would you please, Christopher? 😀
Oh dear, in the dog-house again. Will most humble grovelling suffice 😦
Beside the point, Christopher, whichever was baher or bashee.
Of course, Bravo. 😀
One big mistake, to assume that humanity is the climacteric of this planet!
Various denizens have come and gone before us and no doubt other species will inherit the void when we destroy ourselves as we are so intent on doing.
No doubt cockroaches or whatever will have very little use for rare earths except for rolling in!
If anything is to be conserved and preserved for the future someone ought to stop the population from breeding like rabbits and destroy some who are already here.
Not that it will actually stop the natural conclusion but might well delay it.
Not a popular option is it?
The more people that die the better for the rest. A straight choice, do you wish your genetics to be in at the end game or all brown ones?
We already know the answer to that.