Posted on 09/29/2011 10:17:25 AM PDT by bananaman22
The prosperity of China’s “authoritarian capitalism” is increasingly rewriting the ground-rules worldwide on the capitalist principles that have dominated the West’s economy for nearly two centuries.
Nowhere is this shadow war more between the two systems more pronounced than in the global arena of production of rare earths elements (RREs), where China currently holds a de facto monopoly, raising concerns from Washington through London to Tokyo about what China might do with its hand across the throat of high-end western technology.
In the capitalist West, as so convincingly dissected by Karl Marx, such a commanding position is a supreme and unique opportunity to squeeze the markets to maximize profits.
Except China apparently has a different agenda, poking yet another hole in Marx’s ironclad dictums about capitalism and monopolies, further refined by Lenin’s screeds after his Bolsheviks inadvertently acceded to power in 1917 in the debacle of Russia’s disastrous involvement in World War One. Far from squeezing its degenerate capitalist customers for maximum profit (and it’s relevant here to call Lenin’s dictum that if you want to hang a capitalist, he’ll sell you the rope to do it), Beijing has apparently adopted a “soft landing” approach on rare earths production, gradually constricting supplies whilst inveigling Western (and particularly Japanese) high tech companies to relocate production lines to China to ensure continued access to the essential commodities.
REEs are found in everyday products, from laptops to iPods to flat screen televisions and hybrid cars, which use more than 20 pounds of REEs per car. Other RRE uses include phosphors in television displays, PDAs, lasers, green engine technology, fiber optics, magnets, catalytic converters, fluorescent lamps, rechargeable batteries, magnetic refrigeration, wind turbines, and, of most interest to the Pentagon, strategic military weaponry, including cruise missiles.
Technology transfer is the essential Full article at: China’s Rare Earths Monopoly
I am admittedly not heavy on the political theories of Marxism, so don’t feel comfortable debating it’s finer points.
However we only need 2 elements to make really gold electric car propulsion motors: iron & copper.
The need for RREs can be eliminated if we design large enough energy storage devices. RRE magnetics are really only useful in the context of brushless dc motors, which do sip power at lower RPMs, but are more difficult to assemble and service at larger sizes that would apply to car propulsion.
In what way? John Daly needs to go back to golfing, gambling, and drinking.
So China isn't milking us for money, but instead is milking our corporations for more factory relocations to China.
The Chinese have always been noted for their appreciation of the long view. This is exactly what monopolists with a long view would do.
Doesn’t the U.S. have large natural deposits of “rare earth” which the “environmentalists” won’t allow touched? Like the oil we have in the ground, I suppose Obama’s idea is to force us to be dependent on Islamic extremists and China for what we need. Gotta “spread that wealth around” you know. Gotta put the “eeeeevilll” United States in her place.
You're kidding, right? Maybe a 1915 Baker Electric but today's batteries, high-efficiency magnets in the electric motors, and other parts of the system, efficiency requires REEs.
You actually proposing that the US stay behind the technological curve and stick to huge lead-acid batteries because that's we used to use?
We have our own sources for REEs and we don't actually need the Chinese.
The thing about the “rare earths”, is that they’re like Voltair’s take on the “Holy Roman Empire”.
IE, they are neither earths, nor rare. China is the low-cost producer because they don’t care about the environmental effects of mining them. If they put the squeeze on too hard, other producers will appear, and they know this. All they could do is produce a temporary market fluctuation.
No, I am not suggesting anything like that.
High power density & efficiency can be obtained with copper and iron induction motors.
Additionally, BLDC motors that use RRE magnets are not very scalable on a low price basis, unlike induction motors.
Another drawback of BLDC motors is high speed operation -— they suck loads of power due to the size of the magnets required and the eddy currents induced in the magnets.
So sure, we can exploit every drop of RREs we can squeeze out of China for relatively small and expensive BLDC motors, or we can invest the time for much less expensive high powered induction motors.
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