Posted on 03/29/2010 2:28:09 PM PDT by givemELL
"Where will we get them? Look at a chart of rare earths production and consumption over the past 50 years, and two trends are immediately clear. The more rare earths the world has consumed, the fewer have been mined here in the United States. In 1985 - before the emergence of the public Internet and in the infancy of the laptop revolution - the U.S. produced half of the world's rare earths supply. By 2000, world production had more than doubled, while the U.S. share dropped below 10 percent.
In 2002, U.S. rare earth production dropped to zero, with the shuttering of the lone rare earths mine in Mountain Pass, Calif. Today, 95 percent of all rare earths produced worldwide come from a single country: China."
Rare Earths highlight a national security problem apparently neglected by the curent and past administrations. In addition, there are 18 other critical elements of which the US must import 100% of its supplies.
This is a BIG national security issue.
If they price of these rare earth elements goes up substantially - mines will open up again in America.
Every modern society needs helium for many critical processes. We have all of it and there is no substitute.
Recovery means more electrons must flow, more energy must be produced, and PRODUCT must be PRODUCED for sale, export, profit. Only profit provides the base for tax support, expansion of industry, etc. Product, the type the US and other nations thrive on today is DEPENDENT upon rare earths....all of it. There is no debt service possibly in our country without product production....and I do not mean services, non-legitimate financial instruments, and consumerism when there is no production. Rare earth shortages associated by the geopolitical conditions favoring China (two Mongolian mines, apparently) alone, define our ability to maintain or expand a sustainable economy. All green technology is rare earth dependent, and cannot be cranked up in sufficient quantity before our currency becomes “not worth a Continental”. Massive exploration and acquisition are imperative. China leads the way using US dollars to buy up as much mining as it can. Environmentalism in the US caps any approach to expanding our industrial base. The US national policy milleau shows NO realistic effort to advance the viability of our nation-state. Lack of rare earths alone defines further decline.
Jim Puplava interviewed someone on his Financial Sense Newhour podcast a while back about the Rare Earth market and it sounded like China pretty well has a lock on current supplies. It sounded like a good opportunity for investment for someone who knows how and what to invest in.
http://www.amarillo.com/stories/040198/begins.shtml
The US shut down its only helium plants a few years ago,...bad move. Here is the article:
By GREG ROHLOFF
Globe-News Business Writer
Today, federal Helium Operations here shift into a new phase as the shutdown begins of both the Exell Helium Plant near Dumas and the Amarillo plant where gas analysis was done.
Then, on Thursday, workers will find out how the U.S. Department of the Interior plans to staff its remaining operations, which have been part of the Texas Panhandle’s economy for nearly 70 years.
Only the Cliffside Field about 10 miles north of Amarillo will remain, said Tim Spisak, acting general manager. The storage facility will operate as long as the government has unrefined, crude helium to sell.
The 1996 helium privatization law turns Helium Operations into a sales and storage operation and requires a much smaller staff than the current work force of about 145.
That number already is down from the more than 200 who worked for the operation at the beginning of the decade, when the move began to get the government out of the helium business.
After ending operations today, helium plant crews will have a 60-day layoff notice period to begin mothballing the plants, Spisak said. The separation date for those being laid off will be June 6.
After June 6, two groups of employees will remain.
The plan calls for a staff of 36 to handle storage operations at the Cliffside Field. The permanent staff will work in storage, sales and transmission of crude helium, royalty collections, helium evaluation and evaluation of reserve analysis.
Another 27 employees will work for up to two years in disposing of unneeded assets such as office furniture and plant equipment. And take care of environmental remediation around the plants so that they can be sold to either private helium producers or converted to other purposes.
Spisak said Helium Operations will pay laid-off workers up to $10,000 for additional training or certification needed for a new job outside the agency. The remainder of that sum can be used for relocation expenses.
We have none of 18 non-rare earth elements, and, never had useful amounts of the others. We have lots of gold to mine...estimates in the Rocky Mountains alone show that only 9-10% of the gold there was taken out. With modern mining techniques, there is much remaining that can be cost effectively mined....too bad we don’t have rare earths.
MINING!??
That’s so 19th century! Isn’t being a community activist or environmentalist so much more relevant??
(sarc)
This country used to have stockpiles of critical metals and other materials for national security purposes. It was recognized that if we got into a major war, we needed to be self reliant.
Obviously we have gradually drifted away from that position. I’m afraid I don’t know who was responsible, although I suspect it was probably people like Carter and Clinton.
There is some rare earth production in Canada still. One junior miner is Avalon Rare Metals:
The US still produces 78% of the worlds Helium and as long as we continue to have the worlds largest natural gas supplies that trend will not go down.
It doesn’t matter whether we have stockpiles or not. When our high tech weapons depend on computer chips made outside our borders and we no longer have the industrial capability to produce the weapons and materials to fight a major war, the absence of rare earth stockpiles is meaningless.
Without US manufacturing, Russia and Great Britain would not have been able to fend off Nazi Germany in WWII. The US supplied the guns, airplanes, ships, ammunition, uniforms, and other materials to save the free world. Thanks to “free” trade, our factories have moved overseas. If we were to go to war with China and Russia today we would lose because we do not have the manufacturing capability to produce the weapons and equipment required to win. Once Obama finishes eliminating our nuclear arsenal, we will be extremely vulnerable.
Yes, that too.
Too true. We are gradually losing our independent capability to wage a high-tech war.
Out side of being scarce, what is rare earth?
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