China Targets Another Energy Lab

A recent Pentagon report indicates that the Chinese assault on the U.S. Energy Department's national laboratories is continuing. The victim this time appears to be the Ames Laboratory, located on the campus of Iowa State University. Ames is one of the Energy Department's "science" labs. It focuses primarily on energy-related research in the materials, chemical, and biological sciences. But it also conducts research on behalf of national security clients.

<< In the meantime, lets bill "china" for the "research". >>

It is estimated that the research stolen for it from just the Los Alamos Labs by Billy-Bubbah Blythe's William Perry/Hazel O'Leary/Bill Richardson/Lee Wan Ho claque cost American taxpayers more than Five Hundred Billion Dollars.

That would set Peking's evil gangster bastards back a little -- and they'd first have to cash in Peking's One Hundred and Ten Billion Dollars of US Treasury Bonds.

From: minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/ rare_earths/740400.pdf:

"Etrema Products, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Edge Technologies, Inc., of Ames, IA, and the sole supplier of the giant magnetostrictive alloy TERFENOL-D®, signed an agreement with Westport Innovations, Inc., of Canada to supply the alloy for use in diesel engines. Westport Innovations plans to use the “smart” material to control fuel flow in natural gas fuel injectors in light-duty diesel engines. Smart materials have the ability to adapt to outside influences, such as external magnetic fields. TERFENOL-D® is an alloy of iron and the rare-earth elements terbium and dysprosium that expands or contracts with the application or removal of an external magnetic field. It is used in actuators, acoustic devices, sonar, ultrasonics, and other smart materials for the oil and gas industry (Etrema Products, Inc., 2000a). ...

Components for the next generation of the U.S. Navy’s hybrid sonar system are being developed using rare earths by Etrema Products, Inc. Using TERFENOL-D®, an iron-terbiumdysprosium alloy, the sonar system combines traditional piezeoceramic technology to produce an improved detector system for the Navy’s new class of destroyers. The new hybrid materials reportedly created smaller sonar sound sources with higher power and broader bandwidth (Etrema Products, Inc., 2000b).

Sounds like Terfenol-D is not a military secret, or why would it be sold for use on diesel engines in Canada? Also, since it is open knowledge what the substance does and what it is made of, and therefore it has probably been patented, the Chinese could probably recreate it themselves. Sounds like they just wanted to acquire the last few manufacturing details the easy way.

Nevertheless, the Chinese do seem to be interested in acquiring magnetic technologies as is also shown by their recent purchase of Magnaquench. Our export restriction laws need to be tightened (and enforced).

"One of the two students admitted supplying the Chinese military with the Terfenol-D data. Over the years, the U.S. Navy has spent millions of dollars in research to create the smart material. In 2003, the Congress appropriated over $5 million for continued research on the material."

What we are not trading away when we offshore and move manufacturing over there, is STILL being stolen from our labs and businesses here.
And, of course, as the article states, "These (counter-espionage capabilities) were largely dismantled in the 1990s".
The Cox report has been out for years, yet Bush and Congress have allowed technology transfers to continue under the guise of "free trade", and free education for their college-aged students.

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