Posted on 04/21/2006 7:20:13 AM PDT by FerdieMurphy
This strategy has our enemies in total disarray. Meanwhile our Politcal Class just keeps slogging away doing the peoples' business.
Un-freaking-believable!
"This strategy has our enemies in total disarray. Meanwhile our Politcal Class just keeps slogging away doing the peoples' business."
This is where the free traders come in and tell you it's all ok. We can retool. We can compensate. We're not going to war with China. etc, etc.
The average American is under assault from all directions. I watched the History Channel presentation on Rome last night. Rome was big, and powerful and advanced, and the collapse of Rome was unimaginable too.
That's actually quite close to what I was thinking.
This is old news.....to recap, you can get rare earth magnets from 2 places....china and california...the enviro-wacko's in california had the mine there closed for ENVIRONMENTAL reasons. we can re-open it at any time to get what we need. Maybe we need to buy all china has, so they don't have any.
Where's the basket.....I want to jump out!
Magnequench’s factories are now located in Batou, China. It is there that the world’s only operating rare earth mine exists.
If there is really only ONE UNIQUE SOURCE on earth for the rare earth elements required as raw materials, and this source is in China, then they could cut the supply any time they wanted. In that case it wouldn't matter where Magnequench was located. Maybe that is what President Bush was thinking-- makes no sense since the Chinese control the resource anyway. Just a thought.
What a shame CFIUS wasn't around in 1940/41 to farm out the Manhattan Project to Nippon, Inc.
What's the big deal, it's dirt to them as long as defense contractors don't show them how to create the finish product? We may still have some secrets left, maybe.
What Are Rare Earth Elements (REEs)?
The rare earth elements are also known as lanthanides and include the 15 elements in the lanthanide series of the periodic table plus yttrium and scandium. The better known elements are cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, praseodymium, gadolinium, europium and samarium.
What are REEs Used For?
About half of the rare earths produced are used as catalysts in the petroleum and automotive industries. The other half are used in a variety of high-technology applications including permanent magnets used in many types of motors, computer data drives and magnetic resonance imaging instruments; polishing media used in manufacturing microchips and many types of precision optical lenses; phosphors used in television screens, monitors and lamps; as a "doping" material in fibre optics to increase bandwidth; as an alloy with other metals to remove non-metal impurities; in rechargeable batteries; in fuel cells and numerous other applications that take advantage of the REEs unique physical qualities.
Where Are They Found?
In fact, the rare earth elements are not really rare. Gold, for instance, is much rarer and even lead is less common than some REEs. What is rare, is their occurrence in economic quantities compared to other mineral commodities. The REEs are usually found in commercial quantities in the minerals monazite and bastnaesite. China produces over 80% of the world's rare earths - 77% of world production coming from one mine. The United States used to produce approximately 6% of the world's supply from one of the only in-situ rare earth mines in the world at Mountain Pass, California. Mountain Pass, the only producing mine in North America, has recently closed its separation plant, and reduced production of concentrate.
The Hoidas Lake rare earth showings are somewhat unique in that the REEs are found in the silicate mineral allanite and the phosphate mineral apatite as opposed to the monazite and bastnaesite mined in China and California. Should the project prove feasible, Hoidas Lake would likely become the only producer in North America operating at full capacity and join Mountain Pass as one of the only in-situ rare earth mines in the world.
Are REEs Valuable?
In a word, yes. Typically, once the rare earth ore is mined and concentrated, it is further processed (either by the mining company or a third party) into a mixed rare earth powder (as oxides or chlorides for example). This mixed rare earth product can be sold as is or processed further by separating the individual REEs into a purer product (ie cerium oxide or neodymium oxide). Depending on the purity, oxide powder, for example, varies in price from US$3.00 per kg for cerium oxide in a one tonne lot size to US$15,000 per kg for scandium oxide in 100 g quantities. The individual powders can also be further refined into metal and, depending again on purity and lot size, can range in price from US$15.00 per kg for lanthanum metal to US$30,000 per kg for scandium metal. To put this into perspective, gold is currently worth about US$8,800 per kg. However, a high-grade gold deposit might have a gross value of only US$100 per tonne, but a high-grade rare earth deposit could easily have a gross value of US$1,000 per tonne or more.
Who Consumes REEs?
The major consumers of rare earths are Southeast Asia (Japan, Korea, Thailand, China) and the USA. The USA is the world's biggest single consumer of rare earths at approximately 27% of the world total. The USA currently imports over 75% of its RE requirement with the value of rare earth products consumed in the USA estimated in excess of US$1 billion per year.
Could A Saskatchewan-Based Rare Earth Industry Compete With China?
Absolutely. Great Western Minerals has established contacts in Japan and the USA who have indicated in writing that they would be prepared to purchase significant quantities of specific rare earth products from a North American producer in order to reduce their reliance on one source. Quality, proximity to market and security of supply are the major selling points with both Japanese and North American consumers.
As China gears up for their own huge industrial and technological revolution, they are consuming a greater percentage of their own natural resources internally and importing more and more metals etc from the West. China will undoubtedly increase their own use of rare earth elements paving the way for a North American producer to become the major source of rare earth elements to Western consumers.
Saskatchewan has no shortage of global marketing experience. Uranium, potash and farm machinery are some of the provinces well-known export successes. A rare earth industry would be well supported in Saskatchewan, from mining, through processing, right down to the research and development of new applications at the research facilities available in the City of Saskatoon.
So much for DFARS compliance.
What we need to do is find an alternative to the rare earth metal magnets, plain and simple, just like we need to start producing an alternative to petroleum. The sooner we can stick it to the Persians, Arabs, and Venezuelans the better!
More like this is where the protectionists come in and tell you that the free traders tell you it's all ok.
Is this material available in the U.S., or not? If it is, then how hard can it be to find someone to operate/process/mine it at a profit? There isn't a free trader on this board who would argue that the U.S. should not have its own source when it is a matter of national security. The fact that the U.S. does not should make everyone wonder why it doesn't. And it's not very likely that the reason is trade policy.
There may be other sources for rare-earth minerals:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/07/26/sask-mine-050726.html
http://www.mineralszone.com/busalliance/xeno.htm
Folks, I just don’t know were to start with this whole article. I has so many misstatements and half truths.
First of all I want you folks at FR that I have been involved with this industry for 22 years and have designed many of the motors and systems that they talk about.
I is not hard nor rare to build these magnets. There are some tricks that you need to know. One: unless they are properly combined with a Getter material they will rust and lose power. Two: unless specifically treated the will when they get to around 140C become demagnetized. This is what the special process that they talk about that has the patents. Patents BTW can be revoked at ANY time by the Congress. This right comes straight from the Constitution.
So don’t Panic. Other materials can also be used such as Samarium Cobalt that will offer almost the same Magnetic Coercively (how’s that for a fancy word ?) .
Note Neo Magnets are available on E-bay but don’t let your kids play with them as the can be dangerous.
ANGRY BUMP
China bought proprietary tech over the last decade to machine and manufacture these items. This as much as anything put us in a bind. Two and maybe three administrations were asleep while this happened.
BUMP! I did too.
should read coercivity
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