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Chinese price manipulation has taken its toll on the U.S. economy Rare earth metals are an increasingly integral part of everything from automobiles to television sets.  But the precious metals are tightly controlled by China, with an excess of 95 percent of current suplly coming from Chinese-owned mines and refineries.  The degree of control has allowed China to manipulate prices, cutting back on demand to sell less material for the same amount of profit, any businessperson's dream. I. New Private-Public Partnership Sets Aim on Chinese Mineral Hegemony The problem is that it takes several years or more to bring rare...

China produces the entire world’s supply of samarium, a rare earth metal that the United States and its allies need to rebuild inventories of fighter jets, missiles and other hardware.China’s strict controls on the export of heat-resistant magnets made with rare earth minerals have exposed a major vulnerability in the U.S. military supply chain.Without these magnets, the United States and its allies in Europe will struggle to refill recently depleted inventories of military hardware.For more than a decade, the United States has failed to develop an alternative to China’s supply of a specific kind of rare earth crucial for the...

Scientists improved the performance of electricity-harvesting crystals by adding the rare earth metal samarium. Photo by Wikimedia Commons ============================================================ April 19 (UPI) -- Researchers have discovered that the addition of a rare earth metal significantly improves the performance of piezoelectric crystals. Piezoelectric crystals are used in sensors, including underwater sonars and medical ultrasound imaging devices. These technologies use perovskite oxide crystals, or PMN-PT crystals. Scientists have also tried to use piezoelectric crystals, which convert mechanical oscillations into electricity, to power wearable electronics and other types of novel technologies. An international team of scientists from Australia, China and the United States...