U.S. at risk of rare earths supply disruptions

That choice, in my opinion will come very very quick as rare earth minerals will be issued out kind of like the triage method they use in the ER.as the mins. become more scarce some mins. will be moved to more critical projects and alot of others will suffer from the cut.The projects they will cut is up for grabs but i feel safe saying they wont cut from the defense budget

Google is your friend. But being a long time miner helps

"control 97% of rare earth minerals" BS
right now they MINE 97% of the rare earth minerals but the US and Canada has plenty still in the ground.
www.usgs.gov...

For years china has undercut the price of rare earth minerals to the point the mine in the US closed.
China has no environmental rules and regulations so they could mine the rare earth minerals for less then it cost to do the environmental rules and regulations paperwork to be able to mine in the US.
This was Mountain Pass mine in Calif.
en.wikipedia.org...

There are at least two other rare earth mines in preliminary development to open in the next few years one in Canada and one in Alaska.

Plus there are now companies looking at recycling rare earth materials
www.bloomberg.com...

Fortunately there is plenty of rare earth minerals in afghanistan.

www.forbes.com...

reply to post by alchemist2012


HI Alchemist, I believe this is already being discussed in another thread:

China: Trade embargo on Rare Earth minerals/metals - What damage could this do to the West?,

I am keen to keep that thread going, as I also suspect we have not yet heard the last of this issue. As you will see from my last update, the issue appears to have been put on the agenda for a forthcoming high level diplomatic event/visit from Chinese officials to the US in the near future.

As you will see there have been some useful and well informed contributions building up there...enjoy!

]reply to post by ANNED[/url]


As discussed in the existing thread on this, China: Trade embargo on Rare Earth minerals/metals - What damage could this do to the West?,[/url[url=http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread640917/pg2#pid10130883]

As you will see from the discussion there, it appears there are indeed alternative sources to China's REEs, however (some of) the immediate issues are that estimates were that it could take 2-5 years to get production at the alternative mines up to a level of output that might ease the situation (of a significant restriction in supply from China). Another answer may be new devlopments in manufacturing REEs, synthetically as it were, through newly developed industrial/chemical processes, converting more commonly available elements (aluminium...), but that has not yet been established/proven either [*on such a manufacturing scale].

However, IF China did disrupt supply significantly NOW, whilst the West is DESPERATE to rebuild/maintain it's very fragile economy, industry, strategic outlook, (which it needs to demonstrate within what - 1-2 years) it could be enough, to significantly swing the advantage (in securing economic growth) away from the West - whilst on it's knees - and towards the East - increasingly appearing to hold crucial cards at a crucial time - IMO and others...e.g. [url=http://www.niallferguson.com/site/FERG/Templates/ArticleItem.aspx?pageid=236]Niall Ferguson: In China's Orbit