EVENTUALLY CHINA WILL CEASE EXPORTING RARE EARTH METALS

China's rare earths are used to produce most of China's technology and consumer goods.

It's not worth worrying about unless WW3 happens.

Rare earths aren't rare, they occur very commonly throughout the crust. The reason why China produces 90% of them is because they can produce them so cheaply. With little to nonexistent environmental oversight, cheap as FUCK labor, and a generally bare bones safety system they can pump out rare earths that undercut more responsible sources and countries.
U.S. actually had a rare earth mine (Mountain Pass Mine in CA) that once produced & supplied most of the worlds rare earth metals. Now in bankruptcy because they cant compete with no regulations

I know they're not rare...But how many global miners{not owned by China are there..I mean ones who actually mine/produce ree as a sole product. If these alloy metals improve the efficiency of autos,planes,trucks, military vehicles & others China then controls the supply of these alloy materials and can cut exports any time to stop US and other companies from using them.

Again it makes no sense. All they will do is hurt their exports. Also the US has tons of old mining infrastructure that can be upgraded for rare earth's. Just takes time. Afghanistan is supposed to have the motherload if they ever get their shit straight.

Yeah I know but I read this about Russia...Somebody said Ruskis could just ramp up supply of scandium and squeeze out other miners but in this article they say that Russia will use what they produce! so I assumed China will do the same.investorintel.com/technology-metals-intel/russia-aims-to-increase-scandium-production-2/

>their mining operations mostly modern
>I literally have no idea what the fuck I am talking about.

Wrong thread if all you care about is that one rare earth.

No you don't

No not just Scandium I hope there are other undiscovered properties of all the Rare earths and specialty metals. once the money is put into research once useless metals might be extremely valuable. Thats were the future revolution in economies will be.

Maybe but that has nothing to do with the thread topic.

I started the thread! If China discovers a new element to make better batteries for EV's do you think they will just sell the technology and that element to Tesla?

if this happens then the US and Australian mines will reopen.

Look at the Molycorp debacle. even though the company failed, the mine is reopened and modernized.

>If China discovers
China
Discovers
>pick one

China
Copies
>pick two

Either one leads to the same situation.China develops their own mines or buys up all the small cap miners elsewhere...like they're doing now!

Just about every small cap miner in australia has Chinese backers or are in negotiations with China.

OK guys, geologist here who researched rare earths scientifically in college and in a business sense witha friend who lost all his investments in Molycorp, which was an american rare earth miner started up in the rare earth commodity bubble.

Rare earths are all around the world, and the demand isn't really that high, such that only a couple mines in China supply the world's needs.

The reason the Chinese supply it is because they have basically no environmental regulations, and some of the mining operatios are even illegal (I believe the illegal ones are in the south of China,)

The US produced almost all of the world's rare earths in the Mountain pass mine in southern california, which was closed mostly due to environmental issues and regulation. This mine is back up and running and could produce enough if the chinese lag in production.

YES!! Cheers from mat science

Can you give more info on the Neodymium stuff?
Specifically last time China threatened to cut off rare earths 5yrs or so ago Toyota figured out a way to use much less Neodymium in their electric motors. How?

good post