China Consolidates Grip on Rare Earths

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

BEIJING — In the name of fighting pollution, China has sent the price of compact fluorescent light bulbs soaring in the United States. \

By closing or nationalizing dozens of the producers of rare earth metals — which are used in energy-efficient bulbs and many other green-energy products — China is temporarily shutting down most of the industry and crimping the global supply of the vital resources.

China produces nearly 95 percent of the world’s rare earth materials, and it is taking the steps to improve pollution controls in a notoriously toxic mining and processing industry. But the moves also have potential international trade implications and have started yet another round of price increases for rare earths, which are vital for green-energy products including giant wind turbines, hybrid gasoline-electric cars and compact fluorescent bulbs.

General Electric, facing complaints in the United States about rising prices for its compact fluorescent bulbs, recently noted in a statement that if the rate of inflation over the last 12 months on the rare earth element europium oxide had been applied to a $2 cup of coffee, that coffee would now cost $24.55.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/business/global/china-consolidates-control-of-rare-earth-industry.html?pagewanted=all

[BeFree]

1. $2 cup of coffee?

Has about 2 cents worth of coffee in it.

Once again GE is lying their asses off to make a mountain out of a molehill and make bigger profits.

One would think the NYTimes wouldn't be such a whore for GE and not print such bullshit, eh?

[Confusious]

5. China has been putting the crimp on supply

for a while now. It's been in almost every news outlet that I can think of.

Not everything is a conspiracy by the great white United states corporations.

Sometimes other people do stuff.

[BeFree]

6. Ok

How much rare earth is in one bulb? 10 cents? 20?

Don't throw that 'no conspiracy' bullshit at me, bucko. Profit making is a f'n conspiracy everywhere there is a buck to be made. Instead, just try sticking with the facts and you'll be taken seriously.

[NickB79]

16. As the article pointed out, rare earths are used in more than lightbulbs, such as wind turbines

And we're erecting tons of those all over the planet.

Hell, the US doesn't even have an active rare earths mine in the entire country!

[BadgerKid]

11. .

That may be $50/month for daily drinkers.

I did a calculation of true cost once and with how I make coffee came up with the cost of the beans being about 1/10th the price of brewed coffee. It bothered me enough to brew my own most of the time.

[caseymoz]

14. Off-topic, but materials isn't the only cost.

When you add in all the labor for a $9 per hour wage, 5-6 minutes, it adds between .63-.75 cents. Then storage, at cost per cubic foot over time, it comes up to maybe .90. Then you add in the electrical cost of making it, probably just another penny, but then you add in the per unit utility cost of lighting an heating building so the customer would come in and worker can do his work, then you probably come up to about $1.10. Add in also the cost of cleaning the pot, cleaning or taking the cup to the trash.

To actually compare the cost of you brewing coffee yourself to buying it from a cafe, you should calculate your opportunity costs per hour (is your time worth less than minimum wage?) used in handling and making the coffee, and use it to calculate the cost of your making the coffee, cleaning the cup and equipment, and add in the utility costs in running the equipment. One presumes you'd run your heat anyway, so you don't have to add that, but you should take into account your cost of storing the coffee per cubic foot of rent or mortgage. When you do, you'll that realize buying from the cafe is a better deal than you think.

I left things out, like the cost of the buying agent's time in making the purchase for the store, the per unit cost of insuring the building in which the cup of coffee is handled, and the costs of getting the permits . . .

[bhikkhu]

2. "Tiny village in Nebraska hides world’s largest rare earth mineral deposits"

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/tiny-village-in-nebraska-hides-worlds-largest-rare-earth-mineral-deposits-2011085/

.....................

...before anyone gets too worried about China cornering the world supply. The technology that needs rare earths is pretty new, so I don't think anyone else has really looked very hard. In any case, we apparently have a good supply here.

[Art_from_Ark]

9. The problem is, most rare earth ores contain thorium

which is a radioactive substance and must be processed accordingly. There is some interest in using thorium as a substitute for uranium in nuclear reactors, but so far thorium is still mostly treated as a waste product of rare earth mining.

[tclambert]

13. China is also planning to build thorium reactors.

They have several advantages over uranium reactors, including safety and less waste. I think we went with uranium reactors partly because we wanted to supply our nuclear weapons program. Thorium doesn't work for weapons. Thorium's radioactivity isn't so bad--you can safely hold it in your hand.

Back to rare earth, I thought we were opening or re-opening some mines in the U.S.

[caseymoz]

15. And we did have an industry in it, but it was dismantled in favor of buying from China.

[NickB79]

17. It's also incredibly polluting, so we exported our pollution to China

If we wanted to exploit our own resources, we'd either a) have to charge far more to deal with clean-up costs, or b) relax EPA pollution control limits.

[caseymoz]

18. Good point. Charge more for the cleanup costs

And put tariffs on imports to reflect those extra costs. And you could use whatever money from the tariffs for the cleanup as well.

[OHdem10]

3. China is a busy bee, looking out for ITS interests. Just bought

land near Toledo, Oh and a Hotel in Columbus, Oh.


That Communism thing is not working out so badly.

Wish our Capitalists looked out for our country ever so well.

[FreakinDJ]

12. The are other supplies - its only profitable to mine in China because

cheap labor and no pollution standards

[Lithos]

4. This could be rewritten many ways

China joins global community, will not screw self by slowing supply.

China encourages global search for other Rare Earth supplies.


This is a non-event. There are other supplies available, the monopoly is only fleeting and only relevant so long as China behaves itself.

L-

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

7. Potential new sources of Rare Earth Metals from Sea Sediments

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/332099/title/Rare_earth_elements_plentiful_in_ocean_sediments

Rare earth elements plentiful in ocean sediments


Economically vital metals could be mined from deep sea, Japanese geologists propose

By Devin Powell

August 13th, 2011; Vol.180 #4 (p. 14)


Mud at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean contains surprising concentrations of rare earth elements, 17 chemicals with exotic names like neodymium and europium that are critical to technologies ranging from cell phones and televisions to fluorescent light bulbs and wind turbines.

Hot plumes from hydrothermal vents pulled these materials out of seawater and deposited them on the seafloor, bit by bit, over tens of millions of years. One square patch of metal-rich mud 2.3 kilometers wide might contain enough rare earths to meet most of the global demand for a year, Japanese geologists report July 3 in Nature Geoscience.

“I believe that rare earth resources undersea are much more promising than on-land resources,” says Yasuhiro Kato, a geologist at the University of Tokyo who led the study.

...continued at link above

[xxqqqzme]

8. Oh, great! We haven't

fucked up the oceans enough already?

[existentialist]

10. China has a grip on the rare earth netals supply

not only because it has substantial deposits, but also because it has not enforced environmental regulations and because the prices have been low.

There are also deposits of rare earth metals in California, Montana, and Australia, (not to mention Zaire and Canada and South Africa).

Many of the deposits elsewhere are not being mined (and some have ceased to be mined after having preiously been in production) largely because the cheap Chinese supplies of rare earth metals have driven the prices down. If the Chinese now raise prices there will be incentive to begin (or resume) mining some of these other deposits.