China Raises Threat of Rare-Earths Cutoff to U.S.

[Turbineguy]

Beijing could slam every corner of the American economy, from oil refineries to wind turbines to jet engines, by banning exports of crucial minerals.


https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/21/china-raises-threat-of-rare-earth-mineral-cutoff-to-us/?utm_source=pocket-newtab


No problem, right? We have that dealmaker Trump on the case.

[HopeAgain]

1. Thats why he loves Kim so much

A dictator who will play along with a charade of International deal-making. Everything else is too complicated for Trump.

[Sherman A1]

2. This is going so very well

[mitch96]

3. China also manufactures a majority of the base chemicals for the drugs Americans take

Cut the base active ingredient supply and the finished pharmaceutical will be in short supply.. not cool

"Under FDA rules, drug companies are required to disclose only the name and business address of the manufacturer. A U.S.-based pharmaceutical plant, therefore, would not have to reveal that its active ingredients come from China."

https://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-drugs-country-of-origin-20180515-story.html

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[MineralMan]

4. The United States has deposits of rare earth minerals.

For various reasons, they are not being mined here. I won't get into those reasons, but we do have ample deposits of minerals that contain rare earth elements and could produce our own resources. Instead, we rely on mining in other places.

We have off-shored not only our mining industries, but also our refineries and facilities that make the products we demand.

Again, there are many reasons we have done that. Some are economics and some are based on environmental concerns.

We are no longer a self-sufficient nation, despite our vast resources that remain untapped. We have relied on other nations for many things for a very long time.

Trump is destroying the international relationships that ensure a steady supply of the things we no longer produce.

[mopinko]

6. i wonder how many of them are in coal ash.

sorry, pet issue of mine. might be my background in ceramic art, where ashes of many kinds are valuable ingredients in clays and glazes.
but most of what makes coal ash dangerous are heavy metals that we import/mine, for big bucks, while we try to figure out how to deal w this chemical rich ash.

i also know enough about chemistry to know that separating out those metals should be a pretty simple matter.

it would be great if the chinese cut us off, and we solved that by mining our ash ponds.

[MineralMan]

7. Not many of the rare earth minerals are found in coal ash, I'm afraid.

Deposits are far more common in other settings. Ancient lake beds, for example. In other cases, like the metal lithium, which is in high demand, there are only a few mineral that contain lithium. Most of them are found in pegmatite deposits, of which we have many in the United states.

The rare earth minerals, specifically, are, well, rare. Estimates of deposits in the United states are about 1.4 metric tons. China, Brazil, and Russia have deposits that are in the double digits for metric tonnage. China tops the list, with Brazil next.

New deposits are discovered from time to time. In Brazil, a large deposit of neodymium minerals was recently discovered, and has yet to be exploited.

Mining has a record of being very environmentally destructive. That's why it is so difficult to start a new mining operation here in the United States. So, exploration to discover new deposits isn't happening in the US. A massive deposit of copper and nickel has been found in northern Minnesota, but there is an equally massive protest movement to exploitation of that deposit, which is primarily sulfide minerals of those metals. Processing those ore's has traditionally resulted in contamination by sulfuric acid of surrounding areas.

A Chilean firm, Antofagasta, named for a mining region in Chile, has a lease on the deposit, but mining can't begin without permits from both Federal and State authorities. Over $1 trillion is the estimated value of the metals that could be produced. Will it happen? Hard to say. Will mining be started soon. Almost certainly not.

The United States used to be a major mining nation. No more. The environmental issues and costs to mitigate them has sent mining outside of the US, where environmental laws are weak and slave-wage labor is available. That seems unlikely to change, so we are dependent of China, Africa and South America for most metal mining and niche mining as for rare earth elements.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

11. Substantial arsenic is found in coal ash along with trace mercury and beryllium.

All very dangerous elements. Have had lots of direct experience with those potential exposures......

"Substantial" meaning enough to be a known hazard.

Don't think there's adequate quantities of any of them or the rare-earths to make it economical to mass process ash ponds and piles that will haunt us until eternity.

[MineralMan]

15. Yes. Arsenic and mercury.

Not in exploitable quantities, though. But they are part of what makes burning coal so damaging.

Beryllium is generally mined in pegmatite zones with high occurrence of the mineral Beryl. The greater concentration of the metal in beryl, which is also the mineral of emeralds and aquamarine when in gem quality, makes it much more economical to mine from that source.

Coal is really only a source of trace amounts of those things, so isn't exploited for them. It's pretty much just a fossil fuel source.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. trump alluded to minerals in Afghanistan as a reason for us to still be there.

What's that about?

[MineralMan]

14. Afghanistan has rich deposits of many minerals,

and its mountainous areas are full of pegmatite deposits that are rich in lithium minerals.

China is interested in those minerals, too. There is a long tradition of gemstone mining in Afghanistan, as well, again connected to the pegmatite deposits. That's the attraction to that nation for many countries.

[mopinko]

16. i was just going to post something about this.

my son was into rocks for a while, and said that all the bombing over there was resulting in lots of interesting rocks being brought up to the surface, and that there was a little economy of people sifting through the rubble for something good.

said a lot of u.s. forces had made a bit of a side hustle out of it.

makes me wonder if there are low intensity mining opportunities in other disrupted landscapes.

[MineralMan]

17. Well, bombs tend to damage most things beyond the point

of marketability. Still, in some places, like Namibia, for example, alluvial diamonds are searched for avidly. Beaches, old river beds and other locations sometimes produce gems for people who know how to spot them. The same is true in some parts of India and Pakistan.

[Firestorm49]

5. And as we sit back, China has been buying up mineral rights all around the world.

[MineralMan]

8. Not just China.

Russia, Brazil and Chile also are buying up mineral rights and mining rights to major mineral deposits. The United States is no longer interested in mining in this country. In fact the opposition to any mining operations makes it almost impossible to mine here today.

[superpatriotman]

9. China's relationship with Africa comes full circle

It’s a Check on rare earth mineral users

[mitch96]

13. "China's relationship with Africa"

I think it's all about the labor... ie cheap labor..
After WW2 Japan was cheap labor. Conditions got better for the people and income went up..Then it went to Taiwan.. same story.. Then mainland China and India..... same story. People started making more money so business started looking for cheap labor..Ah HA!!
Africa!!
Mining rare earth materials can be done in the US but it would be more expensive..
The cost of labor it business bug a boo.. That's my take... YMMV
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[smirkymonkey]

10. Well done, Cheetolini!

You are the greatest dealmaker in the world!