[ExI] not that rare earth (part 2 of at least 2)

[Keith Henson]

On Tue, Nov 4, 2025 at 3:59 PM spike jones via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] not that rare earth (part 2 of at least 2)
>
> On Mon, Nov 3, 2025 at 11:59 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
>  > Yesterday we were told the Mountain Pass facility had its environmental permits in place and would be producing all we need in two years.
>

> >…I wish them well…
>
>
>
> OK good.  For a minute it sounded like you were cheering for China.
>
>
>
> >… it remains to be seen if they have the skills to perform that delicate chemical process on an industrial scale that is economically viable
>
> Economically viable depends on the price of the product.  Speculators will scale up the existing facility using known technology which has been in use for decades.  It doesn’t look complicated to me: the same differential solubility, followed by fractional crystallization procedures they taught us in analytic chemistry half a century ago.  It is time consuming with plenty of cycles, but nothing high tech.
>
I am not certain about this, but I think they use differential solvent
extraction.
>
> >…And in two years, three at the most, we will know if China or the US won the AI race …
>
> Ja but that comment explains your outlook to some extent, and mine.  Perhaps you are a lot more certain that AI will somehow cause the need for REEs to go away or become irrelevant.  You are thinking the Singularity is nearly upon us.  I agree it might be, but it might not be.  If it is, then none of this matters.  If it isn’t, then all of this matters.
>
Part of the timing depends on how much AIs feed back into their own
development and how much they contribute to the rise of
nanotechnology.

> >  we saw what happens when local grids rely too much on wind power: the huge cold front on 7-8 December 2017 caused shortages in availability in Texas.

That was a complicated event, with human failings in many places.  One
of the biggest problems was failure to winterize the fossil fuel
plants.

> >…A two day shortage eight years ago is not sufficient for a blanket condemnation of wind power…
>
> It isn’t a blanket condemnation of wind power.  It is a demonstration that wind power does not reduce the need for alternative power generation fueled by the old-fashioned combustion.  In some cases, adding wind power may necessitate additional fossil fuel alternatives, for it increases demand for power, which must be there in the oddball case when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.  Otherwise fatalities occur.

Part of it is design choices.  Even if the gas is working, most
heating systems require electricity to operate.

> >… and I can't help but wonder if your dislike of it is just a reflection of He Who Must Not Be Named dislike of it….
>
> The addition of political considerations only confuses an already wildly complicated engineering task.
>
True.  The isolation of the Texas grid is a political choice.

> >…It's not just you two, I predict that the power bills of everybody in the US are going to skyrocket in the next few years due to AI's insatiable demand for electricity…
>
> Oh the profit potential here, mercy.
>
> >… the fact that the US has not increased its electric power generating capacity in over a decade…

There is a good reason for that.  It used to be that the lighting load
was substantial.  With LEDs (imported from China), most of that load
is gone.  Peak load for California is down a few GW from 2006.

> See previous comment, and multiply by about e.

> > Power distribution seems simple enough in theory, but it boggles the mind in actual practice.
>
> >…When I was in college the most difficult course I had was not the one on electromagnetic theory or the one on the quantum mechanical nature of transistors, it was but one on how real world (not the simplified idealized examples seen in beginning textbooks) transformers, electric motors and generators affect large scale power distribution….
>
> Sheesh ain’ t that the truth.  Rocket science is EASY compared to power distribution.  My power class was so damn crazy hard, our professor told us the harsh truth: he wouldn’t hire any of us (he was a retired manager for Pacific Power.)
>
> >…I vividly remember the semi hysterical laughter that came from the entire class when they got their first look at the final exam questions. About an hour after that test I got the worst headache of my life, I don't think it was a coincidence.  John K Clark
>
> After I took Power, I decided to not go to graduate school.  That class resulted in multiple injuries and serious fatalities.

I took that course.  Have never heard of anyone being hurt in a power
lab.  You could do it, but it would take real effort.

There were two of us who excelled at the lab work (the other guy was
Ted Carnavil, who eventually became a doctor)..  The hardest lab was
under- and over-exciting a synchronous machine to make it look like an
inductor or a capacitor.  The other students were used to watching us
set up and take data before they did it.  Both of us had something
else to do that day, so we came in a day early and did the lab.  The
other students took two days to run that lab.

> That class was so hard, some of the students lives were saved because they judged themselves too stupid to operate a loaded pistol on themselves.  That class was so hard, failure was not an option, it was required.

Some time before I took the power lab course, I was on an Air Force
ROTC field trip to the AF Academe at Colorado Springs.  They took us
around to see the labs, one of which was a power lab.  There was a
setup of a delta or Y transformer circuit (I can't remember which).
The instructor called it the wrong one.  I spoke up, asking the
instructor if it was the other one.  He smacked his head and said,
"You're right, I have been telling cadets the wrong thing all day, and
you are the first to catch it."  I decided that if I wanted to make a
career in the Air Force, I could compete.

It was an interesting trip; we flew from Tucson to Colorado Springs in
a C-46 (military DC-3).  There was enough time for all of us to get 5
or 10 minutes to fly the plane.  Most of the kids bounced the plane
all over the sky.  I did a credible job because a cousin (who was a
flight instructor) had taught me the basics of flying a plane when I
was 14.
>
> This would be cool, and probably already exists: a power grid management sim game, a good realistic simulation, where you hafta make all the investment decisions and technical calls on everything, do the design of the grid, perhaps with multiple players as managers of competing and collaborating adjacent power grids.

Simulating power grids is a multimillion-dollar business.  They still
don't get everything.
>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003

Keith

> Does anyone here know if such a thing exists.  One would think so.
>
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> spike
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