[ExI] China Clamps Down Even Harder on Rare Earths

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Clark via extropy-chat
Subject: [ExI] China Clamps Down Even Harder on Rare Earths

 

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription.

China Clamps Down Even Harder on Rare Earths

The move is Beijing’s latest attempt to tighten control over global production of the metals, which are essential to the manufacture of computer chips.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/business/china-rare-earth-exports.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sE8.78T_.CVJsIZWbghVL <https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/business/china-rare-earth-exports.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sE8.78T_.CVJsIZWbghVL&smid=em-share> &smid=em-share

 

 

 

 

 

The rare earth elements are used in high-performance computer chips, drone motors, wind turbine generators, etc.

 

OK, what if… even one wind turbine motor is taken out of service and its rare earth elements extracted for use in making computer chips?  Those things are huge.  It looks like a single turbine generator could supply RE metals for a million high-performance chips.

 

I went out of town Tuesday, passed by a wind farm.  Nothing unusual was seen.  On my return trip today, I see one of the turbines had failed catastrophically in the time we were away.  The blade assembly had crashed to the ground in what must have been a most spectacular catastrophic failure.

 

Perhaps a prole could offer to buy the apparently ruined generator, scavenge the valuable materials, then replace it with a generator which doesn’t use RE metals.  Comparing the performance of RE motors and generators to non-RE motors and generators, the ones using rare earth metals are better motors and generators, but not by much.

 

It could be we have plenty of RE metals anyway, for the electric car market has expanded far slower than anticipated.  Never mind the motors, make the chips: we can get dysprosium from defunct turbine generators.

 

spike

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