[ExI] Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley

[Keith Henson]

On Sat, Oct 25, 2025 at 10:47 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
> Sent: Saturday, 25 October, 2025 10:02 AM
> To: spike at rainier66.com
> Cc: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com>; ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley
>
> On Sat, Oct 25, 2025 at 8:06 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
> snip
>
> >>... Sure but for tax advantages, wind turbines have been placed in locations which are sub-optimal and don’t really generate enough power to break even.
>
> >...Can you cite any published study on this?
>
> No.  I flew across country a lot between about 1995 and 2011 on business.  I saw a lot of wind farms where nothing was moving, or (something I haven't been able to understand) a few of the turbines spinning, which indicates there was wind that day.  But clearly there was a lot of capital sitting there doing nothing.  Businesses cannot survive when capital sit idle.
>
> >...I don't know if the demand for RE elements matches the RE elements in wind turbines.  Do you?  Keith
>
> Neodymium appears to be the one that comes up on both lists.  We have long used gallium and germanium, but we can mine and refine that stuff here.

They are not RE, but they are strategic.  Wikipedia says this about gallium:

"In July 2025, the US think tank Center for Strategic and
International Studies wrote: "China is increasingly weaponizing its
chokehold over critical minerals amid intensifying economic and
technological competition with the United States. The critical mineral
gallium, which is crucial to defense industry supply chains and new
energy technologies, has been at the front line of China’s
strategy."[71] In 2024, China produced 98 percent of the world’s
low-purity gallium (source: United States Geological Survey
(USGS)).[71]"

Gallium is mostly a byproduct of aluminum production, which has been
outsourced to places with less concern about pollution and less
expensive electric power.  It is not coming back.

China has a very large chunk of the germanium production as well.

It looks like the attempt to bring production back to the US may fail
due to a lack of raw materials.  An example of people at high levels
not thinking things through or not understanding the problems.

> Those have been used in chips since at least the 1980s.  We don't really need the REEs for fighter planes, hell we don't even really need the planes.  (Why should we need the planes?  Fighter pilots can't take the G loads.)

It turns out that fighter planes are useful for knocking down drones.

> Conclusion: the notion about China having this big monopoly on REEs must be exaggerated.  If those elements are needed badly enough, we can mine the defunct turbines.  But good chance we will find enough neodymium without taking those turbines apart.
>
> If the wind farm investors want to recycle them for materials, that might help defray the cost of taking them back down.  Aside on that: during the wild buildup phase of wind farms, we have heard for twenty years this was coming.  We were told those were being overbuilt and were going in places where they wouldn't pay.  Well, those warning apparently turned out to be true.

Maybe.  i would like to see some documentation.  They are still building them

Keith

> spike
>
>
>