[ExI] not that rare earth

[John Clark]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2025 at 1:49 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*> The earth elements (we have learned they aren’t rare*


*Actually the term "rare earths" is doubly wrong, the elements aren't rare
and they aren't earths, they're metals. But I guess we're stuck with that
name.   *

*> There are other nations besides China which are advanced in chemical
> engineering, which have rare earth ore and which likewise have little
> concern over pollution*


*I'm not sure there are, with the exception of China, countries that have
advanced chemical engineering capabilities also tend to have serious
concerns over pollution. And even if you could find such a country and even
if you could find the many billions of dollars needed, it's going to take
years for them to get up to speed and build the factories needed to refine
those exotic metals on an industrial scale.  *

*> The key insight here is that a shortage of REEs is nearly irrelevant to
> electronics.  Reasoning: they don’t need much, and it goes into a very
> high-value product. *


*That's true if you're just talking about the manufacture of computer
chips, but it's not true if you're talking about the operation of those
computer chips because that takes electrical energy, and that takes
efficient generators, and that takes rare earth elements. And electric
generating capacity is the one HUGE advantage China has over the US. That's
why He Who Must Not Be Named animosity towards wind power is so irrational,
it's not good for the country and it's not even good politics.*

*Take Iowa for example, it's a Republican state, it's about as red as you
can get and is the home of the very influential Iowa caucuses, but Iowa
gets 63% of its electricity from wind power, so being anti-wind power is
not going to get you many votes in Iowa.  *

*John K Clark  *







>
> The earth elements (we have learned they aren’t rare (their usage is
> rare)) experience caused me to think about an Arthur C. Clarke comment
> about contact between civilizations of vastly different levels of
> technology, which is always destructive to the less advanced civilization.
> The USA is not accustomed to ending up on the losing end of that deal,
> ever.  It did to some extent in the car business, but that evened out after
> a time.
>
>
>
> Consider the earth elements.  We were told China had all the refineries
> and technology on that, so even if the USA were to fire up an earth element
> mine and build a refinery, China could always undercut it and make it go
> bust.  There is an alternative: open contracts with countries which don’t
> have all the expensive environmental regulations the USA has, particularly
> ones which need American currency.  OK, so those materials aren’t so rare,
> and we can see from the sagging spot prices the speculators are
> dispirited.  Well, not all the speculators.  The earth element bears are
> having a marvelous and profitable time, the rare bulls are stampeding the
> other direction, at a loss.
>
>
>
> Consider now Haiti.  They are right here next to a tech giant, close
> enough that a small private plane can fly over with one fuel stop.  It is
> close by, and very scientifically advanced.  No matter what Haiti does,
> absolutely regardless of what Haiti does in the sciences, in technology, in
> any technology it chooses, it cannot compete with its giant tech-advanced
> neighbor.  The existence of the giant tech-advanced neighbor is preventing
> Haiti from developing its own advanced technology, for regardless of what
> it tries to do, the USA is next door, already offering that product cheaper
> and more advanced.  Any tech university that Haiti can build cannot compete
> with the existing tech universities nearby.  Result: Haiti is completely
> dependent for technology, medicines, electronics, everything, and cannot
> climb out.
>
>
>
> The USA is not accustomed to being dependent on any other country,
> particularly a likely military adversary in the foreseeable future.  Now we
> learn that the big threat from China’s iron grip on the earth elements was
> exaggerated.  We can still get what we need to do what we need to do.
>
>
>
> There is a fun follow up to this post, to follow when I return.
>
>
>
> spike
> _______________________________________________
>
>
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