[ExI] not that rare earth

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 
…

 

> 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…

 

On the contrary, it doesn’t require REEs.  We have had generators a few percent less efficient for many decades, long before anyone ever discovered the REE improvement.  Considering the price of power has doubled in California in the past decade, I don’t think a slight improvement in generator efficiency will matter much.

 

>… 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….

 

Sure, but irrelevant.  Governments don’t generate power.  Investment capital generates power.

 

>…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

 

Again, of course but completely irrelevant.  Power generation isn’t about votes.  It’s about making money.  I see no good reason to mix those two very different things.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

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