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

[Keith Henson]

Spike, with regard to efficiency, a long time ago, I was working in
the EMD factory, where, at the time, they built locomotives. While I
was there, they constructed a machine at a cost of many millions that
crossed over wires in the armature of electric motors.  It was quite a
machine.  It heated two wires to make the copper soft, flattened them
to half their thickness, offset the s, and insulated the crossover.  I
think it took them about a year to build and debug it.

It improved the traction motor's efficiency by half a percent, which,
over the 40-year life of a locomotive, saved enough fuel to be worth
the effort.

"We can do it now.  But there are alternative sources for the
materials as well: Japan, Malasia, Cambodia etc."

Wikipedia doesn't list any of these places as mining REE.  You are
right, of course. We can design around using REE.  But the
consequences are that such products are no longer competitive.

Keith

On Tue, Oct 28, 2025 at 1:59 PM spike jones via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
> Sent: Tuesday, 28 October, 2025 1:48 PM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Cc: Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] not that rare earth (part 2 of at least 2)
>
> On Tue, Oct 28, 2025 at 2:26 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> > OK then.  The electronics industry will find a way (do let me assure you.)  That allows speculators to focus on cars, generators and (maybe) electric storage, which uses a lotta lotta the stuff.  Hipsters, do check my reasoning on this please.  I am open to suggestion.
>
> >...If you can invent a magnet that performs just as well, including costing about as much for the same performance (including mass), and uses materials that are more widely available and cost less to obtain than rare earths, there would indeed be some market for that.  But you'd have to cite numbers from the data showing that you meet all those criteria, not just make anecdotal observations with few to no relevant numbers attached.
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> Adrian, these efficiency specifications are not strictly necessary, for it the non-REEs give away a few percent in efficiency, that isn't a show stopper.  If it takes some time to crank up alternative REE sources, that will not be a big deal, considering the lull in the action handed to us by the slower-than-anticipated growth in EV markets.
>
> The non-REE magnet doesn't need to perform just as well.  If the material cost of a higher efficiency generator outweighs the efficiency savings, then don't use those higher efficiency generators.  Cor cars, the high efficiency motors can be swapped in later.  We can still build electric stuff without the exotic materials.  We did it before.  We can do it now.  But there are alternative sources for the materials as well: Japan, Malasia, Cambodia etc.
>
> spike
>
>
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