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

[John Clark]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2025 at 4:59 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*> **these efficiency specifications are not strictly necessary,*


*Without rare earth metals wind power would not be economically viable,
with them they are. That's why China now gets 521 gigawatts of electricity
from wind, they added 80 gigawatts in 2024 alone. A typical nuclear power
plant produces about 1 gigawatt of electricity. He Who Must Not Be Named
claimed that China only exports wind turbines and doesn't use them
internally, but that is not true, 72% of the wind turbines on this planet
are in China.  **And I remind you that China's electrical power generating
capacity is 2.35 times that of the USA, and is growing at a rate of 21% a
year. For the last decade the US **power generating capacity has been
growing at a rate of 0% a year. *

*And then there is the question of electric vehicles. In 2024 Elon Musk had
to give up the crown of King of electric vehicles because Tesla was
overtaken by the Chinese company BYD even though they don't sell any in the
USA, BYD made 4.25 million but Tesla only made 1.79 million. BYD cars are
substantially less expensive than Tesla cars and in some ways
technologically superior, for example DYD cars use proprietary LFP (lithium
iron phosphate) batteries, although slightly less energy dense than the
batteries Tesla uses, it is safer (less prone to thermal runaway), more
durable, and cheaper. And all this was true before China put a stranglehold
on rare earth elements. Without rare earths the only way Tesla could remain
economically or technologically competitive is if the US put a huge tariff
on electric cars from China, and even then Tesla could only sell cars in
the US, nowhere else. And American consumers would be forced to pay more
for a crappier car.*


*John K Clark*











> 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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