Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

japannews.yomiuri.co.jp

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 611 posts

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#51

Post by verdverm »

drekk wrote: post #40
augment001 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately so, but by comparison to China it has a very long way to go.

The US imprisons more of its own citizens per capita and in absolute terms than an "authoritarian" nation-state 4x its population. Remind us the last time China invaded a country as "liberators"? Seeing Americans of all people sit on a high horse is unreal. Like every yank forgot about "shock and awe" or "make their economy scream" It would be great to see westerners measure their own societies by the same yardstick.…

In the US, the people can force change through protests and elections. What options do the Uyghurs or Chinese people have?

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#52

Post by rnk »

sohex wrote: post #46
causi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not normal decoupling, we're in a full on economic war. In the short term that's terrible. In the long term, pain now will help minimize pain later when China invade Taiwan and US-China trade drops to zero overnight. It's coming sooner or later and the longer you leave your investments in China the more you risk the door slamming shut on your hand.

What does China actually stand to gain by invading Taiwan? Any kind of real analysis based in anything other than nationalistic fervor or fear mongering seems to indicate that they're better served by the status quo.

It's nationalistic political ideology. I'm sure the famous Taiwan semiconductor foundries would be destroyed in any invasion. China wants to finally wipe out that resistance to them.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#53

Post by sohex »

jmclnx wrote: post #7

I read "Rare Earths" are nor really rare. But the article did say extracting these elements cheaply causes a lot of environmental damage, which as we know, China is perfectly fine with. I also read the US is close to opening a "mining" site for Rear Earths, but not sure where or for what elements.

I think it's important in the context of this discussion to separate the mining of rare earths and the processing thereof. Both are generally environmentally hazardous, but in different ways. The mining process generally involves strip mines or open pit mines (such as Mountain Pass in California, iirc the only US rare earth mine), neither of which are particularly friendly to the environment. The processing is also hazardous due to the chemicals and processes necessary to separate the component elements of the ores which are effectively more tightly coupled than is the case in most metal mines. Domestically that means continued and heightened investment in Mountain Pass as well as potentially other sites, but also the development of domestic processing industry. So while the mine might be in California we're going to see the ancillary industry popping up in locations with notably lower standards, i.e. Texas.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#54

Post by SllX »

drekk wrote: post #40
augment001 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately so, but by comparison to China it has a very long way to go.

The US imprisons more of its own citizens per capita and in absolute terms than an "authoritarian" nation-state 4x its population. Remind us the last time China invaded a country as "liberators"? Seeing Americans of all people sit on a high horse is unreal. Like every yank forgot about "shock and awe" or "make their economy scream" It would be great to see westerners measure their own societies by the same yardstick.…

> We're not even a few years removed from protestors against police brutality in the US being whisked away in unmarked vans by people not in uniform.

Maybe you don’t know this so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but those were Federal law enforcement—who don’t tend to drive around in patrol-cop livery—detaining and arresting people suspected of setting a courthouse on fire.

You can peacefully protest outside of a courthouse, or you can riot, but if you riot then yes, you should be detained, arrested, charged and prosecuted for your offenses. That same courthouse has been trespassed, vandalized, barricaded and been set on fire multiple times between 2020 and 2021.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#55

Post by akiselev »

zdragnar wrote: post #14
jmclnx wrote: post #7

I read "Rare Earths" are nor really rare. But the article did say extracting these elements cheaply causes a lot of environmental damage, which as we know, China is perfectly fine with. I also read the US is close to opening a "mining" site for Rear Earths, but not sure where or for what elements.

They are rare in the sense that they tend to be extremely diffuse, rather than having nice, massive veins of concentrated ore or elemental metal like you might find for copper or bauxite. Since they tend to be diffuse, mining them requires disrupting significant volumes of earth and rock, plus the chemicals needed to separate them out of the less interesting material that gets dug up. The cheapest way to do that is t…

It's called "liquid-liquid extraction" [1] and requires crushing the rock and mixing it with an extractant (see D2EHPA [2] which is also used in uranium extraction) into a nasty acidic slurry. It is then separated into a aqueous layer containing the waste and a nonpolar solvent that strips the rare earth elements bound up with the extractant. All the different rare earth elements then have to be separated out of the nonpolar solvent using even more toxic chemicals, each of which leaves behind a different hazardous waste.

Fun(?) fact: This process looks a lot like the alkali extraction process used to make cocaine, DMT, and a variety of other drugs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid%E2%80%93liquid_extracti...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Di-(2-ethylhexyl)phosphoric_ac...

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#56

Post by xiphias2 »

echelon wrote: post #15
moose_man wrote: post #2

"China is estimated to hold an about 84% share of the global market in neodymium magnets and an over 90% interest in samarium cobalt magnets. Japan, meanwhile, has about 15% of the neodymium magnet market and a less-than-10% share of that for samarium cobalt. If China bans the export of such technologies, it would be difficult for the United States and Europe, which do not traditionally manufacture rare earth magnets…

The bigger story is the recent push to settle trade in Yuan instead of USD. BRICS [1] , Saudi Arabia [2], many South American [3] and ASEAN countries [4], (and even France [5]!) have signed on to do Yuan-based settlement. This is the strongest concerted effort to kill the petrodollar and Bretton Woods. It would have devasting impact to the US economy if this trend continues. The US economy and our special ability to…

> This is the strongest concerted effort to kill the petrodollar and Bretton Woods. It would have devasting impact to the US economy if this trend continues.

It's a 100 year long trend that started with the 1933 gold ban in US, later Bretton Woods, decreasing US global bond portfolio recently, and the Russian central bank asset freezing.

Personally I think that defaulting on Russia was a bigger deal than the Yuan bond trade, as it created a precedent for not paying for countries that US not even officially in war.

What's important is neighter to overreact nor underreact: this is a long process in which USD is losing its reserve currency status.

Personally I believe Bitcoin will be taking its place, but I know that that is a controversial statement.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#57

Post by FpUser »

SllX wrote: post #45
FpUser wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparatively to before 911 for sure

Just prior to 9/11 or are you talking about the period between 1989 and 9/11?

I see it with my own eyes that after 9/11 things are getting worse. Not sure how it is not clear from my previous answer

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#58

Post by r00fus »

908B64B197 wrote: post #31
moose_man wrote: post #2

"China is estimated to hold an about 84% share of the global market in neodymium magnets and an over 90% interest in samarium cobalt magnets. Japan, meanwhile, has about 15% of the neodymium magnet market and a less-than-10% share of that for samarium cobalt. If China bans the export of such technologies, it would be difficult for the United States and Europe, which do not traditionally manufacture rare earth magnets…

Here's the real issue: China has been dumping rare earth metals and magnets at ridiculously low prices for decades (and polluting their country). This had the effect of making mining and refining these metals unprofitable in the west (why pay the huge price of pollution when the Chinese will contaminate their ground water below costs?). This doesn't mean the west can't scale up prospection and innovation to have clea…

The fact that the US Govt didn't see this as a national security issue and act accordingly (consequently doing something to prop up local industry) is the real problem.

China is playing chess while we're playing checkers.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#59

Post by seanmcdirmid »

moose_man wrote: post #49
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is an actual concrete article you can read (vs. the ones you say exist that support your thesis): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_industry_in_China . > In 2002, China's central government pushed forward restructuring of the domestic rare earth industry by creating two state-owned groups China Northern Rare Earth Group Company and China Southern Rare Earth Group Company.[14] This largely failed due to op…

Look I understand countries are complicated and there are a lot of interests however I think that the Chinese government is totally capable of acting in a centralized way on a fixed target like mining (vs. something like semiconductors) when it believes it is a core national interest.

> however I think that the Chinese government is totally capable of acting in a centralized way on a fixed target like mining

Spend a couple weeks in China's hinterland and I'm sure that your opinion would change very quickly. There are good reasons semiconductors are concentrated in Beijing/Shanghai, but anything mining or natural resource related are going to be messy because China is a huge country and local government interests are often at odds with central government interests.

Re: China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech

#60

Post by SllX »

FpUser wrote: post #57
SllX wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just prior to 9/11 or are you talking about the period between 1989 and 9/11?

I see it with my own eyes that after 9/11 things are getting worse. Not sure how it is not clear from my previous answer

Sure! I don’t necessarily disagree, but what is your point of reference? If September 11th 2001 was the end of an era, what was the starting point of that era? The fall of the Berlin Wall? Something else? Was the period before that starting point more or less authoritarian than today?
Post reply on HN