China plans to ban exports of rare earth magnet tech • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 11:04 PM UTC

nirav72 wrote: post #234

victorbstan wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think ideology plays less of a role than is assumed. I would posture “resources” or access to resources as the definitive driver no matter if the rhetoric is ideological or religious, etc. Taiwan manufactures a lot of electronics that China does not. It has know-how and capital (means of production) of things that are important to China, China cannot manufacture, and USA, Chinas rival, has access to —- and also rel…

> It has know-how and capital (means of production) of things that are important to China It has the capital. Not the Know-how or expertise. If it did, it wouldn't be stuck manufacturing lower end semi-conductors. In a hypothetical scenario - where China does manage to successfully invade the island, they won't be able to keep the foundries running for long. Because most of the design, IP, machinery and chemicals use…

I would not expect those foundries to live for 30 seconds past the point where Chinese boots land on Taiwanese soil.

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

#242

Post by nirav72 » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 11:04 PM UTC

m3kw9 wrote: post #114

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Xi has made annexing Taiwan, essentially, a test of the CCP's legitimacy as ruler of China. If he fails, it's a huge loss of face, for him personally and for the CCP as a whole. Whether their power would survive that loss of face is not something they want to experimentally determine.

This is why is a long while before anything happens, they need to plan for every sanction, unlike russia, they seem to weather it ok, but it’s not very ok

Big difference between Russia and China at the moment. Russia can weather it because they have the energy resources. China does not and has to rely on imports for its energy needs.

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

#243

Post by pclmulqdq » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 11:05 PM UTC

creato wrote: post #164

lenkite wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They will find that the rest of the civilized world can say "No" to China, just as it has to Russia. Umm...except for US+EU, no one is saying No to Russian oil and other exports. Of-course, you are free to consider that the "rest of the civilized world" in your mind.

Russia is getting $52/barrel for oil. Other producers are getting $80-85/barrel.

Comparing oil prices like this doesn't exactly work - oil is less of a commodity than we like to think. $80-85 per barrel is the price for WTI or Brent, which is a grade of crude oil called "light sweet crude." As oil goes, this is the highest purity grade. Middle Eastern oil, in general, is not anywhere near that pure, and can go for as little as $20-30/barrel. I assume Russian oil is also not quite as light and sweet as $80/barrel oil would be.

The whole point is that $52/barrel isn't (only) geopolitics, it's also about oil purity.

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

#244

Post by rednerrus » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 11:05 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #239

klodolph wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am less convinced that China is really good at playing the long game, and more convinced that China is subject to many of the same political struggles that we see in the US. It’s just so easy to tap into our fears of China that we want to believe that they’re this smart and ruthless. We look for evidence to validate our feelings. There are deposits of these rare earth minerals elsewhere. There are always more depos…

You don't need to be afraid of China to realize that outsourcing a very large fraction of all manufacturing for half the world to a single non-democratic country doesn't serve our interests in the long run.

It lead to the longest era of peace and prosperity in the history of the world.

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

#245

Post by nobodyandproud » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 11:06 PM UTC

thrashh wrote: post #232

nobodyandproud wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaslighting doesn’t work here. I provided my evidence. Show me proof of the contrary.

You didn't provide evidence. Your argument is that "the government didn't take Russia seriously enough" Proper evidence would be an study of government officials in power and their position at the time. It is not 3 hand-picked private industry news articles.

> Proper evidence would be an study of government officials in power and their position at the time. > It is not 3 hand-picked private industry news articles.

It reflects public sentiment.

Analysts aren’t the ones in power. Public sentiment and leadership’s will to bend the public sentiment are what matters.

See GWB’s bullshit invasion of Iraq.

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

#246

Post by scythe » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 11:07 PM UTC

waterheater wrote: post #185

That's okay. The US has polymagnets, which are a paradigm shift in magnetics. https://www.polymagnet.com/

In the interest of keeping the recent magnetic materials breakthroughs in one subthread, here's the paper I've been excited about for months:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/advs.202204... "Direct formation of hard magnetic tetrataenite in bulk alloy castings"

It has long been known that iron-nickel and iron-cobalt alloys form a stable tetragonal phase, the L1_0, at standard conditions, which is a hard magnetic material with a high magnetic energy product comparable to the best rare-earth magnets. In fact, L1_0 FeCo is predicted to be the best magnet of any material that has been modeled. But these phases are not stable at high temperatures, and the relaxation time to form them at normal temperatures is expected to be on the order of millions of years. L1_0 FeNi has been found in meteorites, but these are extremely rare, and the damage caused by impact limits the usefulness of the material.

In the recent work by Ivanov et al, L1_0 iron-nickel alloy was successfully prepared at macroscale by precipitation from a melt containing large proportions (on the order of 10%) of phosphorus and carbon. This is the first time that bulk L1_0 FeNi has been produced on Earth's surface. This potentially opens the door to producing strong magnets from just iron and nickel.

For a sense of scale, annual nickel production is about two million tonnes per year, while neodymium production is less than ten thousand tonnes per year, with neodymium representing a fraction of that. The material availability for producing strong magnets therefore jumps by more than an order of magnitude.

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

#247

Post by pimlottc » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 11:07 PM UTC

rednerrus wrote: post #244

jacquesm wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to be afraid of China to realize that outsourcing a very large fraction of all manufacturing for half the world to a single non-democratic country doesn't serve our interests in the long run.

It lead to the longest era of peace and prosperity in the history of the world.

I think it's safer to say it /concurred with/ the longest era of peace and prosperity in the history of the world.

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

#248

Post by nsvd » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 11:08 PM UTC

rednerrus wrote: post #244

jacquesm wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to be afraid of China to realize that outsourcing a very large fraction of all manufacturing for half the world to a single non-democratic country doesn't serve our interests in the long run.

It lead to the longest era of peace and prosperity in the history of the world.

Or, maybe, it'll lead to the end of it.

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

#249

Post by nirav72 » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 11:08 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #241

nirav72 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has know-how and capital (means of production) of things that are important to China It has the capital. Not the Know-how or expertise. If it did, it wouldn't be stuck manufacturing lower end semi-conductors. In a hypothetical scenario - where China does manage to successfully invade the island, they won't be able to keep the foundries running for long. Because most of the design, IP, machinery and chemicals use…

I would not expect those foundries to live for 30 seconds past the point where Chinese boots land on Taiwanese soil.

Yeah, it's entirely possible the U.S and Taiwan have plans in place to initiate a process to cripple the foundries if an invasion is imminent or underway.

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

#250

Post by joecool1029 » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 11:09 PM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #237

jacquesm wrote: post #230

In a way this is good news. The more China overplays its hand in this undeclared economic war the more likely that Western countries will realize that they are making the exact same mistake with China that they have made with Russia. You can't play nice with dictatorships in the hope that your long term economic interests will be aligned to the point that the other party will be forced to continue to play nice. China…

I am less convinced that China is really good at playing the long game, and more convinced that China is subject to many of the same political struggles that we see in the US. It’s just so easy to tap into our fears of China that we want to believe that they’re this smart and ruthless. We look for evidence to validate our feelings. There are deposits of these rare earth minerals elsewhere. There are always more depos…

>and more convinced that China is subject to many of the same political struggles

Who's going to vote their government out or jam things up with filibuster? For better or worse their government just 'does'. You cannot seriously compare a system like this to US/UK democracy paralyzation during things like COVID.

I do not think their system is better or worse, it's just not subject to any kind of politics internally that would get in the way of whatever the hell their national intentions of the now are.