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America has a tungsten problem

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Re: America has a tungsten problem

#191

Post by AngryData »

MisterTea wrote: post #65
hunterpayne wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a pretty unhinged take. > China has 50 years of ore refinement development behind them. No it doesn't (at best its about 35 years) and it often (mostly) uses equipment made in the west. In fact, if you want to extract something from the earth, its very likely you need a US firm to help you do it (depends on how hard the material is to extract). > and ecological collapse You can do mining responsibly, it ju…

> > China has 50 years of ore refinement development behind them. It's amazing how many people think China bootstrapped its industry from first principals when all it did was lure western companies to move their production over and "learned" by copying.

What do you call a man who stole a lathe 50 years ago and spent that entire time learning and using that lathe? Is he still just a thief? Or is he actually now a skilled machinist with immense value and skills?

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#192

Post by anigbrowl »

noleary wrote: post #142
anigbrowl wrote: post #140

Counterpoint: Tungsten is about $1100/ton, so if demand averages 10k tons/year the annual US spend is about $10-12 million. That's peanuts in economic terms. If relations with China deteriorate the US could just set up a front company in some third country, buy tungsten, and re-export it.

FYI, Tungsten prices are quoted in metric ton units (MTUs) [1], which surprisingly aren't metric tons. They're actually 1% of a metric ton -- or 10kg. [2] So the price of Tungsten is actually 100x that. [1] https://www.fastmarkets.com/metals-and-mining/minor-metals/t... [2] https://quoteddata.com/glossary/mtu/

My bad! Although I think at even $1 billion/year the US is probably not too worried about it for the time being. Thanks for schooling me on this!

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#193

Post by fc417fc802 »

maxglute wrote: post #175
fc417fc802 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's going to be slow going like PRC EUV Not even close. EUV lithography is as close to magic as it gets. By any reasonable assessment it shouldn't work but a few wizards somehow manage to pull it off.

Not even close in sense it's likely going to take west longer to build M/HREE at scale than PRC figuring out EUV + entire indigenize semi supply chain at scale. The execution difference is PRC is generating enough semi talent to replicate EUV and entire semi stack sooner than later. They already have the most complete localized semi supply chain in single nation, i.e. they're doing ASML+5000 niche suppliers at once.…

> Reminder EUV is basically a "tiny" ass effort

You illustrate a fundamental lack of understanding. 9 women can't produce a single baby in one month. That's just not how it works.

I think you really don't appreciate how utterly ridiculous the implementation details of the smaller lithography processes are. It wasn't merely limited to the west, it was limited to a single company.

> VS west has "easier" M/HREE tree to rebuild on paper but lack both talent #s, and state capacity to execute.

Wrong. The west currently lacks investors willing to shift focus to that extent and the state lacks the willingness to divert resources and step in themselves.

> It's a mass scale industrial mobilization problem that west is uniquely not well equipped to deal with.

It's not that the west is unable. We don't currently have sufficient motivation to overcome the political barriers that prevent speed.

I agree that retooling for that would take many years due to the scale of the physical infrastructure involved, and in practice will likely take multiple decades due to lack of urgency. Where I disagree is the comparison with EUV.

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#194

Post by robocat »

PKop wrote: post #79
h4kunamata wrote: post #42

Tungsten is the least of their problem. When a population cannot afford health care system, and have to walk with their passport so they are not sent to jail, you have a broken country. Not to mention the financial problems. Tungsten won't matter when there is no country.

> walk with their passport so they are not sent to jail No, it's broken because we've allowed millions of foreigners to come in and raise said healthcare and housing costs. Checking that people here actually belong here else they're deported is part of the "cost of living" solution, in addition to crime.

> we've allowed millions of foreigners to come in and raise said healthcare and housing costs

They also raise your GDP by a lot more than they cost.

Australia and New Zealand have about 30% foreign born population, and we do fine.

Maybe add 100 million more people into the US before you would have problems that get difficult.

The biggest cost of healthcare is staff, and a lot of the staff here come from overseas so it's kinda self-sustaining (in the short term). The biggest cost of housing is people whinging and whining about it. NZ and AU does build plenty of housing (land isn't a constraint). Many people in the building industry were born overseas.

It isn't all rainbows, but it mostly works for us.

The US has about 290 million native-born citizens and 25 million naturalized citizens. It has maybe 15 million unauthorized immigrants (of which approx 80% are of working age).

One should always compare population densities, rather than absolute numbers.

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#195

Post by PKop »

robocat wrote: post #194
PKop wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> walk with their passport so they are not sent to jail No, it's broken because we've allowed millions of foreigners to come in and raise said healthcare and housing costs. Checking that people here actually belong here else they're deported is part of the "cost of living" solution, in addition to crime.

> we've allowed millions of foreigners to come in and raise said healthcare and housing costs They also raise your GDP by a lot more than they cost. Australia and New Zealand have about 30% foreign born population, and we do fine. Maybe add 100 million more people into the US before you would have problems that get difficult. The biggest cost of healthcare is staff, and a lot of the staff here come from overseas so i…

Foreigners competing for jobs and housing stock and territory is bad for current citizens. Add to it the political effect of shifting the politics away from national and citizen interests and towards more support for foreigner interests, and it's worse.

The net fiscal impact from the cohort of immigrants we get now is negative; they cost taxpayers more than they contribute. They take more from welfare and social services than than they pay in and more than current citizens. Additionally there is increased crime. There are so many of these that are not adding any economic benefit period, and for those that do, that benefit accrues to a small subset of business owners and politicians, not the general population of citizens. H1B expansion of foreign worker visas for example is bad for displaced American workers. The mindset that considers their own fellow citizens lacking such that they want to replace them with foreigners is insane to me. None of these western countries needs something such that they must get it from others; they can cultivate all of this from their own people, and birthrates would increase if not for the crowding out through increased costs especially housing, insurance, and depressed wages from importation of immigrants.

When I drive on the roads, when I shop for housing or apartments, when I want to pay for car insurance, when I got public spaces, parks, cities, vacation spots, got to stores.... I've never ever had the thought "You know what would make my quality of life better? If we had 100 million more people especially those that come from a different culture and speak a different language here and everywhere else right now". That is such a ridiculously foolish mindset, and disservice to one's own neighbors and such. Makes no sense to me.

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#196

Post by PKop »

pstuart wrote: post #100
dtauzell wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think overall immigration is a net benefit: https://www.cato.org/white-paper/immigrants-recent-effects-g...

You beat me to it. Here's another report by that woke Cato Institute: https://www.cato.org/blog/why-legal-immigration-system-broke...

For one thing that document argues that one of the single greatest costs to citizens of immigration is somehow a benefit: increased housing costs. They talk of higher property tax collections from increased home values, this is just another way to say immigration is increasing housing costs and taxes for native population.

The Federal Reserve confirmed this a couple years ago that housing inflation was in part due to a large increase in immigrant population over last few years.

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#197

Post by PKop »

dtauzell wrote: post #98
PKop wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> walk with their passport so they are not sent to jail No, it's broken because we've allowed millions of foreigners to come in and raise said healthcare and housing costs. Checking that people here actually belong here else they're deported is part of the "cost of living" solution, in addition to crime.

I think overall immigration is a net benefit: https://www.cato.org/white-paper/immigrants-recent-effects-g...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46968194

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#198

Post by maxglute »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #193
maxglute wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even close in sense it's likely going to take west longer to build M/HREE at scale than PRC figuring out EUV + entire indigenize semi supply chain at scale. The execution difference is PRC is generating enough semi talent to replicate EUV and entire semi stack sooner than later. They already have the most complete localized semi supply chain in single nation, i.e. they're doing ASML+5000 niche suppliers at once.…

> Reminder EUV is basically a "tiny" ass effort You illustrate a fundamental lack of understanding. 9 women can't produce a single baby in one month. That's just not how it works. I think you really don't appreciate how utterly ridiculous the implementation details of the smaller lithography processes are. It wasn't merely limited to the west, it was limited to a single company . > VS west has "easier" M/HREE tree to…

EUV is not a biological process on an immutable. This bad analogy on par with EUV is magic. Second mover advantage = compressing 20 year commercial cycle into 10 year strategic one viable. As it's been consistently done. Litho complexity wank needs to stop. ASML integrator of western expertise, it's not one company. We ended up having 1 integrator due to $$$. Meanwhile PRC generating more expertise with blueprint and poached many of the ASML implementers in the first place, while pursuing any EUV efforts simultaneously, stuff ASML had to ditch due to limitations.

Lack of willingness/urgency is just loser talk for last of system capacity, i.e. overcome political barriers, especially when it's been highlighted how strategic important it is to hammer out separate REE chain. Important to distinguish between unwillingness and simple inability. Easy to strong arm TW to TSMC Arizona for leading edge goals, but can't strong arm PRC to transfer M/HREE tech.

Note I didn't say M/HREE was "easier" than EUV in technical sense. I said in terms of execution, i.e. overcoming barriers, PRC is simply going to have easier working with EUV engineering problem than west with M/HREE engineering, massive infra, domestic politics problem. So it's going to be slow going, in terms of execution time.

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#199

Post by fc417fc802 »

maxglute wrote: post #198
fc417fc802 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reminder EUV is basically a "tiny" ass effort You illustrate a fundamental lack of understanding. 9 women can't produce a single baby in one month. That's just not how it works. I think you really don't appreciate how utterly ridiculous the implementation details of the smaller lithography processes are. It wasn't merely limited to the west, it was limited to a single company . > VS west has "easier" M/HREE tree to…

EUV is not a biological process on an immutable. This bad analogy on par with EUV is magic. Second mover advantage = compressing 20 year commercial cycle into 10 year strategic one viable. As it's been consistently done. Litho complexity wank needs to stop. ASML integrator of western expertise, it's not one company. We ended up having 1 integrator due to $$$. Meanwhile PRC generating more expertise with blueprint and…

Instead of continuing to parade your ignorance go read a whitepaper detailing the EUV process before telling me that it isn't akin to magic. Any other critical industry would have multiple competing techniques and implementors. There's even still more than one company operating cutting edge fabs despite the number dwindling as the processes got smaller.

An economic superpower identified cutting edge lithography in general as a national priority, allocated the resources, and after something like two decades of intensive research is _still_ trailing by many years. I can't immediately think of any other commercialized technology with a similar difficulty level.

As for REE, political willingness is entirely orthogonal from physical capability. A bunch of hot air on the evening news is irrelevant. If the politicians don't allocate the funds then they clearly don't see it as a top priority. If there were a pressing need then it would get done.

Where we really see the political dysfunction is the lack of planning for the future. By the time it's an urgent need there won't be enough time left for the buildout. But that's unrelated to the topic at hand.

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#200

Post by matheusmoreira »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #188
matheusmoreira wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all it did was lure western companies to move their production over and "learned" by copying Yeah, and they fell for it. Handed over all their intellectual "property" to the chinese on a silver platter. Moved all their production to China, thereby deindustrializing their own countries and impoverishing their fellow citizens to the point of nearly wiping out the middle class. I wonder if it's even possible for the w…

>Yeah, and they fell for it. Handed over all their intellectual "property" to the Chinese on a silver platter. Moved all their production to China "Fell for it" looks a lot like "basically compelled by the economic impacts of public policy and political winds" so far as I can tell. Some man in a C-suite in 2002 who was wrestling with a decision to refresh domestic factories with capital investments that would pay off…

The US government fell for it too. China made it economically attractive to deindustrialize and destroy your own country? Tax them until it's no longer the case. I don't know. Do something. Respond to the situation. Tip the scales so that the ominous board of directors has no choice but to swallow the bitter pill and like it. Trump is trying it but looks like it's too little too late.

The fact is at some point the USA shifted from nation to an amalgamate of corporations. The US government serves the interests of corporations that have gone multinational, corporations that are barely american at this point, corporations that now kowtow before China lest they lose access to the chinese market and its growing middle class. Meanwhile China consistently demonstrates the ability to plan and execute long term strategies that advance the interests of the chinese civilization. I don't like it but I have to respect it. They're making democracies and their leaders look like complete idiots who care about nothing but muh reelection.

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