71–80 of 211 posts
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> Not an expert or a nefarious actor If it helps, I know @noleary and can confirm this is a true statement!
isn't that what a second non-expert or nefarious actor would say, though? :p
PRC tungsten reserves are also depleting, mines are processing more rocks for same output and sooner or later PRC going to quota tungsten exports even more for domestic stockpile and prevent over extraction. Also related tangent, remember that anecdote about PRC finally making ball point pen tips? That was basically central gov slapping PRC metallurgists to speedrun tungsten carbide precision manufacturing for advanc…
Looking up details on this because I had never heard of the situation, and I was unaware that the ballpoint pen was only produced by so few countries. I didn’t realize the tips were tungsten carbide either.
PRC tungsten reserves are also depleting, mines are processing more rocks for same output and sooner or later PRC going to quota tungsten exports even more for domestic stockpile and prevent over extraction. Also related tangent, remember that anecdote about PRC finally making ball point pen tips? That was basically central gov slapping PRC metallurgists to speedrun tungsten carbide precision manufacturing for advanc…
Looking up details on this because I had never heard of the situation, and I was unaware that the ballpoint pen was only produced by so few countries. I didn’t realize the tips were tungsten carbide either.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> With respect to avoidance of “dirty” jobs. The EU is far , far worse in this respect than the United States is or was. Well yeah. Because we care about the environment and people like to enjoy their retirement instead of sitting in a wheelchair with COPD due to inhaling a lifetime of toxic dust. China is getting better at it too, but only a few years ago I remember a story of all the toxic lakes where all the bypro…
You don’t care about the environment. You care about the environment in your backyard. Otherwise you would not import rare earths and minerals from China (which Europe does).
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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.
It seems to me that development in the future is going to be constrained. Not to be dramatic but are we in the sort of happy pre-pandemic days not knowing the changes heading our way? Or am I being too dramatic?
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.
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.
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People in the US will do dirty jobs if thats what there are, but like people everywhere (in aggregate), would rather not. We outsourced refining and mining to China because 1) it was cheap 2) it meant poisoning the ground and air and ripping up vast tracts of land somewhere else. China's rare earth metals stratagem I believe grew out of this--it didn't happen immediately, but rather some bright bulb saw the growing r…
But let's be very clear here. the US might have outsourced those jobs, which I think is an oversimplification, but the EU also outsourced those jobs and the Chinese welcomed and encouraged that outsourcing. Americans, Europeans, and Chinese workers were all onboard at a national level for this arrangement. I want to be very clear here to avoid any misunderstanding of an application of moral judgement against the Unit…