Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States • Hacker News Board

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#91

Post by Animats » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 7:10 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #40

Animats wrote: post #21

MP Minerals got their magnet plant going. Good. MP Minerals operates the Mountain Pass, CA rare earths mine. This was the largest rare earths mine in the world at one time. After several shutdowns and two bankruptcies due to low rare earth prices, MP Minerals bought the mine in 2017 and had it producing ore in 2020. The mine already had a "beneficiation" plant, where raw ore goes in and a mix of rare earth elements,…

> After several shutdowns and two bankruptcies due to low rare earth prices... It's important to contextualise this, it is probably the most important part of the entire story. Rare earths aren't all that rare, they generally have a crustal abundance comparable to copper. The question of where rare earth mining & processing happens is mainly one of price. Or, accounting for second order effects, a question of environ…

Right. See this story about the 2015 rare earths glut.[1] That glut triggered one of the shutdowns of Mountain Pass.

Owning the whole supply chain is a win because the price of magnet-ready alloy fluctuates less than the price of dirt with some rare earths mixed in.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/timtreadgold/2015/05/15/chinese...

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#92

Post by pbmonster » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 7:28 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #84

pbmonster wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, the slip rings capable of passing high current to an electromagnet rotor are expensive and less robust than permanent magnets. The new designs are all inductively coupled, i.e. they have a rotating transformer coil built into the shaft. No brushes, no slip rings.

Coupling without using a core (or using an air core) is gonna hit efficiency pretty badly though.

Unfortunately, I can only find material from the marketing department on that issue. But if I understand correctly, both coils have a ferrite core (and yoke), but there is a small air gap where the rotating side is separated from the stationary side.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#93

Post by snakeyjake » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 7:42 PM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #89

snakeyjake wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You cannot simply "ignore" market forces Market forces aren't real. They are artificial arbitrary rules agreed upon by a majority of participants in a financial system. They are not natural laws like Newton's law of universal gravitation and the fact that even one person thinks they are is the greatest scam ever pulled on humanity. Humanity will never be free until it rids itself of economists and MBAs.

They're as real as any other aspect of human nature. There are no "artificial rules", just humans acting according to normal human behavior. Ignore that at your peril.

>There are no "artificial rules", just humans acting according to normal human behavior.

There are uncountably many examples of humans, presumably normal, existing outside of the rules set by free market capitalism and not collapsing into a black hole.

One such example is the Indigenous peoples of Australia, who lived for tens of thousands more years than the concept of free market capitalism has existed, without even the concept of money or property beyond what one carried on their person.

I have to assume that they are "normal" humans.

Even today many aboriginals struggle with "tHe NaTuRaL LaWz of tEh MaRkEt JuSt LiKe GrAvItY BrAh TrUsT Me BrAHHHHH" because they've only been exposed to them for less than 0.3% of their culture's total existence.

There are examples, today, right now, this very minute, in (extremely northern) Europe of presumably normal humans who look at the rules you consider to be "natural" with shock and horror.

A cult has convinced you that their ideology is natural law. You can both participate in this system and realize that it is all bullshit and not be a hypocrite.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#94

Post by dmoy » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 7:55 PM UTC

jburbank wrote: post #74

dmoy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, but it can be done in ways drastically different from the Jones Act. The Jones Act fails in large part because it is so indirect. If you instead e.g. buy surplus production (like say we do for farming today), it tends to not totally kill off the industry. If the Jones Act had worked it would have looked genius because it didn't require spending money by the government. It didn't work though.

Has there ever been something like the Jones act, that has worked? In any western democracy? Honest question. I wonder if the nature of international commerce and large nation domestic policy is too complex and chaotic.

Honestly dunno if anyone does anything similar to the Jones Act. Certainly not in shipping (though a lot of countries require domestic flagging, not built).

Outside of shipping idk what the analogous situation would be

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#95

Post by vanattab » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 7:58 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #81

lesuorac wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, "price stability" in this case means a higher price compared to absence of government intervention. I'm all for a country subsidizing food to ensure sufficient domestic production but I am not for pretending it's good for a "price stability" reason. We are also well beyond sufficient domestic production. Our population has doubled in the past 50 years [1] while food production has tripled. We do not need…

> I'm all for a country subsidizing food to ensure sufficient domestic production but I am not for pretending it's good for a "price stability" reason. Price stability itself is a valid goal. Yes, consumers may pay a liiiitle more for their eggs, milk or bread, but the price of the good can be relied upon which is very important for low-income households and their financial planning.

you must not be buying eggs lately

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#96

Post by Animats » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 8:00 PM UTC

modo_mario wrote: post #68

Animats wrote: post #21

MP Minerals got their magnet plant going. Good. MP Minerals operates the Mountain Pass, CA rare earths mine. This was the largest rare earths mine in the world at one time. After several shutdowns and two bankruptcies due to low rare earth prices, MP Minerals bought the mine in 2017 and had it producing ore in 2020. The mine already had a "beneficiation" plant, where raw ore goes in and a mix of rare earth elements,…

> So MP Minerals got the US Department of Defense to fund a separation plant at Mountain Pass. Are there any other contenders or did this come with any guarantees of this yet another example of oneside public-private partnerships?

There are other rare-earth deposits in the US, at least two in Wyoming and one in Arizona.[1] A different group claims to have a big find in Colorado. The Wyoming people claim to have found a deposit so big that if they built a large mine, they'd crash the rare earths market. Those are all in exploration stage, with no production.

MP Minerals was mining ore and shipping beneficiated ore to China for further refining. So it made sense from a DoD national security perspective to fund on site refining in California. DoD only funded one of the four steps from mine to magnets.

[1] https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/02/07/rare-earths-discover...

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#97

Post by mrguyorama » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 8:28 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #60

fooqux wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was taught during grade school that capitalism drives lower prices, and since capitalism is good, it's alluded that paying less money for a product of similar value is almost a moral obligation. That company selling the "same thing" for more is obviously fleecing people and should go bankrupt. That model may have worked hundreds of years ago when comparing horseshoes made by local blacksmiths, and possibly still he…

If you can pay $5 for something instead of $10, why wouldn’t that be better for you?

Which is why it should be legal to buy stolen goods!

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#98

Post by pfdietz » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 9:06 PM UTC

adrian_b wrote: post #14

pfdietz wrote: post #9

More interesting to me is Niron Magnetics, mentioned in the article, which is commercializing magnets based on a particular phase of iron nitride. https://www.nironmagnetics.com/

I doubt that they are commercializing anything. I see on their site now that they are building a plant that is expected to produce 5 (five) tons of magnets per year (compared to 1500 t/year for the plant discussed in the article or with 25000 t/year for the biggest of the around 300 Chinese plants). Such a small-scale production might be enough only to make samples to distribute to potential customers, to convince th…

Good reply, thanks.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#99

Post by roenxi » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 10:02 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #81

lesuorac wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, "price stability" in this case means a higher price compared to absence of government intervention. I'm all for a country subsidizing food to ensure sufficient domestic production but I am not for pretending it's good for a "price stability" reason. We are also well beyond sufficient domestic production. Our population has doubled in the past 50 years [1] while food production has tripled. We do not need…

> I'm all for a country subsidizing food to ensure sufficient domestic production but I am not for pretending it's good for a "price stability" reason. Price stability itself is a valid goal. Yes, consumers may pay a liiiitle more for their eggs, milk or bread, but the price of the good can be relied upon which is very important for low-income households and their financial planning.

Are you absolutely sure that low prices wouldn't be more important to low income families? It seems like low prices-low income is a better match than slightly high prices-low income.

My understanding of the situation was that low income shoppers are typically extremely keen for a bargain and are quite happy to shop around. And on paper they can just pretend the price is higher than it really is if stability matters that much to their planning.

Re: Advanced Magnet Manufacturing Begins in the United States

#100

Post by freeone3000 » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 11:33 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #88

freeone3000 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the American workers aren’t paid better than the Chinese workers then why would they live in America instead of China? It won’t be for the cheap housing and cheap healthcare…

Because movement between countries is not possible for the vast magority of the workforce. An americqn steelworker cannot just up stakes and move to canada/china/europe. Such things take many years and, unless you are allowed to renouce your citizenship, you will still be talking to the IRS every year.

Shouldn’t we be trying to (have local manufacturing) to reach the goal of a better life for our people, rather than sacrificing that life in order to (have local manufacturing)?

Isn’t “oh we’ll just make sure our population can’t leave” a tad dystopian?