You may not care the China controls over 95 per cent of the world’s supply of rare earth metals, but you might want to.
China is putting a squeeze on the export of these valuable raw materials and building up a national stockpile. Funny thing, the communist superpower is not using these metals to make anything. It’s holding them hostage so it can control global supply and price. As you would expect, the supply is going down and the price is going up.
Rare earth metals are used in everything from laser-guided weapons to consumer electronics. Manufacturers are paying more for these metals and will pass this cost along to the consumer. It may take a while, but this increase will eventually trickle down to our wallets and hit us where it hurts the most – our beloved electronics. [The Wall Street Journal]
matt
Friday, May 20, 2011 at 5:09 PMin the long run, its probably for the best.
even if their intentions are purely greedy selfishness…
Jake D
Friday, May 20, 2011 at 6:05 PMDon’t tell the Americans or they may identify terrorist targets in China.
Adrian
Friday, May 20, 2011 at 6:12 PMand the issue here is? If you hld 95% of anything yu have the monopoly and yucan ask the price you like for it. In this case the product is a once only so they need to esure they get the best price
ChemZ
Friday, May 20, 2011 at 7:21 PMMoney Money Money… It’s So Funny… In A Rich Man’s World…
The Joker
Friday, May 20, 2011 at 7:28 PMFrom what I’ve read though, it’s not as if other countries dont have these rare earth metals, it’s just that they haven’t got any serious production capability, ie. they aren’t digging them up and processing them.
Stinky
Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 12:43 AMThat’s capitalism for you.
Rhombus
Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 12:50 AMOh come on giz, this is sort of unnecessarily alarmist (Oh no the bad communists are holding things ransom!!!!)
also this has basically been the way things have been, or were predicted to be for months:
re: this 8 month old ars technica article
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/08/use-of-rare-earth-metals-outstripping-supply.ars
and another one that is four months old
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/12/us-rare-earth-mine-reopened-as-doe-plans-for-shortages.ars
also there was another giz article of this in october of last year:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/10/china-wont-send-us-materials-required-for-phones-missiles/
- you have also made no mention of the the fact that China produces the majority because countries like the US shut down their mining and refining operations – and that they are now scurrying to restart them.
Jay
Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 6:52 AMThat’s why Lynas corp here in Australia is ramping up production at Mt Weld. LYC.AX
Nodeity
Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 9:32 AMHas anybody heard of a little cartel called “De Beers” if not for them diamonds would be a dime a dozen… I think it might just be a good time to start mining the asteroid belt… It’s gonna have to happen sooner or later, let’s face it, at the rate we’re using iron ore alone, we’re gonna be up the proverbial creek soon anyway!
Travis
Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 5:19 PMMeh. It already has been established that mining will start up again in the western world for rare earth metals and we will have a surplus by 2015. Surplus by 2015 sounds like we’d be fine by late 2012/mid 2013 so no panic needed.
Spock
Sunday, May 22, 2011 at 3:53 AMBlaaah de blah. If we would just declare war on them, we could seize the minerals and take care of the overpopulation thing at the same time.
Franz
Monday, July 4, 2011 at 6:14 PMThey are also holding 95% of China’s population hostage.