Discussion on:

America's only rare earth metals mine gears up

sorry, but i missed the part about the tons of radioactive waste that is produced; yuka mountain?

And Yucca Mountain was to be the nation's nuclear waste STORAGE facility, not a nuclear waste producer.

Sheesh.

... but wait until government gets involved. Then, just like oil - they'll tax, pillage, and steal from the industry. However, it'll be through regulation, taxes, and fines. I really hope they don't unionize their work force.

This is an industry really worth watching.

By the way - what do the tree-huggers and bark-eaters think about rare earth industry? Or, have they not woken up yet?

Besides, most of them are not opposed to mining, its things like strip mining.

You have the wrong view of government and jump to a conclusion that hasn't happened and probably won't happen. The mine existed and was profitable until China was able to supply the rare earths cheaper. The problem was a cost factor unrelated to regulation, taxes and fines; the Chinese had cheaper products that stopped the mine. What makes it profitable now is the Chinese have increased their prices and have controlled who they sell to.

This is market dynamics not goverment.

Pull out your old economics textbook and read the chapter on monopoly power. China undercut prices to close the molycorp mine. Now that the Chinese are exercising their monopoly power, it is backfiring on them. This is what happens when critical strategic resources are outsourced to other countries, especially communists. China is one gigantic national monopoly. They do not have a true market economy. Their version of communism looks a lot like US capitalism during the period 1850-1970. The only difference is they owe us a great debt for saving them from total Japanese enslavement during WWII.

The question is where will the rest of the world stand when that does happen. And, how long from now will that be?

Ironically - in 50 years China could be the neo-America.

There's an interesting thought.

However, when any market becomes profitable, it catches the eye of the government as a potential source of revenue. Mining is an already very regulated industry for very good reason.

The point I'm making is that should this sector become profitable (it has the potential to), will the government impose new regulations on it not yet imposed on the mining industry. Or, in other words, will there be new rare-earth regulation? This again would give China the upper hand.

It will be interesting to watch and see.

... other countries are showing marked improvement in helping business. We're in a death spiral unless we (as a nation) become very, (stress on very), pro-business.

It is possible to be pro business and pro environment.

Manageable regulations drive process improvements that often save money and increase profit margins with meeting compliance rules.

The hard part is when the feds buy into a rule change that is overly burdensome for minimal environmental impact.

Case in point. The feds have required fire resistant carpets on commercial passenger planes for years. In 2009 they changed the rules to require the fire resistant carpets be made in a more environmental manner from natural renewable materials.

This rule has had a minimal impact on the environment compared to the hundreds of millions being spent bringing planes into compliance.

Naturally taxpayers had to fund millions in R&D to even figure out how to make such carpets.

Hopefully it will stay there and be added to for a long time.

This shows the danger of handing over significant control of critical
materials to a country that can and will use that control as a weapon.
Its time to think about creating a strategic reserve and perhaps
tariffs to discourage such dependence on such foreign sourcing and
use those tariffs solely to build that stockpile.

We have made a terrible mistake in allowing critical materials/drugs to
be made outside the US and must be careful to minimize the risks.

Why do we view petroleum differently?

"...prospects dimmed after the Department of Energy denied it a loan guarantee..."

Apparently, rare earth strip mining operations just aren't green enough for the current administration, despite how critical rare earths are to modern manufacturing and national security. Either that, or political contributions to the Obama election campaign by Molycorp executives weren't up to snuff with those of Solyndra execs.

Execs need to run for office. That's how all new major ventures start. (and then fail).

Soon, rare earth metals will be mined all over the place. China cornered the market to gain monopoly power by underpricing their exports. Now that they are cutting supply as demand rises, the price is going up. Rare earth elements are not as "rare" as commonly thought. Price brings out the prospector and miner.

It is highly unlikely that the Molycorp Minerals mine is the only place for rare earths to be found in this country. There is high probability that other deposits exist in the general area and some serious prospecting is in order. Let another site be found and the Chinese will give way.

This means we MUST mine our own thorium for advanced nuclear like LFTR, for lithium for the best EV battery, the LiFePO4 (not li-ion) and even for metals for concentrated solar thermal, concentrated GaAS Fresnel arrays (twice as efficient than silicon) and so on.

We all MUST promote these as I want my kids to be able to drive when (gasoline is too expensive)!

If the US and it's so-called allies want rare earths, they can mine it themselves under their own territory at significantly higher cost and deal with the radioactive tailings disposal themselves. The Chinese aren't preventing the US and it's so-called allies from producing their own supplies domestically. They just want the cheap Chinese stuff instead!!!!!