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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
byphantomfive ( 622387 ) writes:
They've been talking about doing this for a long time. Deng Xiaoping in 1992 said, "the Middle East has oil, China dominates rare earths" [jstor.org]. We talked about it on Slashdot decades ago [slashdot.org] (a fraction of a decade is enough to turn the noun plural).
The Graph at the beginning of this article [theoregongroup.com] gives a good picture of rare earth mineral production around the world, including the impressive overproduction in recent years.
The problem is more than just mining the minerals (which the US does), it's also producing them into in usable magnet form [federalregister.gov], which is combining neodymium mostly with iron. With initiatives already underway, the US is expected to be able to reach 50% of its own magnet production by 2026.
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byphantomfive ( 622387 ) writes:
1.6 decades is...plural.
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byAnonymous Coward writes:
"16 years" has just as many characters as "decades" and doesn't make you sound like a twatwaffle in this kind of situation.
byVMaN ( 164134 ) writes:
No, "16 years" is 8 characters - "decades" is 7.
If your best comeback is grasping for some sort of inane technicality, at least make sure that technicality is factual.
bytsqr ( 808554 ) writes:
No, "16 years" is 8 characters - "decades" is 7.
If your best comeback is grasping for some sort of inane technicality, at least make sure that technicality is factual.
You're counting the space?!? That's like treating zero as a number!
bysid crimson ( 46823 ) writes:
No, "16 years" is 8 characters - "decades" is 7.
If your best comeback is grasping for some sort of inane technicality, at least make sure that technicality is factual.
You're counting the space?!? That's like treating zero as a number!
Funny! I guess the difference between 1, 10, and 100 are... well, zero!
bynmb3000 ( 741169 ) writes:
"16 years" has just as many characters as "decades" and doesn't make you sound like a twatwaffle in this kind of situation.
While we're on this tangent, the current trend to always use "decades" in news and media when "years" is both more clear and more accurate has become a real pet peeve. I can only imagine that the writer thinks it makes them sound smarter or their data point more impressive, but to me it's clunky and kinda crass.
"The thing happened almost five decades ago."
FFS, just say "The thing happened forty-seven years ago." It reads better, is more informative, and actually sounds more impressive.
bysid crimson ( 46823 ) writes:
"The thing happened almost five decades ago."
FFS, just say "The thing happened forty-seven years ago." It reads better, is more informative, and actually sounds more impressive.
That guy that said "four score and seven years ago" wants to have a word with you.
bynmb3000 ( 741169 ) writes:
That guy that said "four score and seven years ago" wants to have a word with you.
Hah! Won't lie - hearing "The thing happened two score and seven years ago" on the news would be pretty great. Certainly better than "almost five decades".
byphantomfive ( 622387 ) writes:
This is exactly the sort of discussion I was hoping to result from using decades instead of 16 years. Lovely.
bynmb3000 ( 741169 ) writes:
lol, well for what it's worth I thought your original post was great. No mod points today though, so it was taking the AC bait instead.
byphantomfive ( 622387 ) writes:
It is 0.453 decades.
● current threshold.
● current threshold.
byJBMcB ( 73720 ) writes:
This is the whole OPEC in the late 2000's thing again. OPEC tried spiking oil prices, which meant oil that was expensive to get out the the ground became profitable. After a few years of new wells being brought online, the price collapsed.
There are plenty of sources of these rare earth metals. China just made it profitable to get them up and running.
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byMachineShedFred ( 621896 ) writes:
Cool. Now where are those rare earths going to be processed and refined? Oh...
Here's a hint: there's a rare earths mine in California, who ships the raw materials to China for refining. Why do you think that happens?
Open your eyes.
byHiThere ( 15173 ) writes:
I thought the one in California closed over a decade ago because of prices. (i.e. not because of exhaustion.)
FWIW, it's my understanding that rare earths are widely distributed, and nobody can really claim a stranglehold on them. But mining and refining them is quite expensive, so nobody's about to open up a new mine that could be undercut whenever the currently dominant producer decides. To get that you need stable backing over a long term by a government (or something with equivalent deep pockets).
byDamnOregonian ( 963763 ) writes:
Because it's dirty as fuck to refine them, and the Federal Government (oh, shit...) makes it very expensive to do so.
Now, if you were in control of the Federal Government, and a solid believer of the Unitary Executive, and had a Court that largely agreed with you, you could probably alter that calculus...
I don't really get this, "The US is doomed!" shit.
It's not doomed. World peace might be, though.
The US was the largest economy in the world even before the World Wars- while it was largely isolationis
byAltus ( 1034 ) writes:
It's a good thing that the US economy is still propped up by exactly the same things as it was before the world wars and nothing else has changed.
byDamnOregonian ( 963763 ) writes:
Of course it isn't. But do you really think it's incapable of isolationism? The very idea that it isn't is absurd.
However the US reconfigures its labor, it will still have the most productive labor force on the planet among the large economies (EU, China), and not by a small amount.
Looking at the US and saying, "Ha! We'll screw you guys by cutting you off!" is like looking at post-we're-not-paying-your-reparations-anymore Germany and saying that. It's stupid.
I will grant you that it's possible that curr
●your current threshold.
byJBMcB ( 73720 ) writes:
Cool. Now where are those rare earths going to be processed and refined?
Any number of places. In the US, for one.
https://www.nationaldefensemag... [nationalde...gazine.org]
byMachineShedFred ( 621896 ) writes:
Except China refines 6x the total US capacity. But yeah I'm sure we'll be able to just 10x our output overnight.
byGrowlley ( 6732614 ) writes:
Long term but short term if could be a devasting one, two combination if other nationals start dumping US debt.
Perhaps China always considered it a one time weapon and their expers considered now was the best time to use it,
byWeirsbaski ( 585954 ) writes:
With initiatives already underway, the US is expected to be able to reach 50% of its own magnet production by 2026.
Are those initiatives federally subsidized? Because DOGE could have something to say about that...
●urrent threshold.
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