You might find this piece by Norbert Neumann at Army Technology on securing the U. S. rare earths supply chain interesting. Here’s a snippet:
The US began funding the construction of rare earths processing facilities a few years ago, but after the minerals are processed, they must be turned into magnets to be used in military hardware. None of that happens in the US today, while China and Japan are the largest specialised magnet producers.
and here’s the conclusion:
However, many REE are found within radioactive materials that can leach into water supplies. Extracting, processing and disposal of material can also cause environmental disruptions, and regulations in China are often much more lenient than in the US.
Unless the US can find ways to navigate regulatory and infrastructure challenges to its domestic REE extraction efforts, breaking its reliance on China for these critical materials – in defence as well as other sectors – will prove difficult.
All I have to add to it is that deindustrializing was a easier politically and more than than reindustrializing will be. But we really have no choice and we must make whatever decisions and take whatever actions are necessary to reshore of our far-flung supply chains. None is more urgent than rare earth elements.
We have put ourselves (or at least Wall Street financiers have), where we have to be friends with Russia and China and even Iran. If we can’t be friends, we at least need to be good neighbors. Otherwise, it will end badly for us, but not necessarily them.
Not only has the US been de-industrialized, we have motivated the world to de-dollarize international trade. That will be even worse than the loss of our industry, because we will lose our independence and control of our economy.
I apologize for being a comment hog. However, I just stumbled across an aerial view of NATO’s new headquarters in Brussels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_headquarters
It is laid out as a double pair of SS lightning bolts, one of the more common Nazi symbols of the 1930’s and 40’s. Are NATO’s leaders really that dumb, or inattentive, or have the masks come off?
They’re really that dumb. Again, Robert Conquest’s Third Law of Politics: “The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.”
Looks just like where I first worked as a corpsman. Long central ramp with alternating halls branching off in the perpendicular. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. (This was at her end of Viet Nam. We had a big central hospital but they had built out these structures, we called them ramps for some reason, to handle the volume of pts, especially those who needed to stay a long time like amputees.)
Steve
“None of that happens in the US today, while China and Japan are the largest specialised magnet producers.”
That’s false. There are a number of smaller magnet manufacturers. One decent sized one in upstate NY. (Several in the Chicago area, BTW) But the base has diminished.
We looked at a MI based company a few years ago (and that no longer seems to be around.) We passed. Would you buy a company where you could wake up one morning and discover that the Chinese threw a hissy fit, withheld supply, and put you out of business?
As an aside, a magnet technology dominated military application company also located in MI was purchased by the Chinese funded firm Rosemont Seneca, with its partner, the vaunted oh-so-PE-savvy, coke addicted and whoremongering, Hunter Biden. No word on The Big Guys interests.
“Unless the US can find ways to navigate regulatory and infrastructure challenges to its domestic REE extraction efforts, breaking its reliance on China for these critical materials – in defence as well as other sectors – will prove difficult.”
Bullshit. All kinds of nasty materials are used and disposed of every day, a very prominent one in high tech (mil/aero) being TCE. Regulatory obstruction the author cites and the price advantages of Chinese’ lax policy are the culprits. And the proximate culprits are the US’ stance on these issues, subordinated to environmental grievances, politics and payoffs. Its attitude, not technical.
In my view, the NATO HQ doesn’t resemble the Nazi SS lightning bolts at all.