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Politics : The Trump Presidency -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (329947)	4/6/2025 8:01:38 PM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Recommended By longz Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 356551

We don't need their resources. What we need are processors. We need rare earth minerals if we want to EVs. We do need processors but we need to build them.

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (329947)	4/6/2025 8:29:27 PM
From: combjelly	Respond to of 356551

An annoying thing is that the name "rare earth metals" implies they are actually rate. They are not, quite common, actually. The difficulty comes in refining the little bastards. The very things that makes them valuable, also means they are very difficult, expensive and poisonous to refine. Because of the way their orbitals are arranged, their chemical properties are very similar. So geochemical processes that concentrate elements, often wind up lumping a bunch of them together. Once mixed together, they are difficult to separate. But mischmetal, used for lighter flints among other things, is common, cheap and made of a mix of rare earths. Getting the elements separated out is expensive. But the deposits aren't all that rare. The economics can be iffy because it takes a big investment to be able to process them and deal with the waste. Until the 1990s, they were a low margin, volatile business. So a lot of companies were thrilled to unload their RE operations onto China. And here we are.