Could the world's next resource conflict be over rare earth elements? China, which supplies most of the minerals, is considering limiting exports

a rare check by me for previous relevant threads has got me choosing this one..

I agree, China is capturing the Rare Earth market...they are badgering Australia and investing in our few Rare Earth miners.

What else can Rare Earth minerals be used in besides clean energy technologies?

[link to www.theage.com.au]

bump

great post...a breath of fresh air ...with all the sad hate posts out there.
Wars are generally about resources....gold, oil...even salt.
very good post.

I agree. Great thread.

Yes I think this is so singificant but doesen't seem to get much MSM attention, why is that? Some Rare Earth minerals prices have doubled in the last month . . .


23 August 2010 RARE EARTHS PRICES UPDATE Lynas Corporation Limited (ASX:LYC, OTC:LYSDY) provides the following update on international Rare Earths prices. As stated in the Lynas Quarterly Report for the period ending 30 June 2010, the Mount Weld Composition price as at 26 July 2010 was US$21.43/kg. International Rare Earths prices continue to experience significant change. The table below shows that the Mount Weld Composition price as at 23 August 2010 for “standard” 99% purity products was US$43.28, a rise of approximately 102% over the past month. Average prices over different periods are also shown in the table below. The prices are quoted in US$/kg on an FOB China basis.

I wotn include the table because the formatting is out, and you get the picture.

You Don't Bring a Praseodymium Knife to a Gunfight.

China thinks it can withhold its exports of obscure but important minerals to get its way with its neighbors.
BY TIM WORSTALL | FOREIGN POLICY / SEPTEMBER 29, 2010.

(Tim Worstall is a fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London and a wholesaler and trader in rare-earth minerals, specializing in scandium, of which he handles about 50 percent of the world's consumption)

Last week, the New York Times published a stunning story: China, amid a nasty territorial spat with Japan, had quietly halted shipments of rare-earth minerals to its East Asian neighbor, threatening to escalate a skirmish into a full-blown trade war. China swiftly denied the story, while other journalists rushed to confirm it. The Times reported on Sept. 28 that China, while still not admitting the existence of the ban, may be tacitly lifting it -- but the damage to the country's image as a reliable supplier has been done.......(continued)

If rare earths are so precious, why isn't the United States working harder to collect them? The main reason is that, for these last 25 years, China has been supplying all we could eat at prices we were more than happy to pay. If Beijing wants to raise its prices and start using supplies as geopolitical bargaining chips, so what? The rest of the world will simply roll up its sleeves and ramp up production, and the monopoly will be broken.

But, of course, it's not that easy. Rare earths aren't found in nature as separate elements; they need to be extracted from each other, a process that involves thousands (really, thousands) of iterations of boiling the ores in strong acids. There is also almost always thorium, a lightly radioactive metal, in the same ores, and it has to be disposed of. (Thorium leaking into the California desert was a more serious problem at Mountain Pass than low prices.) So ramping up production would mean that Western countries would need to tolerate a level of pollution they've been all too happy to outsource to China.

(continued)

[link to www.foreignpolicy.com]

MSM wont talk about it until the first troop gets killed over it! Media is worthless!!!!