China reminds world shock and ore can hurt tech supply chains China has immense leverage over technology supply chains due to the happy accident that its territories contain most of the rare earths needed to manufacture electronics and batteries, and that it dominates industries that ready them for use. The Middle Kingdom reminded the world of that fact after Australia's minister for …
Anyone else picturing automated strip mining under the sea - done in a totally environmentally friendly way* of course.
*Years later, I can picture news reports with statements like "We would have never started, if the science had simply told us that the high levels of dirt in the water would kill marine life by clogging up their gills - we are not monsters. But up until right now no one had done that science (no funding was made available for that region of the ocean), and now that they have we will be measuring this going forward and begin working on a plan to make our operations the cleanest that they can be, within reason of course - we have shareholders." And then later on behind closed doors "Ultimately since our operations are happening in international waters (high seas) outside any state's jurisdiction we only have to keep our shareholders happy, the bleeding hippies can sod off. Anyone for more Dolphin blowholes ? They are fresh, caught and cooked today and is totally organic."
** It is really NO, NO, NO - but underwater no one can hear you scream. And if you did not say no, it must be yes, because yes means yes and silence means yes and with enough autotune you can probably make no sound like yes (underwater).
China's territories contain most of the rare earths needed to manufacture electronics and batteries
I thought it was the case that China merely has the most active mines, not the most reserves under the surface.
Not that it makes a difference if mines outside of China are never developed and operated.
The NYT recently ran an article titled - "How a Quebec Lithium Mine May Help Make Electric Cars Affordable" but in contrast to the title there was nothing in the article indicating that Canadian Lithium would be cheaper that current prices for Lithium from elsewhere. In fact it would not be cheaper. That's an example of what may interfere with efforts to source essential products humanely and cleanly. If you promise the price will be cheaper - but it isn't - you will run into a brick wall of you own making.
The correct approach would be to tell the truth and make the best of it - good jobs for workers, economic security, and less pollution, even though it is more expensive.
> Not that it makes a difference if mines outside of China are never developed and operated.
That's not the biggest problem. There are many rare-earth mines outside China. The problem is that China does 90%+ of the refining of rare earths. So most of the rare earths mined outside China end up being sent to China to get refined into an industrially useful form.
So it's not just rare earth mines that need to be built outside China (or any one country, we don't want another country ending up dominating it), but refineries for them as well.
Actually the real problem is that, despite being more expensive to extract due to high Thorium contamination[1], the Chinese sold their Rare Earths at a price that drove everyone else out of business.
A deliberate policy to give themselves an effective monopoly. All they need to really screw over the west is to employ a bunch of "useful idiots" to force Western governments to accelerate the rollout of electric vehicles and such to a rate where it isn't possible for them to build up supplies elsewhere and stay on schedule. Then they'll have the world by the balls.
Oh. Look at the news.... must be a coincidence....
[1] Really helps here if the workforce involved in the extraction and refining processes is disposable.
> west is to employ a bunch of "useful idiots" to force Western governments to accelerate the rollout of electric vehicles
Musk is a Chinese agent - I knew it.
Roll coal to defeat communism
(This message brought to you by His Majesty Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, King of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques)
It won’t make it cheaper, just more reliable supply chain…. However an OPEC+ style cartel is likely on the way.
As with producer cartels - and as can be seen by the Saudi/OPEC+ decision to reduce Oil production by 2m barrels a day - they have carried out a pre-emotive strike in an economic war declared on consumers.
There people/countries are not your friends and will continue with their War Profiteering (and COVID/supply chain recovery) along with the Oil/Gas producers around the world.
https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/indonesia-eyes-opec-style-cartel-for-battery-metals-20221031-p5budd
"The Middle Kingdom reminded the world of that fact after Australia's minister for resources, Madeleine King, on Tuesday delivered a speech in which she noted China's dominance:"
So King delivered a speech noting "China's dominance", after propagandising it becomes "China reminds the world ..." (in a sinister threatening tone).
Just to remind the world of the facts, "rare" earths aren't that rare and are found everywhere. The only reason China dominates supplies at this time is that extracting these rare earths is a dirty business that most other countries don't want to dirty their hands with, leaving China to do the dirty work.
"And indeed China will – for as long as it makes sense to do so."
Of course, as long as it makes sense and is mutually beneficial.
Some countries do things even when it doesn't make sense, like the EU cutting back on imports of Russian oil when ordered to do so by the US, whilst at the same time the US actually increased imports of Russian oil. And then the EU makes nonsensical demands of India telling her to stop importing Russian oil when Indian imports of Russian oil are a fraction of what the EU imports from Russia. For once the Indian FM did a sensible thing and told the EU officials where they could stuff it (in diplomatic terms).
>he only reason China dominates supplies at this time is that extracting these rare earths is a dirty business that most other countries don't want to dirty their hands with, leaving China to do the dirty work.
Where "other countries" includes Australia. Australia exports ore, mostly to China for processing...
Some countries do things even when it doesn't make sense, like the EU cutting back on imports of Russian oil when ordered to do so by the US
Where did you get that information from, Pravda?
The EU didn't cut back on imports of Russian gas via Nordstream1; Russia kept reducing the supply with various excuses and suggestions that if the Germans made themselves more dependant on Russian gas via opening Nordstream2 then they'd consider delivering more gas with the intent of stringing Germany along until winter when they could actually exert full on blackmail with "technical problems" to run German gas supplies out to exert more pressure.
They then blew the Nordstream 1 pipelines. It superficially appears that a lot of countries have motive for blowing these to bits. However, you'd expect anybody else doing it would have blown both Nordstream 1 & 2 up completely; and wouldn't have left one pipe from Nordstream2 intact through which naturally Russia is offering to deliver gas through it to Germany upon certain conditions, which have been declined.
"Russia kept reducing the supply with various excuses and suggestions"
The initial "needing to be serviced" turbine was returned to a particular company for it to be serviced. After some Oscar winning grandstanding by Canada, the turbine was eventually servied, but instead of being returned directly from Canada to Russia, it made a stop-over in Germany.
Germany tried to persuade Gazprom to take back the turbine, but the paperwork indicated that the company returning the turbine was not the same company that Gazprom had contracted with to service the turbine. Would you receive goods that had dodgy paperwork? Gazprom had standards to adhere to so they didn't. It became even more farcical when Olaf "offended liverwurst" Scholtz visited the site where the turbine was stored, "inspected" it, and pronounced it was functional and ready to be returned to Gazprom, and begged Gazprom to take it back.
Other turbines used on Nordstream 1 were due to have scheduled maintenance as well (and Siemens themselves have confirmed that at least on of them was leaking lubricant or something). But given that the issue with the first turbine was still not resolved, it was decided to take them offline rather than return them for servicing.
Which left Nordstream 1 operating at 10% or something, before the terrorists attacked both Nordstreams.
"They then blew the Nordstream 1 pipelines."
Sure, and next the propaganda outlets that you read will inform you that Putin committed suicide because he was losing in the Ukraine.
In the hours before the Nordstreams were attacked, at least 6 US aircraft were circling back and forth between the 2 points were pipelines were severed. Days before the attack Nato had one of their numerous warmongering "drills", at least one US Navy vessel stayed behind after the drills, and only left shortly before the terrorist attacks. A UK "science research" vessel was known to be operating in the area and left days before the terrorist attack. The whole of the Baltic Sea is closely monitored by Nato, in particular the stretch between Sweden and Denmark where the terrorist attack took place (don't want Russian submarines to pass through unnoticed). Given all the Nato hardware operating in the area of the terrorist attacks, WTF were they doing that 1) enabled Russia to carry out the attack 2) Can find no evidence that Russia did it. If they are that incompetent they may as well commit collective suicide now.
Sweden had their own investigation on the incident, but they're not sharing the result. Ditto for Denmark. Germany announced that they have some information, but they cannot disclose it publicly, because it would affect their national security.
Now if these 3 countries had evidence pointing to Russia, why are they all keeping quiet?
They all have a record of making evidence free accusations against Russia. So why the silence now?
Oh, dear...
Explain how Norway suffered outages across underwater cables, which on investigation, were cut. At the time of the outages, Russian trawlers were in the area, but no other vessels.
Accident? Sure... these cable locations are published to avoid that, and one incident had TWO cables cut - something that's never happened before. It got so bad that Norway has heavily restricted Russian fishing vessels operating in its waters, despite wanting to maintain neutrality and/or an otherwise beneficial fishing arrangement.
As to the Nord Stream pipes: There's no way to prove who blew the pipes if they were blown from the outside. Divers could plant explosives that would detonate days, weeks, months, or simply on demand, later.
Unless... the pipes were blown from the inside. At that point, the only possible culprit would be those who laid the pipes in the first place: Russia. So any claim that Sweden, or Denmark, or Germans have that they 'Know' means it was Russia. Otherwise it's 'Evidence suggests' because they found 'US' or 'UK' or whatever equipment there - equipment that may have been used as a false-flag. And I would say anyone who did blow the pipes would want to lay evidence to distract from the real culprit.
Divers could plant explosives that would detonate days, weeks, months, or simply on demand, later.
in water ... salt-water that is ... detonated with a loooooong cable attached to it ? Or WiFi, may-be 4G ? Or 5G ?
Unless... the pipes were blown from the inside
Unless ... you are clueless : out of curiosity, how do you think do such pipelines, 1000km long, look on the inside ? They are perfectly smooth, with a glossy finish of some special surface to reduce fluid flow resistance. Crawlers are shot through upon completion – moved by the input pressure – with exit at the other (German) end to inspect for any defaults. There is technically no way to hide anything inside such a pipeline.
Your logic is bizarre
Russia is reducing gas supplies to put pressure on Germany to lift sanctions; ok, fair enough. The only leverage they have is the increased supply of gas during winter when Germany might become desperate for increased energy supplies. They have complete control over the gas supply by turning on or off taps on varying pipelines, but they decide to destroy the pipelines, therefore removing most or said leverage. This is US/Uk "hybrid warfare", they did it, probably with help of Denmark/Sweden. Germany are the stooges here and they know it.
> but they decide to destroy the pipelines, therefore removing most or said leverage
They destroyed a pipeline feeding a number of countries, leaving the one that is totally controlled by Germany.
Put enough political pressure on Germany and they can decide to open the taps without any one else getting a veto
Downvoted for the nonsensical drivel about EU being the USA's whipping boy.
Totally agree with your point about rare earths not being that rare, and that simply China is one of the few places the doesn't care about downsides to extracting them. That was a solid point and you probably have stopped there.
Maybe you have a non-standard definition of whipping boy.
Trump urged (ordered) Germany to stop NS 2. He boasted that the US would supply the EU with all Freedom gas they need.
When shit hits the fan, not only are the US merely capable of exporting a tiny fraction of the gas that the EU needs to replace Russian gas, but they cost 3-4 times what the Americans themselves are having to pay domestically (FYI that is what Macron is saying, not Pravda). It is a fact that worldwide there isn't enough spare capacity to replace more than a fraction of Russian gas - if EU leaders thought they could replace Russian gas just by saying so then they are either stupid or deluded (they're both).
Even if right now they are able to buy enough gas to replace Russian gas, there isn't the infrastructure (not enough LNG vessels) to physically transport the gas to the EU.
And even if there were enough LNG vessels, there isn't enough terminal capacity in the EU to unload and regassify the gas.
It would take years to persuade non-Russia countries to ramp up production. Countries like Qatar that have ample reserves and could possibly expand extraction require that the EU sign long term contracts, which the EU will find hard to do because they are supposed to transition to "green" energy. Without long term contracts which country would risk investing for the sake of the EU's short term needs?
In short, EU leaders have lied to the sheep (technically voters) when they say they're going stop buying Russian gas/oil. And they have lied to the sheep when they say they're going price cap Russian energy.
They have 2 choices:
Drop sanctions on Russia and hope Russia is as magnanimous as Nato is malignant.
Or suffer de-industrialisation (EU industries are already relocating to the US - which is what the US wanted all along - and to China) and face internal unrest over increasing inflation and unemployment - in which case the EU becomes regime changed without Russia without having to lift a finger as everything has been self-inflicted by the EU's own sanctions. When EU industries are on their last legs you can bet your bottom € that American vultures will be swooping in and picking them up for a song.
Even now, before the EU's full boycott of Russia oil/gas have kicked in, they are having to supplement imports by buying Russian gas through China, and Russian oil through India and pretending that it is Chinese gas and Indian oil they're buying. Neither China or India produce enough gas or oil for their own domestic consumption - but if the EU are desperate enough to pay a premium then Chinese and Indian companies aren't against making a quick buck. Don't think the EU can rely on these supplementary imports because they are not scalable.
It is a fact that worldwide there isn't enough spare capacity to replace more than a fraction of Russian gas - if EU leaders thought they could replace Russian gas just by saying so then they are either stupid or deluded (they're both).
And yet the EU has replaced quite a sizable fraction of Russian gas; 9/10ths, with most of the remaining consumption being Russian allies like Belarus and Hungary.
Even if right now they are able to buy enough gas to replace Russian gas, there isn't the infrastructure (not enough LNG vessels) to physically transport the gas to the EU.
Russia reduced supplies to the EU over the summer, preventing the EU from filling up storage before winter.
At least, that was the plan. It turns out that due to unexpectedly good weather allowing people not to stick the heating on European storage has been topped up to being literally full, and there are [full] LNG vessels hanging around Europe ready to offload.
https://www.ft.com/content/19ad9f9f-e1cb-40f9-bae3-082e533423ab
It turns out that as Asia is quite a bit further away than Europe tankers can do several trips in less time to Europe.
And even if there were enough LNG vessels, there isn't enough terminal capacity in the EU to unload and regassify the gas.
And as it turns out, there are sufficient when the terminals (and the backup terminals) are used to capacity and everybody shares interconnectors with nations like Germany who didn't build any real capacity because they relied upon Russian gas.
Without long term contracts which country would risk investing for the sake of the EU's short term needs?
Nobody, which is why long term contracts have been signed with the USA because the EU isin't going back to Russian gas.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/long-term-us-lng-deals-pick-up-demand-increases-2022-05-02/
So actually, it appears that despite the Russians saying that Europe couldn't do that, it turns out that we can which has a cost to Russia of around $400 billion a year so far and counting as we start sourcing refined fuels like diesel from elseware too. The Russians have also managed the impressive feat of having largely repaired EU-UK relations since the EU wants Britain's excess LNG capacity for shoving through the pipeline to the EU, as well as our military help in stopping Russia. (who to judge from the temper tantrums from Russia think what we are doing is reasonably effective)
It was a legitimate question.
You would only build enough storage to cover the expected technical disruption multiplied by the chance your customers are going to sue you. Plus maybe a bit of buffer capacity for peak demand
Companies don't keep 2 years of components in stock just in case of a global pandemic.
It's hard to imagine gas company shareholders built a years worth of gas storage capacity on the off-chance of a non-nuclear war with Russia ?
It
Good luck when the propaganda and BS hits the fan of reality and facts.
When Germany went to Qatar with their begging bowl, Qatar honoured them and sold Germany 1 single boatload of gas - most of Qatar's output are allocated to long term contracts.
As for contracts with US companies, sure, as-long-as-it-is-economically-viable-because-of-our-high-production-costs, and you need to apply for a license if you want to export goods made with our Freedom gas.
And before someone jumps in with disinformation about contracts with Russian energy companies - there have been no instances where Russian companies have reneged on their contracts. An example of BS: there was an article with the headline "Russia weaponises energy exports" (or some variant of that), first part of article quotes Annalena the warmonger Baerbock complaining about the reductions in supply through NS1, after much grandstanding rhetoric and BSing, buried near the end of the article is the admission that Gazprom is fulfilling the terms of their contracts and are supplying as much as had been contracted for. This is one of the many propaganda techniques that Nato media uses - BS headline, maybe bury the truth in the article somewhere, or just have a 100% BS article as well.
The high prices of Russian gas that EU customers have been paying? That's because of EU games. A few years ago the EU decided that in order to comply with "free market principles" (aka, "our speculators want to make money off Russian gas"), the long term fixed price contracts with Gazprom had to include a portion of spot market pricing and forced Gazprom to comply, which they did - despite Putin warning them at the time that it would lead to higher energy prices. So EU gas users are paying high prices, speculators are raking it in, and Russia gets the blame - champagne for everyone (well not for the pleb consumers).
If they go nuclear on global supply chains, it hurts them just as much as anyone else since their economy is so export dependent. If Apple can't ship as many iPhones due to China withholding rare earths then everything else in an iPhone that comes from China, which would be anything from the aluminum used in the body, some ingredient in Corning's glass, some components in Sony's cameras are not purchased because there isn't a phone to put them in. And Chinese workers at the Foxconn plant are laid off because they don't need as many people when they can't make as many iPhones. The shipping companies get less business because there are fewer iPhones to ship, and so on. Now multiply that by the countless thousands of western companies that have production in China.
But the biggest problem is that Apple and Foxconn would go into overdrive to move production away from China, and once moved it would never come back even if China and the US ultimately kiss and make up. Inertia and the amount of supply chain inside China is the reason that hasn't happened, but if the Chinese supply chain becomes unreliable then there is nothing holding Apple back from moving production to a country with cheaper labor than China's ever more expensive people, or investing in automation to cut people mostly out of the assembly process and move production to North America.
I think that the Chinese might just have spotted this risk. They are massively focused on Africa and doing the ground work now in soft diplomacy, trade and support because, as well as being a huge source of raw materials, it's a potentially huge marketplace for goods and services across the board.
Unfortunately thats how a large part of the world works.
And equally as unfortunately we have made it illegal for us to do, which simply excludes us from those parts of the world and defacto forces them towards nations like China who are quite happy to pay a few percent in bribes.
If Apple can't ship as many iPhones due to China ... because there isn't a phone to put them in
wait ... what if China decides to put those rare stuff into other phones than iPhones ? This is the very logical fallacy that many "western" people have create to themselves: only "we" can make "good" stuff. I have bad news for you: China can make them too, and considering space exploration for example, they can do it even better. So, all China has to do is to limit the rare things for iPhone productions, and you will be buying non-iPhone phones, without even looking back.
Thanks to Trump and his stupidity, China has finally woken up to the fact that it has most of the resources everybody else wants.
China didn't really care about the tariffs, it wasn't the one paying them and it had barely an impact since the USA makes nothing and imports everything, so it was just the consumer that got shafted.
Now China is making sure everyone understands that it is holding the cards. Electronics depend on China at this point in time, and even if rare earths are hardly that rare, it'll take years before the rest of the world can ramp up to no longer depend on China.
Years that those fabs being built in states with the least amount of water won't have.
"Thanks to Trump and his stupidity, China has finally woken up to the fact that it has most of the resources everybody else wants.". Really? China knew this all along. Only Trump was rude enough to point it out. Many people were pointing out that relying on China for all our tech was a bad idea, but they got condemned as protectionist nutjobs, in order not to interrupt the smooth flow of cash into executive pockets, or something.
Trump was an idiot and used to getting his way by dominance and bullying. That only works if the bully is the dominant party and no level of orangeyness makes that happen.
There's a massive difference between realising that you rely on imports so need to develop/encourage homegrown industry, and introducing free trade restrictions yet still trying to force the subject of those restrictions to supply you with basic materials for you to build a competitive industry as you don't actually have enough ... Foot, let me introduce gun ...
@Andy The Hat
"Trump was an idiot"
Kinda scary how he looks relatively smart compared with his predecessor and successor. And called out Europes complacence. Ended occupations. Increased self reliance (compared to Biden going begging Saudi and Russia). Missing that idiot yet?
There is no lack of rare earth material in the rest of the world, it's just cheaper to buy it from China. China has been dumping the prices (and polluted the environment https://hir.harvard.edu/not-so-green-technology-the-complicated-legacy-of-rare-earth-mining/ ) making it unprofitable to mine and refine it in the rest of the world. Worstall wrote about it in a column in this very publication https://www.theregister.com/2015/09/02/western_worlds_only_rare_earth_mine_closes/
Anyone who thinks China has not done this in the past has a poor memory.
China's rare earth supply crimp plan ruled to be illegal (2014)
China to resume imports of Canadian beef and pork (2019)
and so on.
Source: google.
I was going to post about that. If China push the prizes up then other plants will start up right away because they will be profitable. If they try to stop selling, other plants will start right away because there will be a lot of money to make.
Joe Biden and his Orange Ape predecessor loved Tariffs and Sanctions. Part of bullying... CHINER needs to adopt these BIDEN TRUMP methods too but only for products shipped to the United States. For every product where there are tariffs, Chiner should raise prices of those products by the Murican TARIFF charge. But only to Murica. Canada and Mexico should enjoy free Trade status with China.
Time for CHINER to come out with a lead pipe and start taking out some kneecaps. Give the John Wayners a taste of their own Nancy Kerrigan Foreign policy. CHINER should claim it is all because of National Security. Maybe this will shut off some of the endless Murican Blowhard, Murica's most abundant export product.
Isn't really necessary for rechargeable batteries. The Aussies are doing some wonderful things with aluminum graphene, and the batteries they're developing have 3 times the energy density with none of the pesky fire problems. And, they both charge faster and last for thousands more recharge cycles than lithium batteries.
yes yes and yes!
however, this has been totaly taken over by murcia, factories are being built in murvcia, the ozzie factory is for development.
and the worst thing is that shares in that company are ONLY avalible on the murcan stock exchange.
ever wonder why most / lots of the rest of the world hate with a passion the murcans, dont necceraly love anyone else, but by the time you have been kicked in the balls 3-4 times you can hate unreservedly.
China might want to rethink that shock and ore strategy. When Putin played games with the natural gas, Europe bought it elsewhere and probably won't buy it from them again. And if tries it, there is an article on El-Reg's brother across the pond, ARS which explains why it might be a very bad idea.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11/toxic-cleanup-technique-can-get-more-rare-earth-metals-out-of-ores/
There is a lot about the topic on the Wikipedia, including this.
"As a result of the increased demand and tightening restrictions on exports of the metals from China, some countries are stockpiling rare-earth resources.[61] Searches for alternative sources in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, Tanzania, Greenland, and the United States are ongoing.[62] Mines in these countries were closed when China undercut world prices in the 1990s, and it will take a few years to restart production as there are many barriers to entry.[47][63] Significant sites under development outside China include Steenkampskraal in South Africa, the world's highest grade rare earths and thorium mine, closed in 1963, but has been gearing to go back into production.[64] Over 80% of the infrastructure is already complete.[65] Other mines include the Nolans Project in Central Australia, the Bokan Mountain project in Alaska, the remote Hoidas Lake project in northern Canada,[66] and the Mount Weld project in Australia.[38][63][67] The Hoidas Lake project has the potential to supply about 10% of the $1 billion of REE consumption that occurs in North America every year.[68] Vietnam signed an agreement in October 2010 to supply Japan with rare earths[69] from its northwestern Lai Châu Province."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element
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