Comments on: The Price Of China’s Tech Metal Monopoly

By: gobucks

gobucks — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:50:08 +0000

I know exactly why there is so much noise out of the DOE and other govt agencies about finding alternatives.

It has very little to do with actually finding those alternatives.

It’s because their scientists and engineers can put together grandiose proposals to do R&D, get hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and perpetuate their empires.

The chances that those projects would actually bear fruit are poor.

As Dr. Hatch pointed out, finding substitutes is a serious problem. And in most cases, the potential substitutes are inferior performers.

One gets the impression that the govt executives think that rare earths were tapped for high tech applications because the developers LIKED spending more money on expensive materials. Please. Rare earths were tapped because of their unique properties. In many cases, nothing else would do the job. If the developers could have gotten away with using cheaper stuff, they would have done so at the outset.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:40:08 +0000

“Baotou is a significant portion of the Earth’s light rare earths accessible resource. It’s a monster deposit,” says Jack Lifton, founding principal, Technology Metals Research. “And as a businessman I’m saying, ‘And you’re telling me you’re going to compete with that?’”
http://blogs.forbes.com/gadyepstein/2010/10/29/names-you-need-to-know-in-2011-baotou-rare-earths-capital-of-the-world/?partner=yahootix

Maybe eventually the media will wake up and stop lumping light and heavy REE’s simply as “rare earths” without establishing the huge differences of the two.

Quest is so far the closest to Ucore’s readings of 50/50 but Ucore is moving into a section that had initial reading of 97% heavies.

Quest is also projected to not be in production until 2016, Ucore is 3-5 years.

Also Ucore has U.S. govt investigating their deposit for Terbium and Dysprosium, which are just two of the REE’s China does NOT have.

That chart comparison is in Quest’s presentation.

http://ucoreraremetals.com/news2.asp?ID=131

By: D. Carlton Rossi

D. Carlton Rossi — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:30:30 +0000

It could also be said we were short-sighted when we were not aware zirconium oxides were used for making thinner, lighter eyeglass lenses.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:46:31 +0000

” According to a report published by the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), a non-profit think tank in the US, China controls around 97 per cent of the global rare earth elements market and almost 60 per cent of all known global rare earth resources, which are needed to produce trillions of dollars worth of high-tech electronic goods including everything from smart phones to hybrid cars to wind turbines. ”

Holy smolley…..60% of resources ?

Wow.

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2010/October/29101001.asp

Mining with a seperation plant at each, Molycor & Ucore, with a central processing for both being Moly is lights and Ucore is heavies.

Out of ALL the articles on REE’s, that comment by Mr. Lifton is the smartest & to the point yet.