US, EU & Japan vs.China at WTO: rare earths

[Dr Mordrid]

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4c3da294-6cc2-11e1-bd0c-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=published_links/rss/world/feed//product

US, EU, Japan fight China on rare earths

The US has joined with the European Union and Japan to bring a case at the World Trade Organisation against China’s export controls on rare earths.

A senior US official confirmed that the Obama administration would soon bring a case against China over rare earths – 17 elements crucial for producing a range of items from fluorescent lightbulbs and BlackBerrys to guided missiles and hybrid cars.

Tensions between the US and China have been mounting but election-year politics in the US have put China trade ties in the spotlight. The WTO recently ruled against China’s export restrictions of raw materials, in a case that was seen as a litmus test for how the trade body might approach a dispute over rare earths.

Karel De Gucht, the EU’s trade commissioner, said that China’s restrictions on rare earth were damaging to European manufacturers and “must be removed”. Mr De Gucht also expressed frustration that China had not addressed the situation after the WTO ruling that Chinese restrictions on exports of raw materials were illegal.
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[UtwigMU]

Looking at it from a neutral perspective: No country wants to export strategic resources if it can see advantage in not doing it. China by now has become big enough to be able not to export lantanides and actinides.

They might think manufacturing of some items will remain or have to be moved to China if they don't export them.

[Umfriend]

It is not that simple. You could similarly argue that no country wants strategic industries being destroyed by imports and that tariffs therefore are defendable. It is the same here: China impedes international trade and this is not in accordance with the WTO agreements that China is a party to.

Looking at it from a neutral perspective: No country wants to export strategic resources if it can see advantage in not doing it. China by now has become big enough to be able not to export lantanides and actinides.

They might think manufacturing of some items will remain or have to be moved to China if they don't export them.

[UtwigMU]

I understand that and I'm not condoning it. I'm just pointing out that EU and USA have also breached WTO rules in the past.

[Umfriend]

Ah, OK.

[Brian Ellis]

I understand that and I'm not condoning it. I'm just pointing out that EU and USA have also breached WTO rules in the past.

Not just in the past, every day! But that's different, they are not China!

[Marshmallowman]

My understanding is that mining these rare earths is quite toxic process, to the point that a lot of countries won't mine theirs due the cost of cleanup and enviromental damage.

Does China have strangle hold on rare earths, or are they only ones willing to take the enviromental damage that comes with the process?

[Brian Ellis]

The above Wikipedia chart shows that rare earth elements are not so rare but, be careful, the vertical axis is logarithmic over 15 orders of magnitude. On average, it would seem they are roughly abundant as tin, lead and tungsten and ten thousand times as abundant as gold or platinum. However, the last-named are easier to 'get' as they occur as native metals concentrated in relatively small areas. The rare earths are in the form of low concentration chemical compounds and to extract them as ± pure metals requires treating vast quantities of ore with either a large chemical refinery (acids) or using expensive ion exchange resins.

So, yes, the ore processing is expensive and polluting. China was able to do this as the chemicals there are cheap and they did not have strict pollution controls in remote parts of Mongolia, where labour was also cheap and, dare I say it?, expendable. They were thus able to undercut other producing countries, even though they have only just over one-third of the world's known reserves. The USA could easily produce all the RE elements they need for all purposes for their own consumption and probably more but they no longer have the plant to do so and there is the NIMBY element.

[Jammrock]

Some of the abandonded rare earth mines in CA are starting to spin up because of China's strangle hold. Though the US mined ore will likely be much more expensive because of labor and environmental costs.

[Greebe]

I don't buy the chart. Gold is more plentiful than silver, one of the great conundrums of the commodities markets with gold being more than a lesser available element. Which is also far more important in electrical/electronics manufacturing than gold ever has been.


Tho I do miss those days in my youth dumpster diving for gold plated circuit boards and IC's. Made some nice pocket change recycling

also yes there are much more RE available than appears to be, but that's only because these RE are quite reactive and are not in pure form, but bonded to other metals in oxide forms. Difficult and extremely expensive to refine.

Why we don't just start harvesting asteroids is beyond me, that is where 99% of these RE come from anyway, impact craters. Sudbury Canada is just that and is the largest producer of RE on the continent, same with China's RE's, just another impact crater. What was that I was reading about one asteroid that was imaged by various radar frequency's shown to have more (scratches head) platinum (?) than all mankind has ever mined total... in one huge freakin lump waitn fer us to pluck it out of the sky

[Brian Ellis]

Silver:
Remaining workable deposits are estimated at between 270,000 and 383,000 tonnes.

June 2008: at current rates of production, 20,500 tonnes per year, deposits will last 13 years.

Extractable deposits of this metal will therefore disappear for good in 2021.

Gold:
Remaining workable deposits are estimated at 42,000 tonnes.

June 2008: at current rates of production, 2,500 tonnes per year, deposits will last 17 years.

Extractable deposits of this yellow metal will therefore disappear for good in 2025. At the same time as zinc and indium.

http://terresacree.org/or2anglais.htm

Note the key word "workable" above, bringing into doubt the sustainability of resources, forcing increases of recycling.

Crustal abundance
Silver 0.070-0.080 ppm
Gold 0.0031-0.0040 ppm

REs of the orders 1-10 ppm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust

Note the key word "crustal" above

But in both cases, silver is at least an order of magnitude greater than gold.

[VJ]

Doesn't the definition of "workable" change? I mean, as deposits get smaller, prices go up, and deposits that were deemed unworkable might become profitable to use?

Still, it worries me sometimes: many things are limited, and I might see the limitations come into effect during my lifetime... So what after that? E.g. in 40-50 years from now...

It is ironic that the US complains over this, while they are doing the reverse (and possibly more stupid thing) with helium, selling it at far too low a price and emptying reserves very fast.