employees, etc. Hondo is about 40 miles west of San Antonio on
US 90.
Posted on 02/01/2021 5:36:03 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded $30 million in funding to Australia’s Lynas Corp to build a rare earth processing plant in Texas, as the nation continues to seek to break its reliance on Chinese imports of the critical minerals.
The facility will be able to process light rare earth elements (LREE), which are not only widely used in consumer goods such as cellphones and electric car motors, but also critical to the production of next-generation fighter jets and precision-guided missiles.
It’s not the first time Lynas, one of the few major non-Chinese rare earth miners, received federal funding for a U.S.-based project. Last year, the company teamed up with Texas’s Blue Line Corp to land a deal with the Pentagon to build a separation plant for heavy rare earth elements (HREE), which are used in the manufacturing of specialized military weapon systems.
Both plants will be built in Hondo, Texas, about 45 miles west of San Antonio. Lynas said it will be able produce a quarter of the world’s demand for rare earths once the facilities become operational.
Once the global leader in rare earths production from 1960s to 1980s, the United States is now almost entirely dependent on Chinese imports of rare earth materials. The Chinese communist government, seeing rare earth elements as a strategic resource that can be leveraged to its advantage in negotiations, spent decades transferring the American rare earth industry to China by using a combination of low labor costs and the absence of environmental standards.
That reliance on China for rare earth minerals has raised serious concerns, especially as Beijing seeks to take advantage of the United States’s and the world’s preoccupation with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic. In October 2020, China said it would cut off rare earth supplies to American defense manufacturers that have been arming Taiwan’s defense force, including Lockheed Martin, which leads an industry team to develop and produce F-35 fighter jets.
“While demand for Rare Earth materials continues to grow, COVID-19 has exposed the risks within global supply chains of the single sourcing of critical materials,” Amanda Lacaze, Lynas’s CEO, said in a statement, adding that her company is the only non-Chinese commercial producer of separated rare earth products to the global marketplace.
“The Texas plant will ensure the US has a secure domestic source of high quality separated Rare Earth materials. This secure supply will provide the essential foundation for the renewal of downstream specialty metal making and permanent magnet manufacturing in North America.”
I hope this goes through. Joe Biden seems to want to give our money and secrets to China. good Luck
biden, or rather his handlers, will put a stop to this soon enough.
Yup.
Watch the envirowhackos tie it up in the courts.
My understanding is that rare earth minerals are not rare but rather difficult to mine. You have to move a lot of dirt to mine a small quantity.
“My understanding is that rare earth minerals are not rare but rather difficult to mine. You have to move a lot of dirt to mine a small quantity.”
Yes; the Chinese corner on the Rare Earth market doesn’t have to do with availability, but with willingness to pollute in the mining and refining processes.
The issue is with rare earth mines that are cost effective in America and the difference with those in China as I read maybe 12 years ago, is that not all rare earth’s are equal for the modern day applications needed.
There are for example, a couple types that are, so far, basically only found in China. I think we can do a lot with what we have, but solar panels?
Nope. And solar is where our tax dollars will be shoved into.
This seems like propaganda to sway the concerned and fairly well informed that Biden hasn’t sold us out to China.
Just like a whole lot of Albertas oil will now be going to Trudys best bud Xi.
Its a show. All of the concern, the posturing....it all means less than bums paycheck. The entire apparatus, and I will include top brass at Pentagon, is Kabuki.
America has no mining companies??
Mining is not the issue.
To dig for rare earths, one usually needs to go very deep in basically a strip mine, and whacks wont want that, but.....if a dem dangles the word green they lose all critical thought capacity. It wont matter how messed up it makes the planet.
Also, the ones needed for Bidens and honestly, Xis, green new deal, are, surprisingly only found in China.
Its a headline thats a head fake. Its BS.
Oh.
Lol. Never mind. Imma tard. Didnt register that the contract was awarded to an Australian company.
Why am I not surprised? Biden, with leaders like this, who needs enemies?
So.....
To recap as an admitted dumba.., my take.
Biden, in order to assuage fears and deflect criticism of where the solar panels come from has enlisted the aid of the pentagon to award a contract to dig a hole to an Australian company, to cover the fact that ultimately, billions of tax dollars will flow to China.
30 million? We send much more than that to Ustinkistan for gender studies.
Thank you. President Trump for doing so much to keep America safe.
Another factoid is that China produces about 80% of the world’s supply of rare earths.
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/11/12/the-collapse-of-american-rare-earth-mining-and-lessons-learned/
Yup.
This was a Trump initiative.
I remember him talking about it.
Biden will sign an executive order as soon as his handlers finish it and promise him a pudding cup for signing.
I thought the best place in CONUS was up on the Idaho - Montana border.
I smell a payoff or lack of one.
Clearly a Trump policy that Joe hasn’t ended by EO.
Get ready.
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