Posted on 09/22/2023 3:29:30 PM PDT by algore
China’s exports of two rare minerals essential for manufacturing semiconductors fell to zero in August, a month after Beijing imposed curbs on sales overseas, citing national security.
China produces about 80% of the world’s gallium and about 60% of germanium, according to the Critical Raw Materials Alliance, but it didn’t sell any of the elements on international markets last month, Chinese customs data released on Wednesday showed. In July, the country exported 5.15 metric tons of forged gallium products and 8.1 metric tons of forged germanium products.
When asked about the lack of exports last month, He Yadong, a spokesperson from China’s commerce ministry told a press briefing Thursday that the department had received applications from companies to export the two materials. Some applications had been approved, he said, without elaborating.
The curbs are indicative of China’s apparent willingness to retaliate against US export controls, despite concerns about economic growth, as a tech war simmers.
The world’s second largest economy is already grappling with weak domestic demand and a housing crisis. Last month, the country’s exports suffered their biggest drop in more than three years, dealing a new blow to its faltering recovery.
Analysts say restricting exports is a “double-edged sword” that may hurt the Chinese economy and accelerate the shift of supply chains out of the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
I think we can all agree things went downhill fast in the most colossal way.
Good.. maybe we can get back to reality.
The article is misleading from several aspects. China mostly refines the gallium and germanium as opposed to mining them. This is the case with most of the “rare” earths. They buy the ore. The reason they do most of the refining is they have zero environmental regulations. Most of the metals require numerous acid baths and the processes are very dirty. Thus, the mines in the US were shut down as it was either that or send the ore to China to be refined. It is cheaper to mine in Africa and South America because they too have few if any environmental laws. Therefore, in those countries you can cheaply pressure wash mountains down to the ground and nobody protests. The lithium mines in Africa are defines as “boutique” operations because they use very little equipment. Instead, they have tiny, barefoot children who are essentially slaves. (Aren’t Tesla’s awesome?) The US has plenty of gallium and germanium. What we don’t do is anything “dirty.” So we can have pristine everything and no cell phones or we can spend a bit more and have pristine land and cell phones.
When China tried this with the rare earths Trump husbanded a mine in California and it was just getting itself certified when he left office. Don’t know if Biden shut it down or not. Even though the processes were certified as baby-butt clean the enviorwhackos wanted it shut down.
We don’t have a shortage of anything because we can’t get or produce that thing. We have artificial shortages because we have liberals.
Ban Coal and you lose Germanium ,
“The US has plenty of gallium and germanium”
Who invented and built, in quantity, the first transistors and integrated circuits?
“We have artificial shortages because we have liberals.”
Well, since liberals control every single important institution in the country, the shortage is not artificial and temporary, but real and permanent.
As they metals gained as a byproducts of other smelting processes it can be made on other countries. The issue is that the process is dirty in the extraction and the Chinese government was willing to be the producer and pollute their land due to crappy environmental laws and corruption. Therefore they made the cost cheaper to sell to chip and electronics manufacturers and cornering the market.
The NIMBY folks will flip if they have to start producing here in the US or other woke western countries to get their cellphone fix and other electronic toys and conveniences.
Heh awesome job.
Nah. they’ll be happy for cell phones and electric cars to be priced out of the reach of the hoi polloi. They’ll gripe but they’ll be happy to pay.
Hard to see why we need ‘chips’ to defeat China. After all, ‘chips’ hadn’t even been invented for ALL of World War 2, and we STILL won.
(don’t laugh, that is EXACTLY what the Ukraine Cheerleaders are now thinking with regard to China)
Current annual production of refined germanium is led by China at 85,000 tons, while estimates place U.S. reserves near 2,500 tons. Reported production of germanium in the U.S. is limited to one site, the Apex mine in Washington county, Utah. The Apex mine produced gallium (Ga) and germanium as primary products during the mid-1980s. Since its closure, germanium recovery has been restricted to refining processes of ore concentrates and recycling of waste scrap both in and outside the U.S. (U.S. Geological Survey, 2020).
https://mrdata.usgs.gov/deposit/metadata/USGS_Germanium_US_Metadata.html
I came to say exactly that.
We don’t have a shortage of anything because we can’t get or produce that thing. We have artificial shortages because we have liberals.
And we will continue to have those shortages because our potus is a complete moron along with his staff.
Quite possibly working to bring us to third world status deliberately, imo.
The US uses about 30 metric tons per year. The US recycles huge amounts of the material. See link. Although there are lots of uses for germanium recall what happened to rubber when it became unavailable. Synthetic rubber was developed. This will happen with anything that is strategic and can no longer be sourced. There are always alternatives.
Everything is driven by the price. I don’t know how much of germanium is used in solar panels but the only reason we need solar panels is the artificial green revolution...which is entirely voluntary and not needed.
they promise the jetsons
we will get the flintstones
“The article is misleading from several aspects. China mostly refines the gallium and germanium as opposed to mining them. This is the case with most of the “rare” earths. They buy the ore. “
There is no such thing as “gallium ore”. Gallium is generally produced as a byproduct of refining sphalerite for zinc and bauxite for aluminum. Even in those ores, gallium is a very minor byproduct and it takes quite a bit of zinc and aluminum refining to produce any appreciable amount of gallium.
Gallium was basically unknown until 1875 and even today it has few uses.
The US used to produce as much Gallium and Germanium as necessary. Then the government essentially banned mining and smelting lead and zinc ores, where it is most plentiful.
So now we have to rely on people who are not our friends for both the base metals and the rarer elements they contain.
Reality left the building......
We are barreling headlong into a “battery energy future” with solar and wind that will be impossible to achieve, but that is not stopping our politicians.
Do the research.... its not just minerals needed for chip manufacturing.
China indirectly or directly makes components in each wind turbines. They control 80% plus of solar panel manufacturing in Western China where they use slave labor in concentration camps to make 4 out of 5 panels. They make almost all of the lithium ion batteries that will be needed for EV’s, electrical storage systems, and consumer electronics.
They also control a majority of the mining (to include the child labor in the Congo - cobalt) for these minerals, most of the refining of the metal ores, and distribution.
China makes most of the parts and necessary components for our electrical grid. The same huge grid that will need to be beefed up and renovated in order to charge EV’s in every house.
The push for “green energy” is actually red. It is being pushed by communists disguised as environmentalist in the West and it will turn over our energy economy to the CCP.
Its not just China either.... Singapore controls much of the trade in nickel and they are pushing to create an OPEC of nickel (an essential component of lithium batteries) to jack up the price.
Despite these (and many more) realities about green energy technologies such as how dirty it truly is, our politicians are continuing to scream for a 500% increase (minimum) in these technologies when current supplies are pretty close to max capacity. This will cause massive price increases for so called green energy minerals across the board because there is NOT enough supply and that supply is controlled by our enemy.
The nations where these minerals are mined are in volatile regions with volatile history. We will most certainly become involved in the political machinations that will become necessary to secure our share of “energy” much as we did in the Middle East. Our leaders are pushing for a massive geo-political shift to secure resources and China has already gobbled them up. This is how wars happen.
I could go on and on about the downside of this crap in the name of a fictional climate emergency, but you get the drift and our reliance on China will only increase the further down this road to nowhere we travel. We will support slave labor, child labor, and the environmental destruction of the 3rd world in the name of “environmentalism”.
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