*The Chinese have temporarily cornered the market by driving others out of the business. Naturally, they will jack up the cost and try to hurt the Japanese manufacturers. Any business would do that if they could get away with it.*
I agree, the Chinese have used the supply of rare earths to corners the green energy market. China wants to be the world’s exclusive provider of green energy. Recently, when the US invested $3 billion to jump start solar, China invested $30 billion as a counter. Why should the US do anything different from China? After all, The US sells oil on the international market at the price OPEC sets. If the US wants to be a player in green energy, they would be out of their heads to sell Japan the keys to the green kingdom at rock bottom prices. The US will build the windmills and solar panels and sell them to Japan at the price that China sets (AKA international cartel). Why would the US want Japan or Germany as competitors in the Green energy market? The US does not want to lose the green market to Japan or Germany. Remember the US wants jobs, jobs, jobs… especially green jobs and they will use rare earths as leverage to get those jobs... which is, if they are smart…America hasn’t been too smart in international trade strategy of late so if they do the smart thing…the RIGHT thing… is another question. On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 10:46 AM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > Axil Axil <janap...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> The Japanese will be at the tender mercies of the Chinese for the rare >> earth materials absolutely required to produce and manufacture this green >> stuff. But like Germany, they will be forced to buy it from the Chinese at >> whatever the market will bear. >> > > That is silly. This whole rare earths controversy has been blow out of > proportion. > > The U.S. and Canada could outproduce China in rare earths starting a few > years from now. The U.S. was the world's biggest producer until recently, > and we have not run out. We stopped because the Chinese mine the stuff at a > lower cost, because they ignore mining safety and environmental > regulations. (They have such regulations, but they ignore them.) > > U.S. production is now restarting. > > The Chinese have temporarily cornered the market by driving others out of > the business. Naturally, they will jack up the cost and try to hurt the > Japanese manufacturers. Any business would do that if they could get away > with it. > > - Jed > >
