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
