The War Over the Periodic Table

[GliderGuider]

The War Over the Periodic Table

A little past 9:30 on the morning of Sept. 7, 2010, a Japanese Coast Guard vessel in the East China Sea spots a Chinese fishing trawler off the coast of islands, known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese.

Tokyo has managed previous incursions with little fanfare. However, the newly elected Democratic Party of Japan detained the trawler’s crew and captain. It planned to put the captain on trial. China retaliated by detaining four Japanese citizens.

Then, on Sept. 21, Japanese trading houses informed its Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry that China was refusing to fill orders for rare-earth elements -- a set of 17 different, obscure rare metals. What seemed like a battle over seabed resources became a new conflict, one that is potentially far larger, a War over the Periodic Table.

Within just a decade, China had gone from producing very few rare metals to gaining near monopolistic control over many rare-metal markets. They soon became the dominant processor of many metals, even those not mined in China. China’s large role in the market continued to expand in the 2000s: In 2010 the country produced about 40 percent of the world’s rare metals up from 29 percent in 2000.

Increasingly today, national economic security and the fate of many businesses are beholden to a handful of unheralded metals, produced often in one country, in many cases China. As our products become more advanced and supply lines intertwined, manufacturers become tied to the properties of specific rare metals, leaving them hostage to the resources. Without more robust supply lines, the War over the Periodic Table may be just beginning.

[Bigmack]

1. Yeh, well that Bitch Goddess, Mom Nature, doesn't

deal in political or economic ideologies when She chooses where to deposit her rare metals..... Ms Bigmack

[i-should- be-working]

2. Hillary's 500,000,000 solar panels need ALOT of rare earths

Seems like a recipe for the next invasion, kinda like Iraq and "our" oil.
Hey, let's ask Jim Webb about this!

[i-should- be-working]

3. GliderGuider, thank you!!!!

For your posts -- they're spot on, though my replies may not be, being a newbie and all I'm not sure what I can say that won't raise the shackles of the bannin'gods! Thanks again.

[GliderGuider]

4. Yer doin' fine!

Far as I'm concerned, anyway! Stick around, and you'll also see the people who disagree with me. Some of them are reasonable, some aren't - it's a lot like real life that way, except we tend to speak our minds a little more.