Champagner hofft, dass die G7 die Abhängigkeit von China von seltenen Erden verringern kann

rare earth elements are ugly to mine and even worse to refine. China dominates the market because they are quite fine with more pollution than we are. China processes 85% of the rare earth elements and makes 90% of the rare earth magnets. Everyone else is afraid to start a large processing plant because it will need 20 years of bad trade relations with China to profit. China doesn’t seem to care as much about polluted air, soil and water even when it leads to birth defects and cancer clusters. We will oppose plants that emit sulfuric acid vapor and create lake sized radioactive tailing ponds. Our facilities would have to pay a lot more so it’s not toxic to everyone downstream. China found the cheapest way to dominate the market and they’ll sacrifice some populace for that market domination.

If we start new mines for this and plan to refine it even further, all operations will economically unfeasible the day we re-establish normal trade relations with China.

I am sure some companies will take that risk if the government backs them and taxpayers absorb the losses but are we sure we’ll always have trade wars with our top 2 export destinations?