There’s something weirdly dysfunctional about the rare earths situation. You’d even think that such utter dependency on rare resources would be simply making things more difficult. It is.
No alternatives are deemed relevant, although there are many. No “innovation.” Just more political grandstanding.
The equation is, as usual, “Lack of ideas = More problems.”
Say you want a smartphone. You’re told that the only way to get it is to trek to distant shores with orchestral accompaniment, fight hordes of market morons, and bring it back to the Temple of a Thousand Overpaid Schmucks. Then, and then only, shall ye have thy smartphone.
Ah, no.
Why not create alloys with similar properties? Why not tweak more common materials? Is the science of metallurgy having its nap time? Are people as usual determined to pay vast sums more rather than do any work on the subject? Are milk and cookies for useless things in suits required?
Why turn such blatant inefficiency into a global mess? These materials have been critical to technological development. That isn’t an excuse for technical stagnation and ridiculous prices that flutter around in the market breezes.
Politics, the infallible sole source of all historical and current human catastrophes, has decided to intrude into the rare earths market. That’s already made the overall situation considerably worse.
China is understandably using rare earths as a weapon against the US trade regime. This situation is purely political and utterly useless to humanity as a whole.
The US is trying to extort rare earths from Ukraine. There’s no even barely credible reason for Ukraine to give anyone anything in return for their years of misery. The world will buy from Ukraine whether anyone likes it or not, anyway.
The world is only now idiotically and not noticeably productively trying to assess rare earth sources. You need to wonder why critical resources are almost ignored by markets that should know a lot better.
Nobody’s getting anywhere. Eventually, a workable market will crawl out of the ruins at great expense. That could take a decade at least, given the current pointless disruption to any pretense of a sane trading environment.
It’s not as if anyone particularly benefits at all from this melodrama. China needs to sell its rare earths and grow its market. China will benefit from the new tech.
The US needs rare earths. Basic and advanced technologies need rare earths. Putting these advanced technologies on hold is very much an own goal.
AI in particular needs a stable resource base. The mega-billions invested in AI could go moldy waiting for the next big move. These investments could become a net loss. Delays could go fractal, preventing other developments in multiple techs.
This absurd bitching session is just wasting everyone’s time. The tech is far more important and far more useful than the politics.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
