China‘s Iron Grip on the Rare Earth Magnet
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- čas přidán 1. 07. 2023
- Recently, the People's Republic of China banned the export of rare earth magnet production technologies for national security interest.
Note, not the particular rare earth magnets themselves. The technologies that produce them.
There are 18 rare earth elements - the 15 lanthanides as well as yttrium, scandium, and lutetium. They have wide technological and commercial uses.
Most of these use cases are small - the OEC values global rare-earth metal compound trade volume in 2021 at about $2.7 billion - but they are vital. Thus why we call them the "vitamins" of the tech economy.
But one use case in particular stands out to me over all the others: Magnets.
And China's tech export actions hint at their strategic importance.
In just a few years, China won a near-complete monopoly on the production of these unexpectedly critical magnet materials.
And alternatives cannot economically compete. In this video, let us take a look at the special economic power of the rare earth magnets.
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Small correction: Sodium Hydroxide is not an acid. Quite the contrary, it's a very strong base.
I was just about to comment on that. NaOH is probably the most common strong base used in chemistry.
@@christopherkelley2061 If you need a base stronger than a fully saturated NaOH solution at 95C you're doing some seriously questionable things! :P
Don't be that guy
@@Kenneth_James chemistry is a very serious science.
@@Kenneth_James He corrected in a very polite manner. The only way to have possibly improved the tactfulness of the correction would have been to compliment the accuracy of the videos in general. Which is what I'm here to do. These videos are remarkably error-free. Kudos.
Fun fact - eight of the rare earth elements were discovered in/near the Swedish village of Ytterby, and four of the eight are named after it - Yttrium, Terbium, Erbium and Ytterbium.
Yttrium, terbium and erbium are cemented in my mind, but sometimes I lose track of whether 3 or 4 elements were named after the Ytterby mine. And so I have to remind myself whether Ytterbium is an element or made up in my mind to fill in the pattern.
You know what? That fact *is* fun!
Interesting
I saw a video about why new elements are not being discovered and also about a European doing fraud in Europe, then doing it in California and then getting busted. The video talked about the discovery of elements and the majors groups (US, USSR, Some european countries) doing it.
Fun fact: Germanium is named after Germany but China holds most of them. And Germany probably holds less than 1 %. 🤣
11:20 - Sodium Hydroxide is not an acid, but a base (alkali).
I think an important part of the story which wasn't included is that when rare earths are always found in association with quite high concentration of thorium. When the ore is cracked the thorium is released concentrating radioactive waste material. Western countries moved away from this process but China continued. This problem presents when western countries off shore the process - there was real problems when Lynas corp moved this process to Malaysia on the early 2000s with environmental protest groups. Thus there have been multiple disincentives to mining and refining rare earths outside of China beyond scale and tech.
I agree that the radioactivity in rare earth processing is a significant issue, which may be a sigificant driver of market share.
Yes, we have problems of radioactive discharge from the Japanese owned factory called Asian Rare Earth, located in Ipoh, West Malaysia. Due to protest and many health issues among workers and surrounding neighbourhood, this plant was forced to stop sometime in the 1990s. The problem now is dealing with the wastes which are toxic n radioactive. The storage nearby in the jungles were found to leach and it is a concern now as it may seeps into the river.
Unfortunately, our Malaysian government never learnt from this predicament. It went on to grant a license to Lynas of Australia to set up a huge plant in Kuantan, Pahang state, East Coast of West Malaysia some 15years ago.
Even Lynas was rejected by the Australian government to operate in Australia.
Looks like Malaysia is the dumping ground for foreign hazardous materials.
The primary type of radiation don't penetrate the skin (alpha). And we should be using the Thorium as fuel.
@@foondavid The real problem is the bad management of it. Alot of these harm can be avoided with proper technology but they cheap out on it.
@@tillmanadkins713 probably won't be good if it leaches into the drinking water tho
FYI: Most of the LSO (namely, Lutetium) used in today's PET medical scanners are also considered "Rare Earth" materials and most come from China as well.
The world 🌎 is coughing off with blood the "cheap" russian oil. If people didn't learn the lesson - the same will soon happen with "cheap" Chinese rare earth & tech.
One of the things i love about your work is how you consistently present fascinating background, context and detail about topics that I am aware of or even informed about, but have never dived deep into. Among my favorite youtube channels. Thank you!
I was actually a small-time investor of the mining company, Molycorp, mentioned in the video. Lost most of my position. It is a shame that the US lost its only rare earth mining company, but it looks like sentiment in Washington is changing by getting serious about national security. Well, we will see what happens. It is possible that some better alternatives to the magnets are found, or even better magnets without the use of rare minerals.
How did you lose your shares?
I'm sorry that happened to you. Wish you thebest.
@@d0lvl0You lose shares when the company goes bankrupt (ergo shares drop to $0 value).
My first and only investment in individual stocks was in a Chinese solar company that was working on vertical integration from fabrication to installation and support. I had researched several solar companies and this one looked like it had the best business plan and most experienced management. It did well until I woke up one day to see a 99% plunge due to Obama announcing a dumping claim against the company. It is almost as if the US government forgets Americans invest in companies outside of the US.
@@hewhohasnoidentity4377 Investing American dollars in America's rival and expecting America to not try to supress said rival seems short sighted.
Dear Mr or Dr or Professor Asianometry or whatever your correct title is.
This a superb presentation. It is lucidly and cogently presented - useful for professionals, students, hobbyists, economists and historians alike.
Keep up the good work. It is a credit to you and whoever else may be involved.
Here here
I'm tired of listen to the news and they don't have a clue of what they're talking about.
*New Asianometry video*
*Dopamine hits*
Regarding wind turbines - 80% of the world's wind turbines use induction generators. Of the 20% that use rare earth magnets, most of those are from Chinese manufacturers. Offshore wind also prefers rare earth magnet generators because they are more reliable than windings and it is difficult to replace failed generators at sea.
Videos on china are so interesting. The stories of how they pulled off massive leaps in technology are insane.
by stealing both the technology and tempting disenfrachised straight whiite males, those kicked out because of "diversity".
Much of their tech is stolen. I'm not so sure they are at the leading edge of as many things as they would like you to think. Their counterfeit, reverse engineering, and corporate espionage is probably world class.
Espionage.
Read about Chinese aircraft designs, Taiwanese semiconductor stuff, etc. Their efficiency is largely attributable to their openly totalitarian government though, our Western totalitarian governments still need to feign that they are democratic - which stifles progress.
China hasnt developed any truly new technology. Most of what they have is copied (or stolen) from the west. Even this rare earth thing is not a massive leap in technology.
There is no life changing new tech from China,
By stealing everything from the west? Wow, so good!
China said many years ago they wanted rare earths for their own industry and the rest of the world should look for their own sources (not like old China monopolies in tea and Silk) NaOH is strongest alkali/base.
Excellent Asianometry video AGAIN
Australia: Be careful what you wish for...🌏
@@endintiersChina has been kind enough. Huawei was banned in 2016. They wait a long time to retaliate.
@@sed9406 I just meant that the rest of the world IS looking to its own resources, and likely (in the case of Australia), (much) cheaper and higher quality.
It costs China US$80 to deliver a ton of Chinese Coal to Shanghai, Australian Coal costs US$25-35 shipped to the same place...
Robotic Trucks, Robotic Trains, etc. etc.
What makes you standout is that your videos cover science, technology, engineering, business as well as history. You even toch upon the environment. Perfect. 🎉
Yes, the US reopened the Mountain Pass mine to reduce the national security concerns of having to rely on China for rare earth materials. We now dig up the ore and ship it to China for refining.
We do this because environmental laws don't allow refining to be done in the US economically. The solution is to have China do the refining while complaining about their lack of concern for the environment and state control of the worldwide supply.
Somehow this is the same government in charge of the only superpower in the world.
Goofy isn't it? but in the 2020 decade that is what we are known for.
Seems like it's a particularly difficult refining process.
"The processes that are used right now … can be 100 steps,” Chrisey said, also noting that the procedure can be very expensive and environmentally hazardous due to the chemicals used to separate and purify the metals.--
And soon, MP Materials will no longer have to ship this mixture overseas to China for the lengthy process of separating and refining the rare earth elements. After two years of construction, the company announced in November that it is on the cusp of opening the first rare earth refinement facility within the United States at the Mountain Pass facility."
"Somehow" ikr😆
@@downstream0114 hehe a 100 steps thats not that much, have you seen how many steps it takes to create any pharmaceutical
@@mookisabatuki4201 That's very different to ore processing.
0:14: 💡 China's ban on the export of rare earth magnet production technologies highlights their strategic importance.
4:10: 💡 Rare Earth elements are not actually rare but economically extracting and refining them is a challenge.
7:32: 🔬 Solvent extraction and ion exchange are used to refine rare Earths, with the Mountain Pass mine in California being a major source.
11:39: 🌍 China's dominance in rare earth production and magnet manufacturing has led to a brain drain and concerns about supply chain resiliency.
15:32: 🧲 Options for reducing the use of rare earth magnets and exploring alternative motor technologies.
Recap by Tammy AI
I had not heard of 'Tammy AI'. Very impressive summary. Thanks for posting.
Now, if it only was able to spot the error at 11:22, when it erroneously stated that sodium hydroxide is an acid, when it is actually a base
Not to mention that the environmentalists in the west will protest and start complaining about radioactive pollution
This was excellent - as usual. I learned a lot. Thank you for the high quality content. 👍
Great topic, and great analysis!
Magnequench made the magnets used in the first cordless power tools with rare earth magnet motors, produced by Porter-Cable in the early 1990s.
I love this channel, amazing stuff.
This guy is insane. He knows everything. He could be an AI.
agi
I hope we now get a series on magnets to complement the semiconductors series.
I expected a mention of tetrataenite at the end when discussing future alternatives to rare earth permanent magnets. There was an announcement late last year that researchers at University of Cambridge and Northeastern University have developed a new, scalable method of production for it. It's an iron-nickel mineral, very rare in nature, and should be environmentally sound to manufacture.
This guys work ethic is off the chain, he can’t be stopped, I swear.
Thanks!
Another excellent video. Many thanks for the valuable information. 😊
Sodium Hydroxide is not an acid
Anyone heard of MP materials? They are reshoring the mining, processing and production of magnets to California and Texas.
Yes they reopened the Mt. Pass mine.
Non Chinese magnet manufacturers cant nake magnets without seperated tb and dy from China
Europe has a new mine in scandinavia too.great video:)
Wow what a well studied video. And such relevance with the advent of EVs.
Having done some research I have come across a company called rainbow rare earths based in South Africa which is hoping to produce rare earths from gypsum stacks left over from old phosphate mines. Apparently according to the studies the firm has done should be able produce at very competitive cost to profit ratios and very low radioactive concentrations/ contamination.
Well the mining of old dumps for gold, and the profitable extraction of copper, silver and sulphuric acid from the dumps, was also a SA thing, and the end result was also that large chunks of land, all now more or less in the middle of the gold reefs, was available, plus the residue from the recovery was pumped back into the pits, both filling in the old adits, and making the ground less prone to sinkholes forming, and also keeping the local water tables free of pollution. I remember all those mine dumps being there, but now almost all are gone, replaced by housing tracts. The actual god recovery was also, because of new methods over the old mercury extraction and flotation used, actually higher than the current virgin ore being mined, despite it being already processed, and the dumps were also easier to handle, seeing as the ore was already crushed and easy to handle. Of course, you also had a good amount of both mercury and other stuff recovered, as the mine dumps were used as a catch all dumping ground by the mines.
People don't seem to realize that moving off of oil won't deliver the USA from international resource conflicts, it'll just change which countries we contend with.
People don't seem to realize a great many things
True, but oil is a consumable that gets combusted, whereas lithium etc al. last many charge cycles and should be recyclable.
@@crash.override Tin caused conflicts in the ancient Brinze Age world despite being reused abd recycled more than lithium
@@crash.overridegold is the only element that humans have a record of actually recycling. Good luck thinking lithium is going to be recycled at large scale before the global supply is nearly exhausted.
Hydrocarbons are cooking the earth, so there are other very good reasons to get out from under them. But also the beneficiaries of hydrocarbons are pretty vile - Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. It would be great to be free of the baleful influence of that particular cast of characters.
Which is why I’m investing in Lynas Rare Earth Limited. Australian company with a great balance sheet and second biggest producer of rare earth metals in the world. No brainer.
its crazy that changing metals around can make so much difference. It feels like the outcome should be predictable, yet each time we are surprised. Chemistry and Phisics are amazing.
today news(2023.7.4) :china limit rare earth export
Another banger!!!!
This video was a rare opportunity to mention Greenland, which you missed it 😜, and NaOH is a base not an acid. But good, generally. Kudos.
5:42 I would have loved to meet Carl Auer von Welsbach, but my therapist told me to avoid people who are known for gaslighting.
This channel is off the fn chain
nice video, keep it up
China has double the share of renewable energy minerals supply chain as Saudi Arabia has of world oil supply.
excellent presentation... at last a commentator who knows how to pronounce the english language correctly, very easy listening
But how were these strange alloys like the standard neodymium magnet mix, discovered? Did they simple randomly change mixtures, and then run a battery of tests to see what it might be useful for, or was there some smart way to predict the mixtures characteristics?
The market for rare earth magnets must be very attractive. One can see why China would want to be in this field.
Magnets are so neat.
"Alternatives cannot economically compete."
They will be able to compete when the cheaper alternative is banned, which puts us back into the scenarios Adam Smith wrote about.
lol free market cant beat china's dominance in the space.
Could you make a separate video on the education of metals chemists by country? The USA only produces triple digits of masters-degree chemists with a focus on metals per annum the last time I checked, with almost half of them working in vehicle/aerospace/shipping alloys.
Additionally, (I think I found this through the Asia society but it may have been from Doomberg) hundreds of metallurgical engineers graduated in India have found highly paid work outside of India in the last year in a new field: propping up the Russian manufacturing sector.
Brilliant👍🙏
Suggestion: Building up from magnets to motors, can you do one on axial flux motors?
Iron nitride and tetrataenite (iron nickel alloy) are strong alternatives to rare earth magnets! Please do a video on them!
There is no such thing like "shipping ore to China for processing." The export processing of rare earth has long been banned in China. MP Materials launched this spin to explain their single customer single destination in China concept, while actually none of the ore they ship to China ever comes back to MP Materials as finished rare earth products. MP Materials were substantially financed by their major shareholder, a China state-controlled entity, when buying and restarting Mountain Pass. That entity holds not only just below 10% of the shares, it also holds a warrant that brings the total stake-holding closer to 20% of MP Materials.
would love to see a video by you covering security seals and genuine wafer marking. I know Viavi solutions and others do work in this field such as Segan Industries.
Australian company Iluka is operating a rare earths mine in Western Australia. They plan to build a refining plant by the end of 2026.
I see what you did there. Nice wordplay
Nothing gets past this guy 😁
Now Chinese knows they should ban refinery as well
Scrapped lead-acid batteries ???? AIUI, they are one of the best examples of recycling. The lead is easily recovered. It even works on a small-scale basis quite well in underdeveloped countries like Pakistan, where such batteries are frequently 'rebuilt'.
Those guys are masters in rebuilding, but they do it in kinda backyard shops sitting in squad in the dust where they solder the lead without any respiration filter and pour the rinsing solution for cleaning somewhere, I assume in the landscape.
@@matneu27 It's crazy but it keep stuff on the road.
@@grahamstevenson1740 And keeps them and others in their neighbourhoods in the hospital.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn You mean by lead poisoning ? There's no actual evidence of that. Much worse was dome in early industrial times.
The term "rare earth" is an old 18th century chemistry term. Almost alchemical in nature, and it causes lots of confusion, though it's very simple to understand. "Earths" were things like beach sand and quartz, silicon dioxide. These elements, though extremely abundant in the earths crust, were unobtainable in metallic form. Silica, alumina, zirconia, titania, magnesia, all of these were "earths" Carbon could not reduce them to metal, like it could do so with iron, copper, or lead. A more advanced technology was needed. Elements like lanthanum, cerium, and "didymium" (neodymium-praeseodymium mixture) resembled these earths, as they too could not be reduced to metal by carbon. Rarer than literally the most abundant elements on earth, these new earths were deemed "rare earths" now we call them lanthanides, elements like lanthanum.
They do not banned them to export, they said that they need apply for special license to export them, which means they are restricted them to sell to coutries against china, only the semi conductor chips war.
Renault Nissan Mitsubishi alliance went with electromagnet rotors on some of there EVs to be less dependant from market fluctuation on rare earth magnets pricing
How can I sign up for the newsletter without giving my cc details?
Welcome to Australia! We're pretty cool. We even vaguely think we're Austro-Asian, when it seems ok to do so.
great !
what does the rare earth mine in china do with the thorium
So, that'show they work!
Would it be possible to create a solid-state magnet that did the same thing but used a small fraction of the minerals? Maybe you could dope a ceramic and cut the mineral use by 100x and get similar results.
on 8/1/2023 China start control export Galium,germanium to USA
Privately owned company : North American Strategic Minerals ( NASM ) has a geologic model which has resulted in the discovery of huge REE reserves in North America .
5:55 "Great mustache." LOL
Sodium hydroxide is an alkali. I try to stay neutral, but pHhhhhh...(Love the video, btw)
The complaints about the ICCU to the NHTSA have been organised on the Ioniq forum as Hyundai have been stonewalling.
I5 driver here in the uk. I’m leasing directly from Hyundai which at least makes me feel like they are in the hook if (when) the iccu dies.
Sam didn’t even mention the weird brake light action when Regenning
Work is fast progressing on iron nitride high strength magnets. They can be stronger than neo, more temperature resistant but at this stage much harder to make.
The easiest thing to solve this problem is not trying to attack China with any chance you get. 😂
alnico is used in guitar pickups, so all that great music you have heard was guitar strings through magnets then through speaker magnets!
Rare earth metals is widely used in audio products and almost every modern headphones and earphones contain them. Also all your electronics devices like phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, cables, chargers, adapters, circuit boards, etc. etc. would certainly contain rare earth.
When development of magnetic high entropy alloys or iron nitride magnets happen we are cookin baby
Iron grip? More like magnetic grip, eh 👉👉
Sodium hydroxide is a base, not an acid, right?
Yeah NaOH is pretty based.
yah, a bit weird to use that as an acid, unless the environment it's in is even more basic.
Basically a big fat no.
I remember when the Hunt Brothers thought they could corner the Silver market. Every granny cashed in her sterling silver and the price crashed.
I don't think I've ever heard that pronunciation of cerium before. Is that a regional difference in pronunciation? Perhaps a pronunciation from another language? I'm genuinely curious because I like learning how different parts of the world pronounce chemical terms.
I'm guessing the etymology is Greek from "Ceres" (mother of Persephone). The Greek letter often transliterated into the Latin "C" is always pronounced similarly to a hard "K" (never a soft "C" = "S"). This means a lot of common English pronunciations of Greek origin words are technically incorrect. Cenotaph, centaur, cyan, ceramic - among many others - are most correctly pronounced with a "K" phoneme at the start, rather than an "S".
Pointing this out can get you labelled a pedant and obscurantist however....
16:08 lead acid car batteries are the most recycled item in the world. Almost 99.9% of that acid batteries are recycled.
We will create a work around for this by the advancement of quantum molecular science and possible off world mining.
My math tells me that with cheap enough energy you can desalinate seawater and extract all the rare earths, gold, even uranium from the waste salt stream. It looks like the most efficient way to do this is with ion bind and release resins. The fresh water would support agriculture and household use. I think you need next generation nuclear and solar to come up with the cheap power.
MAHLE produces EV motors without the need for permanent magnets, that are very efficient, cheap, power dense, brushless etc.
Great strategy China🤙
❤nice
18? Why do I only see 17?
That’s cool about magnet progression in Teslas. Thanx for the heads up on this. Actually forgot I even saw this tesla presentation since Elon has been in the news for all sorts of other dumb stuff hint hint twitter. Will go watch it again.
Long overdue
I am told that switched reluctance motors are the mythical holy grail of motor tech but are too hard somehow..
Thank you for efforts to bring us such high quality and useful videos Sir.
It would be great if you had provided us with some sort of guidelines or strategies which you use to do gather the needed information and organize it like that.
I wanted to learn about such topics on my own but I can not do achieve near half the quality nor the depth you achieve with your videos, and thank you again Sir. Asianometry.
anyone who reads this video if you can help me with that plz add a comment:)
Or the competition between China and the United States has broken the benefits of globalization, and the United States is afraid that China, which is different from him, will gain the advantages he once had in all aspects, at least do something when he still has advantages, such as technology export restrictions, or Included in the review list to restrict imports. China, even if its target is not the United States, has to respond, including the same export restrictions, and localization of technology as much as possible.
Production investment may no longer consider lower costs, but the degree of national security protection. Maybe this is the "Assume a can opener" problem.
The material itself isnt too rare, But whats rare is the processing the materials Which patents are mostly owner by China 😂
Fun Fact: Rare Earth was the first White band signed by Motown.
Comments on 11:24 show that the class is paying attention. Well done asianomics viewers. Great video - yet again 🏆
Or Neodymium grip, amirite?
We actually have very few "sources" of electrical energy, real sources. Magnets and solar panels when you think of it are the only things capable of producing electricity or useable current. Batteries need to be charged, so they don't count. All motion based generators need energy feed from the exciter. This may come from many sources, but only a magnet or solar panel can provide with without relaying on something else. Even wind and water power need a magnet or another electrical power source that comes from ....you guess it a magnet as the exciter. Even nuclear power doesn't make electricity without existing power to feed the systems and the exciter found on the turbines. Once the grid is up , you can take feed from anyone else, try starting the grid from zero is not so easy.
Can you do a video on the application of Gallium and Germanium in semiconductor process, the two elements China essentially banned the export on?
not a ban, just export control for national security purpose.
@@xuansu9036 good luck getting the approval
_Magnets! How do they work?_
@16:41 - Thank you so much for saying "1/10 as strong" and not the cringy abomination of "10 times weaker" *shudder*
11:32 An acid like sodium hydroxide ??
have you heard of tetrataenite it is hoped this nickel compound could replace rare earth magnets
Big advantage of the ferrite magnets is that they are, to a large extent, also a ceramic, and thus an insulator, thus lower eddy current losses in use, and thus lower loss in the magnet due to induced current.