China threatens to bring America to its knees – by cutting off dysprosium, terbium, and samarium . . .

Photo above - courtesy of the Los Angeles Times. "Rare earth mineral miners in China".

China sez: "Okay . . . you want a trade war? It’s on - like Hong Kong.” (HK is the former British colony which is now being strangled to death despite China’s promise in 1997 to respect human rights and self-governance there).

I THOUGHT I had paid attention to the periodic table while taking“earth science” classes in the 9th grade. I know about iron, copper, magnesium, and unobtanium. But I’ve never heard of dysprosium, which Chairman Xi is threatening to hoard until the US capitulates. So I googled it. Here’s what Wikipedia says: “Dysprosium (atomic symbol DY) was identified in 1950, and does not exist in a pure state. It is only found as an isotope in other minerals such as xenotime, fergusonite, gadolinite, euxenite, polycrase, blomstrandine, monazite and bastnäsite”. Anyway, dysprosium can be turned into a magnet. You can’t make a Tesla or a wind turbine without it. At least not good ones. And at least not until we move beyond Gen-1 lithium-ion EV batteries that catch fire if they overheat, or if they even smell sea water. You know those photos of wind turbines catching fire and exploding? Evidently dysprosium is one of the culprits.

As much as I pine for a truly affordable EV (costs less than $30K, and doesn’t spontaneously combust), I’m not ready to wave the white flag to China and greenlight their invasion of Taiwan and unlimited Fentanyl smuggling into the USA. I’m holding out for something better.

The world has been threatened with apocalypse before, as various essentials ran low: firewood; flint for arrowheads; whale oil for lanterns; anchovies; horses; slave labor for plantations; dial-up internet access bandwidth; parking spots in Manhattan. Should I go on? I can do this all day . . .

I’m confident there’s a work around or replacement for dysprosium. And I’m certain as soon as some scientist in America or the EU comes up with it, Chinese state sponsored hackers will be swarming to attack the research computers involved, to steal it. It’s their business model.

In the meantime, President Trump, please DO NOT launch a “strategic dysprosium stockpile”, along with the stockpiles we already have for helium, cheese, coffee, and toilet paper. Some brainiac dreamed up the toilet paper stockpile during the Wuhan China Covid-19 bat virus pandemic, after discovering that China is also the world’s biggest exporter (4 million metric tons!) of bathroom tissue. No $hit . . . ! This is really true.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

China ramp up Trump trade war with threats of shutdown for key industry

https://toiletsense.net/2396/is-toilet-paper-imported-from-china/

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

This is old news. China announced cutting off critical minerals awhile ago.

As for HK it is part of China and China has zero obligation to govern their territory according to western preferences. The entire point was colonialism was ending in China in 1997.

The Brits also effectively handed governance of HK to oligarchs when they took more of a back seat on ruling the territory. So it has been very much a combination of a real world Night City and a fifth column that effectively tried to sell off strategic assets to a company in an enemy state.

See what would happen if an American tried to sell the Port of Los Angeles to Iran and see how that would work out for them.

And as for minerals Gallium is a bigger deal. Not only is it useful in EVs but it is the base material for chips for rocket guidance systems including military missiles, guided bombs, satellites etc.

It is also why the claim that Russia was taking chips out of washing machines for guidance systems was western leaders assuming their voters are idiots. But that is a separate discussion.

Silicon based chips don't do well in extreme environments like extreme heat. So it is yet another vital component for modern high tech war machines that China basically has absolute control over.

And lets be real. The only reason why the US cares about Taiwan is because it is a launch pad to colonize south east Asia.

And even official US policy recognizes Taiwan as basically a rogue province of China despite the politicians in Taipei pretending they are the real government of all China since the 40s.

The US has also shown of late that it only cares about South Korea and the Philippines as places to put bases.

wildbill83 · 41-45, M

the world is all the time finding new sources of minerals to get away from dependence on china; countries are just tired of dealing with them.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@wildbill83 i tend to agree. it turns out that although China is a "significant" source of dysprosium, australia turns out to have mega deposits as well. and they won't roll over and play dead, like all those little BS african nations which sell their souls for a new port and small bribe.