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/