Rare earth metals supply: The next microchip crisis?

Better to work with what has . . . with what one has not . . . .

Stop trying to rob developing countries in the Middle East and Africa of its rare minerals at the the cost of their environment and the lives lost through the extraction process.

The word is over population.

Since we have tripled the human population so rapidly, we have problems like this.

If China was there you could only bet they were there for stealing

China holds the card here.

But Japan should also try working with South America.

Actually zichi Japan has massive potential rare earth minerals deposits being mined in the ogasawara area and the world's largest deposits are all along the marriana trench areas.

Russia has successfully produced rare earth minerals in the laboratory.

Usa has very few rare earth deposits and stockpile and they are quite worried about it.

China is building a massive super computer and so is Russia.

China may have the largest stockpile at this moment in time is possibly more accurate.

According to the internet research ,but thats just what i read !

China already has the largest deposits of rare Earth minerals.

This is misleading, because rare earth minerals are anything but rare - they are found in abundance in numerous countries. The reason we buy from China is because they subsidize the mining and allow lax safety standards - which makes them cheaper than other countries. Other countries shut down their mines because they couldn't compete on price.

The solution is for countries to ramp up their mining - which they should be doing now. China has already demonstrated that they are an unreliable supplier, and will cut shipments for political reasons.

China already has the largest deposits of rare Earth minerals.

China obtains quite a bit of their rare earth minerals from Myanmar. China gives two rebel groups in norther Myanmar bases inside China and in turn the rebel groups provide protection for Chinese interests there.

Usa has very few rare earth deposits and stockpile and they are quite worried about it.

No. The US has enormous deposits of so-called rare earth minerals but the global price of them was driven so low by the Chinese the mines in the US became unprofitable and closed. Recapitalizing the mines takes time and they are not competitive price wise but there is no shortage of these minerals in the deserts of the southwestern US. The US deserts have huge untapped deposits of gold, silver, copper and iron but much of it has been off limits due to price and a lot of it exists inside national parts or monuments.

Once again pointing the finger at the wrong problem .

There's plenty of what their looking for all over the planet but in varying degrees of concentration.

The extraction and processing from the earth is the drama.

It's a very dangerous dirty, water energy hungry process in the extraction and manufacturing of such products.

China's the biggest producer of these products but their also the biggest polluters because of their disregard of the environment.