Quote:
Originally Posted by Pdelcast
China has about 30% of the world rare earth supply. The USA has about 18%, but doesn't produce (because all the producers shutdown due to extremely low prices from China 3-4 years ago...)
The metal used in the magnets (neodymium) isn't very rare -- it's more abundant than lead, and about as abundant as copper. It's just that all the producers around the world stopped production because they couldn't make any profit with China selling the metals so cheaply.
They are all scrambling to reopen mining on rare earths now that the prices have risen so high, but it takes a significant amount of time (1-2 years or longer) to reopen the old mines and production facilities.
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Thanks Pat, I stand corrected. Bad for Rc, maybe good for US miners. Hopefully we'll at least get some jobs out of this.
FWIW, I found the Neu and cc motors to be better than my medusas. They werent bad, just not as good.