US Rare Earth Processing Plant Opens in Colorado - The continuing saga of reducing our dependency on China

Rare Earth Processing Plant Opens in Colorado

Rare Earth Processing Plant Opens in Colorado

www.nationaldefensemagazine.org

A new pilot plant that will process rare earth elements necessary for many critical U.S. military weapons systems opened in June, as part of an effort to end China’s monopoly on the important resources.

The pilot plant is a joint venture between USA Rare Earth and Texas Mineral Resources Corp. The two companies previously funded a project on Round Top mountain in Hudspeth County, Texas, which features 16 of the 17 rare earth elements.

“Our objective is to set up a domestic U.S. supply chain without the materials ever leaving the United States,” said Pini Althaus, CEO of USA Rare Earth.

The elements are necessary for the creation of a number of weapons systems including the Lockheed Martin-made F-35 joint strike fighter, Tomahawk cruise missiles and other munitions.

USA Rare Earth previously held two grants with the government. One was with the Defense Logistics Agency where the company successfully demonstrated high-purity separation of three rare earth elements, Althaus said.

The second grant was with the Department of Energy. The company demonstrated its ability to process high-purity separation of a different set of three rare earth elements.

“We built upon that work that we were doing and decided that we were going to open up our own processing facility … which was a decision we made late last year,” Althaus said.

Once fully commissioned, the plant will be focused initially on group separation of rare earth elements into heavy, middle and light. The final phase of the pilot will be the further separation of high-purity individual rare earth element compounds.

The facility, which is based in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, will also be involved in the recovery of non-rare earth elements with a focus on lithium, uranium, beryllium, gallium, zirconium, hafnium and aluminum, all of which are on the U.S. government’s critical minerals list.

Currently, China controls the vast majority of the global rare earth production.

Althaus said the U.S. government should pump more money into the production of rare earth elements domestically.

“There are ways to start small, … infuse the capital markets with confidence, enable companies to develop their projects here,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll have a positive outcome where we don’t have to rely on China for these materials.”
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This is really good news, I hope this project goes well.

Being able to have some semblance of emergency autarky at least for the military is absolutely necessary.

 

[HarveyMCR]

This is really good! Reinvigorating the American rare earth industries was one of the major goals for the Chinese trade war. China produces almost all our rare earth metals and it’s a serious national security risk. I remember back in 2017 people were mad at Trump because they thought it would just increase the price of these metals and make life worse, but as this has shown, the market does correct itself and now we’ll have cheaper, more stable production closer to home.

If you want a good rebuttal when people talk about how Trump hasn’t fulfilled his campaign goals, this is a good example to hold up. Sure this is a minor thing that the majority of Americans won’t care about, but this is a massive strategic victory and a huge blow to China. It’ll fly under most peoples radars, but so will most of trumps accomplishments

 

[Milkis]

Yep, just like the DoD said it would. To paraphrase Ross Perot, the world economy is hearing a giant decoupling sound going across the Pacific.

 

[pwnest injun]

We need antibiotics manufacturing within the next few months, imo.

 

[DocHoliday1977]

Unobtainium plant is open for nuclear waste leak in Colorado.

 

[Jimmy Durante's Ballsack]

Between this and our buddies in Japan developing technologies to extract rare earth elements from their undersea sludge, the future is looking better and better for efforts to decouple from Communist China.

 

[LUNEKO]

This is really good! Reinvigorating the American rare earth industries was one of the major goals for the Chinese trade war. China produces almost all our rare earth metals and it’s a serious national security risk. I remember back in 2017 people were mad at Trump because they thought it would just increase the price of these metals and make life worse, but as this has shown, the market does correct itself and now we’ll have cheaper, more stable production closer to home.

If you want a good rebuttal when people talk about how Trump hasn’t fulfilled his campaign goals, this is a good example to hold up. Sure this is a minor thing that the majority of Americans won’t care about, but this is a massive strategic victory and a huge blow to China. It’ll fly under most peoples radars, but so will most of trumps accomplishments

How long is it gonna last tho? as long as china is enslaving africans and making them work twice the hours at 1/10th the salary there's only so much the factory in USA can do, specially while Mexicans are getting more expensive as they start to demand healthcare, residency and proper pay, not to mention that should democrats re-take control on 2024 they will definitely look to destroy everything Trump built. While definitely the kind of "fuck you China" attitude Trump got his name on, i wonder how truly practical this stunt is

 

[Regu]

How long is it gonna last tho? as long as china is enslaving africans and making them work twice the hours at 1/10th the salary there's only so much the factory in USA can do, specially while Mexicans are getting more expensive as they start to demand healthcare, residency and proper pay, not to mention that should democrats re-take control on 2024 they will definitely look to destroy everything Trump built. While definitely the kind of "fuck you China" attitude Trump got his name on, i wonder how truly practical this stunt is

Hopefully this rare earth planet, assuming Trump stays in power in the next election, will be able to claw its way into a state of being very hard to remove. They are likely fully aware that if the democrats take hold, they'll try to dismantle this plant, but there's a lot of money involved so quite a few powerful people won't be keen on that.

 

[Snekposter]

Worth pointing out as well that anything involving natural resources production, at least in the West, is extremely well-paid labor. Now, while the most hardcore or stupid of the left don't give a shit because "natural resources bad", its something to make moderates wary about fucking with.

 

[Pixy]

“Our objective is to set up a domestic U.S. supply chain without the materials ever leaving the United States,” said Pini Althaus, CEO of USA Rare Earth.

At the height of the trade war last year there was some optimism Down Under that Australia might be able to secure a much larger foothold over in the States with our abundance of rare earths and status as a major US ally. Evidently we failed to capitalise on the opportunity, aside from the fact a domestic supply chain is far more appealing than importing from Australia.

 

[he who has thus come/gone]

At the height of the trade war last year there was some optimism Down Under that Australia might be able to secure a much larger foothold over in the States with our abundance of rare earths and status as a major US ally. Evidently we failed to capitalise on the opportunity, aside from the fact a domestic supply chain is far more appealing than importing from Australia.

Australia is the least cucked country in the Commonwealth. I guess they remember who was pulling for them in WWII? They seem to have a more American ethos, too, and they don't really dislike Americans publicly (unlike their cousins in Canada who are infected with a French Canadian tumor). If we had a president who could truly realign foreign policy, we would be emphasizing that relationship to the utmost and taking advantage of our naval domination to really leverage Australian industries in things like rare earth processing. But alas we've been ruled by an elite that has a Chinese hand in their pants leading them down the tightrope to dependency with bribes.

 

[Pixy]

But alas we've been ruled by an elite that has a Chinese hand in their pants leading them down the tightrope to dependency with bribes.

Sorta. The explanation provided by the article was that it was simply easier to outsource refinery of rare earths rather than building the infrastructure for it.

Despite there (sic) name, REEs [Rare Earth Elements] are relatively plentiful in the planet's crust – however, the complexity of the refining process, namely the prevalence of low levels of radioactivity and the potential for radiation contamination as a result of the refining process, has prompted many Western nations including the US and Australia to outsource refining, until now.

 

[kcbbq]

The US used produce a lot of rare earth minerals (most aren't rare at all), but when China started dumping the stuff they could mine easily for quick cash the industry died off. The entire purpose of the rectangle states is to be a source of oil and minerals. Those states really don't serve any other purpose outside of being pretty.

 

[soy_king]

Rare earth production was one of the few things I'm personally OK with being overseas simply due to the deleterious effects it has on the local environment. China doesn't give a shit about their air, soil, and water quality, but we should.

 

[гape]

holy shit hurry up and make some drug factories too HURRYYYY THEYRE DROWNING

 

[Sneed's Feed And Seed]

holy shit hurry up and make some drug factories too HURRYYYY THEYRE DROWNING

I know! The fucking microwave can't work any faster! Orville Redenbacher, you white-haired slow bastard!

 

[DocHoliday1977]

Well, Colorado already has radium poisoning so what's another one going to hurt?

 

[Snekposter]

Rare earth production was one of the few things I'm personally OK with being overseas simply due to the deleterious effects it has on the local environment. China doesn't give a shit about their air, soil, and water quality, but we should.

One of the most dangerous radioactives that are left over from rare earth refining is... thorium. If we adopted liquid fluoride-thorium reactors (also known as molten salt reactors) instead of being a waste product its yet another commercial good to be sold off.

 

[kcbbq]

One of the most dangerous radioactives that are left over from rare earth refining is... thorium. If we adopted liquid fluoride-thorium reactors (also known as molten salt reactors) instead of being a waste product its yet another commercial good to be sold off.

If we built thorium breeder reactors we easily have 500 years of fuel available pretty much on the surface of the US.

But you can't hug with nuclear arms or something.

 

[AnotherPleb]

One of the most dangerous radioactives that are left over from rare earth refining is... thorium. If we adopted liquid fluoride-thorium reactors (also known as molten salt reactors) instead of being a waste product its yet another commercial good to be sold off.

That requires the government to be realistic about nuclear energy.