I don't know all that much about this issue, but Jamais Cascio has an interesting post up about China placing limits on exports of rare earths that could potentially cause problems for the rest of the world. The graph is from the Wikipedia article, which is also worth reading.
My impression is that they want to limit the exports of the raw ores. China wants to make the finished products.
ReplyDeleteTo give you a clearer idea of the necessity of developing deposits: here's our video on Rare Earth... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQsliHhABz4
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