Rant: China withholding rare earth magnetics

[mike_Kilroy]

Just thought it may be good to post a note about what China is upto with rare earth magnets.....

Since about Oct 2010 China has been holding magnets sorta hostage. Old supply and demand thing. most high performance servo motors today have neodimium iron boron rare earth magnets in them. all the active mines today are in china. china has been witholding these magnets from the rest of the world and thus forcing their price outrageously high. I hear buyers grumbling that quotes on magnets are only good for 24 hours then go up again. final price is determined at time of shipment too so no one can tell what their price will be. It is putting a big hurt on US and european motor manufactures. resultant prices have gone up almost 50% in the last 6 months with no end in site.

Of course folks are scrambling to find other sources of these rare earth magnets but it will take a long time to find and develop. meanwhile, get ready for big time price increases on motors and anything else using rare earth magnets.

perhaps it is time to boycott buying that chinese part or machine and buy American.....

google or wiki this to learn more....

[emorning]

Originally Posted by mike_Kilroy perhaps it is time to boycott buying that chinese part or machine and buy American.....

Well, I don't disagree with your conclusion, but I don't see any logic in how you got there.
So China is squeezing its customers for as much money as possible... do you think that if a US company sold rare earth minerals right now that they wouldn't be squeezing their customers just as much?

One more point... these rare earth minerals are mostly used in motors.
The use of rare earth magnets is *not* strictly required in these motors, they are mostly just used to make motors smaller and lighter. So, the way to compete with the Chinese is to open up a can of American ingenuity on their ass and create a coil magnet that is just as powerful using coils of carbon nanotubes or some damn thing. Or maybe find some ceramic-based material that better than ferrite.

Or another idea... just make big-ass motors stylish. This would just take some good ol 'merican marketing.
I can just see it now... a Prius with a big-ass magnet sticking up out of the hood - with lots of chrome on it. Nobody's gonna want those puny Chinese motors anymore!

[mike_Kilroy]

Originally Posted by emorning I can just see it now... a Prius with a big-ass magnet sticking up out of the hood - with lots of chrome on it. Nobody's gonna want those puny Chinese motors anymore!

[axis_control]

Originally Posted by mike_Kilroy perhaps it is time to boycott buying that chinese part or machine and buy American..... google or wiki this to learn more....

China had planned this whole concept of mass manufacturing a long time ago in late 1980s. Their population growth forced their economist to take these steps.

Today China knows that most of the world is dependent on them and they know that it can take up to decades for countries to become self sufficient. Based on this they have started profiting out of their monopoly.

Recently I discovered that most of the Chinese companies have stopped entertaining small manufacturing units. Some times I do not even get quote replies from some of them. Earlier the story was different and pretty friendly.

Those pretty helpful replies from Chinese companies always ended up with an added surprise on the buyers face when the products reached him or sometimes did not reach him....lol

If the whole world boycotts Chinese products then they will have their internal instability rise pretty fast

[low_48]

Do you shop at Walmart? Same deal, take over the market, get rid of most of the competion, then do what you want. Monsanto has done it with soybeans. I suspect that method has been used since the first purchase created capitalism.