This website has no author attribution and this is the only article on it. I would be very suspicious of its claims (not that I disagree with them, just that unattributed works on brand new websites are not ALWAYS the most trustworthy).

The United States has exported the dirtiest businesses internationally for quite a few years (raw mineral extraction is a dirty, nasty business, with slim margins). Now that China has become more adversarial and also more established (you mean people want to actually get PAID to slave away in a mine, or even worse, refuse to even work in a dangerous and dirty pit mine?!) the US is facing some hard decisions. We need many of these materials, and we have them, but we haven't had the will to mine them. Lots of people want to open US government lands to these resource extraction outfits, but there's right worry about the potential for ecological destruction.

• noleary

  today at 9:34 PM

  Hey, I wrote the article. This is my personal website that I wrote mostly over the weekend.

  I went down a rabbit hole reading about metals and mining and just thought it was interesting. Not an expert or a nefarious actor, unfortunately.

  • themanmaran

    today at 9:58 PM

    > Not an expert or a nefarious actor

    If it helps, I know @noleary and can confirm this is a true statement!

    • dfee

      today at 10:08 PM

      isn't that what a second non-expert or nefarious actor would say, though? :p

    • IhateAI_3

      today at 10:37 PM

      [dead]

  • stevenwoo

    today at 9:56 PM

    The formatting of the website on iOS safari moves the left margin off screen so I could not read all of your essay. But you may enjoy reading Material World by Conroy based on what I could read, he does not cover Tungsten.

    • cumquat

      today at 10:12 PM

      Landscape mode helps.

  • hunterpayne

    today at 10:03 PM

    Nice work but no offense, but it comes off as you describe. I think you are overall right about needing to switch W sources. You are wrong that it will be used for fusion reactors. That won't happen in the lifetime of anyone alive today. It will get used for armor for weapons and possibly some fission reactors. We are nowhere near an actual breakeven fusion reactor. We are only close to theoretical break-evens which are themselves more than an order of magnitude from actual working powerplants. Ask yourself this, how do you efficiently harness 1,000,000C heat? Even at 900C we can only get about 55% and we have materials which can withstand that temperature for decades. We have nothing physical that can take anywhere near 1,000,000C.

    • montyanne

      today at 10:28 PM

      Commonwealth fusion is theoretically pretty close with their high temp superconductors.

      Far from a slam dunk, but I don’t think we’re as far from net gain as we were 10 years ago.

    • noleary

      today at 10:15 PM

      I'm not smart enough to stake an opinion on the viability of fusion. I pretty much only have high school mechanics and Wikipedia in my toolkit.

      I can only ever make material conditional claims about things like this :)

    • BigTTYGothGF

      today at 10:32 PM

      > how do you efficiently harness 1,000,000C heat

      Very carefully.

    • dotancohen

      today at 10:13 PM

        > how do you efficiently harness 1,000,000C heat?
      

      The traditional answer to that question is vacuum and magnetic confinement (usual toroidal). Whether that will turn out to be the practical answer is yet to be seen.

      • hunterpayne

        today at 10:42 PM

        I said efficiently, you would be lucky to get 1% efficiency there. Vacuums don't conduct heat very well do they.

• ericmay

  today at 9:42 PM

  > Now that China has become more adversarial and also more established (you mean people want to actually get PAID to slave away in a mine, or even worse, refuse to even work in a dangerous and dirty pit mine?!) the US is facing some hard decisions.

  There is an implication here that the United States is immune or afraid of doing “hard” or “dirty” work and so we outsourced refining and mining to China.

  This doesn’t seem to be correct.

  China has a national strategy to dominate refining of rare earth minerals and critical components and our entire society wants cheap products and China was the cheapest place for this stuff and environmental rules are more lax, and with an authoritarian regime supporting and fast tracking the business for strategic reasons, well there you have it.

  Part of the strategy involves decoupling China from a weak link in the energy supply chain infrastructure: oil and refining rare earths, manufacturing products that use them, and more is how they are pursuing some level of energy independence from the USA which controls oil flows globally, for the most part.

  With respect to avoidance of “dirty” jobs. The EU is far, far worse in this respect than the United States is or was.

  • wolvoleo

    today at 10:11 PM

    > With respect to avoidance of “dirty” jobs. The EU is far, far worse in this respect than the United States is or was.

    Well yeah. Because we care about the environment and people like to enjoy their retirement instead of sitting in a wheelchair with COPD due to inhaling a lifetime of toxic dust.

    China is getting better at it too, but only a few years ago I remember a story of all the toxic lakes where all the byproducts of neodymium mining were dumped.

    • orochimaaru

      today at 10:27 PM

      You don’t care about the environment. You care about the environment in your backyard. Otherwise you would not import rare earths and minerals from China (which Europe does).

      • estearum

        today at 10:33 PM

        Pretty sure consumers would still buy all the nice downstream products even if they damaged their own backyards.

        Evidence: Long history of us doing exactly that.

        Valuing convenience, modern products etc does not mean one "doesn't care" about the negative externalities, just like going out to eat at a nice restaurant doesn't mean someone "doesn't care" about saving money.

      • tbossanova

        today at 10:33 PM

        Individual EUers might care about the environment. It’s pretty hard to personally avoid any dirty imported stuff as you just don’t know where it all ends up. Though I guess overall voting patterns might back up your argument

  • a2tech

    today at 9:53 PM

    People in the US will do dirty jobs if thats what there are, but like people everywhere (in aggregate), would rather not.

    We outsourced refining and mining to China because 1) it was cheap 2) it meant poisoning the ground and air and ripping up vast tracts of land somewhere else.

    China's rare earth metals stratagem I believe grew out of this--it didn't happen immediately, but rather some bright bulb saw the growing reliance on access to the minerals and encouraged internal growth and acquisition competing resources. Absolutely, very clever.

    • ericmay

      today at 10:10 PM

      But let's be very clear here. the US might have outsourced those jobs, which I think is an oversimplification, but the EU also outsourced those jobs and the Chinese welcomed and encouraged that outsourcing. Americans, Europeans, and Chinese workers were all onboard at a national level for this arrangement.

      I want to be very clear here to avoid any misunderstanding of an application of moral judgement against the United States for "outsourcing dirty jobs".

      > China's rare earth metals stratagem I believe grew out of this--it didn't happen immediately, but rather some bright bulb saw the growing reliance on access to the minerals and encouraged internal growth and acquisition competing resources. Absolutely, very clever.

      This could be true. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle, in that China never intended to join a US and European led world order because doing so would compromise the power of the authoritarian CCP (free speech, free markets are incompatible with communism) and this became the eventual strategy to work toward energy independence. Of course "independence" isn't a real thing here, just less reliance. You can't run fighter jets or tanks on batteries or solar panels.

  • pixl97

    today at 9:49 PM

    A good way to put it as "China was very willing to subsidize the cost of mining these elements as environmental damage".

• incahoots

  today at 10:32 PM

  >Now that China has become more adversarial

  I think it's the other way around here. I say that as China's policy has primarily focused on self-reliance to the degree that it's overshadowed the west in several sectors with the exception of a few (Tech/AI, Finance, Bio) and given their persistence to close the gap I'd say we aren't too far from being eclipsed entirely.

  One just has to look at the economics of it all and come to the conclusion that many have already arrived at...

• Night_Thastus

  today at 10:08 PM

  It's a frequent pattern of:

  1: "We need to be more self-sufficient with minerals!"

  2: "Let's try to kick-start more of our own industry digging it up!"

  3: "Wow, that's expensive and can't compete with international prices."

  4: "Better shut it down!"

  5: Goto 1

  Without ever getting that the point was never to be as profitable as overseas sources. Or getting the point and ignoring it.

  • terminalshort

    today at 10:40 PM

    The worst part is that most of number 3 is self imposed by the ridiculous amount of environmental review and litigation delays surrounding that process. Sure, cost of labor is some of it, but really it's not very much in comparison.

• tehjoker

  today at 10:39 PM

  > Now that China has become more adversarial

  Just a nitpick, but it is the reverse, the United States has become more adversarial. China isn't kidnapping heads of state.

I really would like to see answers to the four questions at the end. Though I would hazard a guess that the answers to the first three can be summed up as "it's easier and cheaper to let China do the dirty work." The last question I cant answer as I don't understand boom-bust mining cycles.

Edit to add:

> After all, it turns out tungsten actually isn't hard to find! It's all over the United States. In fact, it's pretty much all over the world.

The Wikipedia Tungsten article states the largest reserves are in China followed by Canada, Russia, Vietnam and Bolivia. This contradicts the articles claim. Just because it's all over does not mean it is easy to dig up and refine. Some clarification is needed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten#Production

• Tuna-Fish

  today at 9:31 PM

  > The Wikipedia Tungsten article states the largest reserves are in China followed by Canada, Russia, Vietnam and Bolivia. This contradicts the articles claim.

  No, it does not, it's just a confusion of the term reserves. That's not on you, though, because everyone constantly gets it wrong.

  Reserves are not estimates of the amount of a mineral underground. To be counted as proven reserve, you need to show that the mineral is economically extractable at market prices. Specifically, by starting to extract them. They are "working inventory" of mines that have been developed, they are not our understanding of how the minerals are distributed. They are also a function of commodity prices, not something that remains constant unless you dig them.

  China has so much of the worldwide production and reserves because mining is an extremely capital-intensive industry, that is also sensitive to labor costs and environmental legislation. For a long time, China had the trifecta of lax legislation, cheap labor, and sufficient political stability to attract investment. US or Europe can't compete because mining there is more expensive, the third world can't compete because people are wary of investing billions into projects that might go to zero for political stability reasons.

  Should the market prices of key minerals rise to the point where it makes sense to mine them outside of China, reserves will be developed and production will shift. This will probably require political will to either tariff Chinese production or subsidize production outside China, because so far China has wielded mineral exports as a weapon only for brief periods, being careful to release exports to crater prices often enough to kill competing projects.

  • nullhole

    today at 10:28 PM

    > To be counted as proven reserve, you need to show that the mineral is economically extractable at market prices. Specifically, by starting to extract them.

    You don't need to be actually mining the stuff for it to be considered a reserve, at least in the Canadian (CIM) definitions. You do need at least a pre-feasibility study, and details on market prices & contracts.

    The general point is right though, "mineral resources" means there's metal in the ground, "mineral reserves" means there's metal in the ground that can be economically mined, with consideration of the mining methods, infrastructure, legal title, environmental impact, metallurgy, market contracts, etc.

  • a2tech

    today at 9:46 PM

    The US has lots of tungsten and other minerals. The problem is mining them here--people really don't want to see huge holes in the ground, industrial run off, and ecological collapse.

    If the fundamentals of international resource extraction changes (which because of the increase in wages and living standards and expectations in China is happening) then we might see wide spread and rapid mining happening in the US. My questions in that scenario are 1) who will work these mines? The US is running at very high employment right now, and mining is very hard work 2) where would our ore refinement equipment and skills come from? China has 50 years of ore refinement development behind them. They have infrastructure to BUILD the infrastructure for ore extraction and refinement. My understanding is that they're uninterested in selling that currently 3) then all the other local issues like where will they be able to sell locals on building giant mines, dealing with the heavy traffic, potential environmental concerns, etc.

    • hunterpayne

      today at 10:35 PM

      This isn't a pretty unhinged take.

      > China has 50 years of ore refinement development behind them.

      No it doesn't (at best its about 35 years) and it often (mostly) uses equipment made in the west. In fact, if you want to extract something from the earth, its very likely you need a US firm to help you do it (depends on how hard the material is to extract).

      > and ecological collapse

      You can do mining responsibly, it just costs more. US firms about 20 years ago tried to get the US government to subsidize their industries to compensate for the extra costs. The politicians said no and voiced environmental concerns. So those materials started coming from China and the 3rd world where they were extracted using even dirtier methods than the US was using at the time. It turns out that pollution doesn't obey international borders though.

      Finally, most of the material China exports is raw and its refined somewhere else. The only things China refines for themselves are either a) is easy and they need them domestically or b) the refining process is very dirty. Additionally, mining almost always takes place far from population centers. The basic reason for this is that all the material near population centers was extracted far in the past. Your entire take has little to no resemblance with reality.

• noleary

  today at 9:17 PM

  Reserves means something specific in the context of minerals! Reserves measure 'economically viable' deposits. [1]

  There used to be tons of tungsten mines in the USA, e.g. in Colorado linked below.

  [1] https://resourcecapitalfunds.com/insights/rcf-partners-blog/...

  [2] https://coloradogeologicalsurvey.org/publications/tungsten-m...

  • bell-cot

    today at 9:36 PM

    Yes, but it should be emphasized how dependent "Reserves" are on both exploration work, and current assumptions about future mining/refining/market conditions.

    China's secret to having most of the world's Reserves may be that they bored a lot more test holes (to actually know "the rock in >THIS< spot is X% tungsten") than anyone else, then made some more-optimistic assumptions.

• lkbm

  today at 9:18 PM

  > The Wikipedia Tungsten article states the largest reserves are in China followed by Canada, Russia, Vietnam and Bolivia. This contradicts the articles claim. Just because it's all over does not mean it is easy to dig up and refine.

  It doesn't contradict the claim.

  Just because it's all over does not mean it is easy to dig up and refine, but just because it's not the largest reserve doesn't mean it's not easy to dig up and refine.

• aeternum

  today at 9:55 PM

  It's often hard to beat bulk mining. When you're already mining a quarter billion tons of iron and 5B tons of coal, you get a decent amount of all other trace(rare-earth) metals as part of that stream.

  It's far easier to just collect tungsten as it rolls down your conveyor belt.

• petre

  today at 9:37 PM

  > The Wikipedia Tungsten article states the largest reserves are in China followed by Canada, Russia, Vietnam and Bolivia

  Easy one, then. The administration will kidnap the president of Bolivia, install a replacement and strike a minerals deal.

Tungsten is the least of their problem. When a population cannot afford health care system, and have to walk with their passport so they are not sent to jail, you have a broken country. Not to mention the financial problems.

Tungsten won't matter when there is no country.

PRC tungsten reserves are also depleting, mines are processing more rocks for same output and sooner or later PRC going to quota tungsten exports even more for domestic stockpile and prevent over extraction.

Also related tangent, remember that anecdote about PRC finally making ball point pen tips? That was basically central gov slapping PRC metallurgists to speedrun tungsten carbide precision manufacturing for advanced munitions (penetrators), not ball point pen tips which was rounding error consideration.

Just want to say respect for making the blog and leading with a self-taught post about tungsten. Very cool dude stuff. Add an RSS feed.

1. Fusion is not going to be a reality any time in the next 50 years.

2. Why does the US import tungsten? Is it that we don't have any, or it's cheaper to just buy it from China?

I have a tungsten paperweight on my desk and I am legion. A tungsten drive for a good nerd cause could accumulate tons. A good nerd cause like "make a 1 meter tungsten cube". It would be very good at holding down paper.

So we are finally building the Rods from God

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment

The US govt already tracks the geopolitical status of "Critical Minerals" at the USGS:

https://www.usgs.gov/tools/critical-minerals-atlas

Are they secretly building the "Rods from God"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment

There is likely a good amount of tungsten, along with other useful elements, sitting buried in US landfills.

It may take a while, but one day our old landfills will turn into mines.

• Gigachad

  today at 9:29 PM

  With most resources, it’s usually not that they literally can’t be found, but that the cheap sources are gone. If tungsten costs 20x as much to extract, it doesn’t matter that it technically exists, a lot of users are just not going to be able to afford it.

  • dmurray

    today at 10:26 PM

    The article says the US currently imports about 10,000 tons of tungsten per year, and has no active production, so that's also its current usage.

    Tungsten costs about $200/kg [0]

    So the total US tungsten usage is $2 billion/year.

    If the price goes up 20x overnight, and nobody changes their purchasing behaviours, that costs US businesses, consumers and government $38 billion.

    That's a lot of money for most people, but it's being spread over a wide base.

    For a comparison, the US uses about 20 million barrels of oil per day [1] or 7 billion per year. So a 20x shock in tungsten would be roughly equivalent to oil prices going up $5/barrel. In fact oil fluctuates by that much most quarters [2], if not most months. People complain a little when it goes up, but it takes more than that to really have a noticeable effect on the economy.

    A 2x or 5x price increase - a huge shock in any context - would be problematic for a few companies, but really business as usual for the US as a whole.

    [0] https://www.metal.com/tungsten

    [1] https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_oil_consumption

    [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-cha...

> One wonders: Why does China produce >80% of the world's tungsten? Why has there been zero domestic tungsten mining in the United States?

Mining and refining rare earth is a dirty process. NIMBYs pushed it farther and farther away until it was on the other side of the world.

It's worth mentioning that the US has tungsten mines, but they are not operating currently. https://www.usgs.gov/data/tungsten-deposits-united-states

Between stable and contract honoring entities it's also possible to trade for things that not everyone produces, or do large long term investments in things like mines or refineries outside your own territory.

Not surprising. In addition to Tungsten or rare earth materials, I am sure there are many more "problems" that America is dependent on China.

• irishcoffee

  today at 9:28 PM

  Yeah, the US let China do the dirty work because it was cheaper. And it was cheaper because China doesn’t care about dumping waste wherever they’d like and building suicide nets for their employees because of how they’re treated.

  America depended on China to not care about the environment or people. China is pretty good at that.

  • actionfromafar

    today at 9:32 PM

    Fear not, we will Make America Great Again. Back to the "gilded age".

  • Hikikomori

    today at 9:33 PM

    China sounds a lot like a conservative wet dream. Are they just jealous?

    • irishcoffee

      today at 10:37 PM

      If you think there are actually conservatives and liberals at the billionaire level I have a bridge to sell you. The joke is on you, boss.

      Ignoring your ignorance for a moment, the logic you could have realized is, the US did it to save money and line their pockets. Political affiliations have nothing to do with it.

obligatory simpsons reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTLYris4kJU

Between the critical strategic/military need, the by-far largest producer being an unfriendly rival power, and commercial production looking like a very poor fit for the use case - the Old School solution would be for the gov't to own & probably operate the needed mines, refining facilities, and stockpiles.

But between our low-functioning gov't and our lower-functioning Capitalist-Ideological Complex, I'd be surprised if such a solution was even mentioned.