Your analysis is generally good, but has two major flaws:
1) it discounts the energy and pollution involved in refining gallium and germanium. The same holds true for the rare earths.
The point is that even if a magic wand were to be waved to resolve the permitting issues - which Trump could do - the economics of refining these materials is heavily dependent on lax environmental regulations (or lack thereof) plus very cheap energy in the form of coal.
These structural problems are much, much harder to resolve.
2) Then there is the expertise and capital equipment issue: you implicitly assume that only money is needed to create a brand new gallium and/or germanium refining plant. I don't think this is true: the type of equipment needed is highly specialized and extremely unlikely to be sitting around. The expertise to set up and efficiently run the process is even less likely to be sitting around - and the period of time in which Americans ran these types of machinery/businesses is so far in the past that all of the former practitioners are certainly retired and likely to be dead of old age.
As such, Godfree's estimates of time and cost are far more likely to be accurate than your assessment of "2 or 3 years".
Great article...we can take care of ourselves here with everything. I am afraid I am becoming an isolationist. We just need to get back to protecting our own country, and our OWN resources!
Freedom is hard fought. We let our processes get away from us, and we must get it back. It is that simple. The cure will hurt, but death is not an option.
These materials are produced in the U.S. from our own reserves. Wouldn't require much to bring the mining of materials to fruition with the correct administrative officers in place in D.C. It's about time the U.S. is a producer; self-sufficient again.
Your analysis is generally good, but has two major flaws:
1) it discounts the energy and pollution involved in refining gallium and germanium. The same holds true for the rare earths.
The point is that even if a magic wand were to be waved to resolve the permitting issues - which Trump could do - the economics of refining these materials is heavily dependent on lax environmental regulations (or lack thereof) plus very cheap energy in the form of coal.
These structural problems are much, much harder to resolve.
2) Then there is the expertise and capital equipment issue: you implicitly assume that only money is needed to create a brand new gallium and/or germanium refining plant. I don't think this is true: the type of equipment needed is highly specialized and extremely unlikely to be sitting around. The expertise to set up and efficiently run the process is even less likely to be sitting around - and the period of time in which Americans ran these types of machinery/businesses is so far in the past that all of the former practitioners are certainly retired and likely to be dead of old age.
As such, Godfree's estimates of time and cost are far more likely to be accurate than your assessment of "2 or 3 years".
It will take 10 years and $10 billion to replace the refined minerals we buy from China with domestic product.
What do we do in the meantime?
Good question!
Great article...we can take care of ourselves here with everything. I am afraid I am becoming an isolationist. We just need to get back to protecting our own country, and our OWN resources!
Freedom is hard fought. We let our processes get away from us, and we must get it back. It is that simple. The cure will hurt, but death is not an option.
These materials are produced in the U.S. from our own reserves. Wouldn't require much to bring the mining of materials to fruition with the correct administrative officers in place in D.C. It's about time the U.S. is a producer; self-sufficient again.