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Whats often overlooked in the discussion of heavy rare earths is that the global consumption of those heavy rare earths is very small and it doesnt take a lot of production of some of these rare earths to meet global market demand, claims Molycorp.
But it is not just mining the rare earths that matters. What you can - or cannot - do with them once they are aboveground matters also.A domestic supply of raw materials means nothing without the manufacturing capacity to turn them into high-value products. Some in the industry say China still has the upper hand in manufacturing.
We dont really have the ability to not depend on China, said Ed Richardson of the U.S. Magnet Manufacturers Association. We dont have all the technology operational here in the U.S. to be able to go from a mine to a magnet. Thats a fundamental problem.
Fazit: Was fehlt, ist die komplette Produktionskette vom Erz bis zum Endprodukt (z.B. Neodym-Magnete)
Für diese fehlenden, durchgängigen Produktionsprozesse könnte CCE auch nicht mehr beitragen, als andere Minen:
Ein Konzentrat, welches am Anfang der Wertschöpfungskette steht.
Nix besonderes also.