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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Now try copper, aluminum and more. I saw a clip from a conference that said for copper, at 3% GDP growth, the global demand in the next 18 years will exceed the last 10,000 years, but 80% of known reserves have already been mined.
It seems to me that development in the future is going to be constrained. Not to be dramatic but are we in the sort of happy pre-pandemic days not knowing the changes heading our way? Or am I being too dramatic?
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 35.1 ms ] threadEdit 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
It may take a while, but one day our old landfills will turn into mines.
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.
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.
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?
https://www.usgs.gov/tools/critical-minerals-atlas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
Tungsten won't matter when there is no country.
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.
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.
I can only read the free part of the paper (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09203...). I wish it would elaborate more on the challenges with recycling.
Come buy our tungsten! (We'll throw in a choice of Eccles cake or Tunnocks tea cakes as a special offer)
It seems to me that development in the future is going to be constrained. Not to be dramatic but are we in the sort of happy pre-pandemic days not knowing the changes heading our way? Or am I being too dramatic?