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Saltend: Major UK rare earths refinery scrapped in favour of US (www.bbc.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by yogthos@lemmygrad.ml to c/worldnews@lemmygrad.ml

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[–] Maeve1@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

But Pensana said moves by China to keep rare earth prices low has made refining in the UK uneconomic without significant government backing, whereas the US is offering the sector more support.

[–] narr1@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

i've heard talk that it would be completely unfeasable for the US to ever upgrade its rare earth refining infra to a level where they could compete with the prices that China offers for it's refined products. i haven't researched this claim (which admittedly i heard from a Hasanabi video), so i wonder if it's true at all?

[–] cornishon@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 3 weeks ago

Yep, all those "bring manufacturing/refining back to America" initiatives are effectively just handouts to few well connected capitalists. Everyone will forget about them in a year or two, but the money will stay in their pockets (see the Biden Infrastructure Bill).

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