Regarding all the talk of rare earth metals a couple of pages ago:
Keep in mind that while China is the current dominant producer of REEs it’s not like only China has/produces REEs. For example, the Mountain Pass rare earth mine in CA was the dominant producer in earlier decades. As I understand it there were two major reasons it closed:
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China flooding the market and driving down prices. In the case of strategic need I doubt this would stop U.S. production (or production in other parts of the world).
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The environmental impacts. REE mining can create a lot of horribly toxic and/or radioactive tailings. As in some other parts of current industry, not caring about this is one of the reasons China became so dominant. (China’s getting better about environmental concerns now, but it’s a slow process.) Either way, in the dystopian future of CDDA I doubt environmental concerns would block REE mining.
The Mountain Pass mine I mentioned earlier has been started back up in recent years, one of many projects to try and cash in on current demand. While China does still dominate world production there are other sources-- especially if strategic necessity increases (price matters less) and environmental concerns are either mitigated or ignored.
Bottom line, don’t let concerns about REEs overly influence one’s thinking about a fictional future dystopian US government’s ability to produce hypertechnology.
