Molycorp Mired In The Mud: Perhaps A Domestic "American"Total Rare Earth Supply Chain Should Be A Collaborative Project. [View instapost]
u4eah,
Translation: Until a metallurgy is run at full "scale," it is also just on-going laboratory scale work. In chemical engineering scale-up a pilot plant will be built after the successful laboratory work and it will then be the pilot plant that is scaled (or "ramped up" [if large enough])up to full production.
Note please the problems Molycorp seems to be having are in scale-up. The information is opaque but it seems to be safety design that is flawed; it may be even a process flaw, which is an economic setback (to say the least) when a chemical engineering project must be redesigned as to process flow.
Now, finally, as to using a "synthetic process leach solution," this is what one must almost always do first prior to the mine being permitted for full-scale "mining." In Ucore's case it was the desire to synchronize the separation work with the hydrometallurgical work that drove the use of "synthesized" PLS.
In Ucore's case its metallurgy, or most efficient low cost extraction of the desired elements from the ore, was done, as is standard procedure, by a specialized independent and qualified third-party contractor. This contractor determined what reagents and conditions to use to minimize costs and maximize efficiency.
In order to reduce costs and time required to complete the project Ucore retained Intellimet and kept it abreast of the metallurgical work.
Once the metallurgy was settled (not necessarily finished) Ucore had Intellimet "synthesize" a solution of the process leach solution that would result from the proposed metallurgy and begin its, Intellimet's, work on separation and purification.
Intellimet's first success was in designing a process to pre-treat the PLS at the metallurgical "hydromet" plant (nearby or on site at Bokan Mtn) to remove the nuisance elements, iron, uranium, and thorium from the PLS. This was a substantial move. Uranium and thorium MUST be removed from the PLS to a level below that allowed for radioactive content for commercial transport, but JUST AS IMPORTANTLY the presence of large quantities of IRON, which is common in rare earth deposits, directly impacts the cost of separation and purifying the PLS, because iron must be chemically removed before the PLS is run for rare earth separation and purification. Feeding solutions containing iron into solvent extraction or solid-phase extraction plants designed to separate the rare earths from each other can be a costly mistake.
In general laboratory scale-up in Chemical engineering is as much an art as a skill. Experience really counts. In my 30s I worked with a company that did contract scale up and pilot production of pharmaceuticals for major Pharma concerns in Europe, and I can tell you reproducing laboratory work in pharmaceuticals for scale up purposes makes rare earth separation seem quite basic BY COMPARISON. I note that Dr. Hammen of Intellimet first met solid phase extraction in his work as a young PhD in the American pharmaceutical industry. I note also that China's leading academic expert in solvent extraction separation for rare earths also learned his craft in the pharmaceutical industry and even today consults to the American pharmaceutical industry on the separations of (molecularly) almost identical sugars and proteins from each other.
Separation aside the best example of ignored scale-up roadblocks that I know is the glossing over by the lithium-ion battery industry of the near impossibility of scaling up ECONOMICALLY the various laboratory successes in energy density or recharge times that are daily reported as "breakthroughs."
One of the biggest problems in the American mining industry is the lack of general research and development in the separation and refining of the technology metals that are co-produced or produced as byproducts.
(Political incorrectness alert): Until Americans start promoting engineering and science AGAIN with the same vigor now used to promote gender and diversity studies we are riding a wagon with a broken axle, and the horse is getting tired. Our American values and the amount of capital we devote to them are seriously out of proportion to our most urgent needs. I am not preaching autarky (look it up), I am preaching autonomy.
Molycorp Mired In The Mud: Perhaps A Domestic "American"Total Rare Earth Supply Chain Should Be A Collaborative Project. [View instapost]
Good point, and I don't actually know the answer to the question of Ucore's extent of ownership and coverage of the deradioactivation aspect of SPE, but I do know that developing the SPE deradioactivation process itself is a very significant achievement.However I must say that I disagree with your point that the process is universally applicable to all "hard rock ree ores." I suspect that a variation of the process used for Bokan will almost always be applicable, but the "variation" may be substantial. Note that any and all of the ores must be beneficiated and chemically cracked to produce a process leach solution, which is the feedstock into the SPE system(s). Ore cracking, which is known in the trade as "metallurgy" is far from an exact "science." In fact several well known large deposits have proved to be intractable to cracking economically.
I congratulate Ucore on its singular achievement, but I would much rather not have the problem of deradioactivation than have to devise a chemical processing/mining engineering solution to removing it for further processing to get at the desired elements. Ucore has done what everyone in mining thought would be impossibly expensive and for which no good technology has existed, or at least put into use for this purpose, up until now anyway.
Canadian securities' law requires that announcements of grade, tonnage, process, and process efficiency and cost be verified by independent qualified third parties, so Toronto's Bay Street talks about everything but the important stuff when its denizens are selling exploration company shares. I am in America , so I can tell you there is a very good probability that the REE separation/purification game is about to change dramatically. Get a large popcorn and wait for the main feature (for those of you old enough to understand that metaphor)
Molycorp Mired In The Mud: Perhaps A Domestic "American"Total Rare Earth Supply Chain Should Be A Collaborative Project. [View instapost]
Nancy,
I have not been to Steenkampskraal, but my TMR colleague, Dr Gareth Hatch has been to the site. I have myself been to Zandkopsdrift, which I was told at the time was 60 KM from SK.
Although deductive logic is not the best guide to exploration the fact that two such high grade deposits are so close to each other has always made me think that there is a lot more out there (at both sites).
I am old enough to remember "scientists" and popular writers debating the existence of a female orgasm, so I find the discussions of whether or not there are more REEs ore bodies at SK to be Parr for the course of National Geographic informed exploration geology.
Molycorp Mired In The Mud: Perhaps A Domestic "American"Total Rare Earth Supply Chain Should Be A Collaborative Project. [View instapost]
Hakenzac,
You have asked a good and a multi-part question, but I don't think all of the parts are necessarily inter-related.
1. In my opinion the GWTI "operation" is indeed today superfluous to GW's vertical integration model. Note, however, that the Chinese separation technology supplier is only a minority capital partner and that, as I read the published documents the Chinese company is entitled to a percentage of the operation's "profits" not of any "metals."
2. It is my understanding that Ucore indeed has an exclusive license for using SPE technology from Intellimet, specifically developed for the purpose, to process its Bokan ore. I do not believe that Ucore has at this point any additional claims on the process as used to separate the REEs or to de-radioactivate the ore concentrates (other than from its company owned deposits in Alaska)
3. Intellimet is the property of a 68 year old PhD chemist and his immediate family and lifelong collaborators, which group includes two more PhDs in chemistry from Stanford. The 68 year-old, Dr Richard Hammen, introduced himself to me at a Hard Assets Conference in 2009 in San Francisco. I listened to his story and failed to really understand it fully, but I asked him to call Mark Smith at Molycorp and offer his services and/or technology. I had visited Mountain Pass in June of that year, and I saw then that they were working on bringing the original SX plant back on line after its half-decade shutdown. Molycorp was then private, and I had not heard of any plan to replace the original SX plant. In fact I then thought that Dr Hammen was talking about a form of Ion Exchange separation, which was used then, and is still used, to ultra-purify the heavy rare earths in particular. I didn't think that Molycorp knew much about IEx and I thought they might be interested.
I had forgotten the meeting when I got a call from an irate Mark Smith late in 2009 or early in 2010 berating me for "disparaging" Molycorp by telling Dr Hammen that i thought they could use his help in process engineering. It seemed to me that it was Mr Smith who was being foolish by ignoring Dr Hammen. I was not intimidated by a threat to sue me made by Smith on that call, and I told him that I would send him my jurisdictional information to help his lawyers. I never heard from him again-to this day.
However a year ago Dr Hammen called me and asked me to come to his lab-I have never been to his home or garage (if he has one)-in Missoula, Montana. I did, and I was delighted to see a table top demonstration of the separation of neodymium from praseodymium. I was delighted because it was a demonstration of a technology, Solid-Phase extraction, that I had never known to be applicable to REE separation or purification, and the process was hundreds of times faster than SX or IEx , very very inexpensive, and could be used with any amount of feed NO MATTER HOW SMALL.
It is no secret that Intellimet is working with Ucore, but I have a non-disclosure agreement with both parties, so I cannot comment on the work other than I have above.
I think that the Ucore PEA, which should be out shortly, will be of very great interest to the REE mining and refining community.
4. I think that anyone who hasn't already contracted to utilize or build an SX plant for separation of the REEs should wait for a few more months before doing so. I also think that those who have built or are building SX plants for light REEs separation, in particular, should wait before commissioning any further SX/IEx plants for heavy REE separation.
Energy, Imagination And Politics: A Toxic Cocktail For Your Portfolio [View article]
John,
Your table of sales by power train shows just the US market. Can you give us the percentage breakdown, by power train, for the global OEM market in those same years? I think that only the richest countries have any significant market for short range high priced status markers. I think that in the global market place IC power trains account for 98% of sales.
Also, why is it with battery manufacturers going bankrupt that we don't see anyone worrying about shortages of batteries for future scrap like the Tesla? Where are the batteries going to come from for the million rolling toasters to be sold in 2015?
Did you see the story out of Michigan of a local reporter finding the workforce in the LG battery factory just sitting around doing nothing while the proceeds of the $300 million federal "grant" keep them in snacks. Is there excess capacity for the Volt battery? How can that be?
Electric Vehicles, Front-Loading The CO2 Emissions [View article]
Right on John.
The US company, Formation Metals, Inc., has been trying to start up a cobalt mine in mining friendly Salmon, Utah, for the last 12 years. It would be America's only primary cobalt mine. The environmentalists, NOT THE LOCAL MINING FRIENDLY PEOPLE have blocked it. It seems hypocritical, but in fact it's just STUPID. The Eco-freaks simply do not know what they're doing.
Conflict metals, toxic heavy metals, and so forth are a big deal in Al Gore's world, but creating jobs and growing the safest mining industry on earth-not so much.
Electric Vehicles: Front Loading The Filth [View article]
John, I have now arrived in Germany where I will be speaking about the rare earths critical to hybrids, EVs, and most of all, IC, powered cars and trucks to the SAE on Thrusday in Stuttgart. You are of course entirely right when you do an overall toxicity audit of the residues produced from the manufacturing and operation of motor cars.
I admit that the front end audit is horrifying overall and the back end though not as bad is also an eye opener. What is the impact of the average useful life of the vehicle on the back end numbers? Note that batteries are not only not reconditioned they are also disposed of (wasted again)and replaced, so that there is another load of front end contamination required to "extend" the life of the vehicle.
In the Soviet Union and its dependencies the automobiles and trucks available were of uniform design from year to year and were so costly in terms of average income that they were run into the ground, literally. Sheet metal repairs were not considered important and there was no infrastructure to support any cosmetic repair industry. The joke is that although these vehicles were spewing raw gasoline, oil, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide they lasted for decades. I remember well that a Romanian Dacia pickup truck was called a Chinese limousine, because it could carry 3 Chinese in the cab and six in the pickup box. The pollution per capita was thus less in use than the most fuel efficient western glamorous looking machine. Dacia exported 80 such limos a day to China.
If we keep up this mindless enthusiasm for the environmental problem of the moment with subsequent legislation making whatever it is into a permanent resource drain while ignoring all of the consequences such as the ones you enumerate here then you're right we will simply run out of technology metal and mineral resources because we will use up our ability to generate enough capital to keep this avalanche of waste creation going.
How many of the commenters are multi-car owners that utilize their cars to carry one person at a time on multiple shopping trips to decide which redundant luxury item to buy.
Ford (F) says it’s cutting consumption of rare earths used in its hybrid and electric cars by 500K lbs./year and will save hundreds of dollars per car in the process. But shares of rare-earth leader Molycorp (MCP +5.6%) shoot higher anyway, adding to gains a day after China announced a 40% cut in the number of permits to mine rare earths. REE +5.7%, AVL +4.5%. [View news story]
The Ford press release is full of spin. But the brief SA summary here is also rotating at high speed.
First of all the nickel-metal hydride battery that Ford has been successfully using for nearly 10 years WITHOUT A PROBLEM in its well made, well engineered HYBRIDS uses on the average 2.3 kg of LANTHANUM per battery and very little of any other rare earth metal. Therefore the press release is telling you that IF FORD WERE TO MAKE AND SELL 100,000 HYBRID EVs per year without using the proven reliable NiMH battery it would then not use 243,000 kg or, approximately 500,000 lbs of LANTHANUM. LANTHANUM price today is less than $20/kg and DROPPING. But let's use the $20 figure. This means that each NiMH battery contains $46 of lanthanum. Watch out at this point for the spinning propeller! The same battery uses FIVE TIMES AS MUCH NICKEL, AND NICKEL SELLS FOR THE SAME PRICE AS LANTHANUM TODAY! So, in fact, it's not the 500,000 lbs of lanthanum that has Ford's bean counters worried it's the 2,500,000 lbs of NICKEL that accounts for more than 80% of the cost of the metals in a proven, reliable, long lasting in many cycles NiHM battery. Please also note that Lithium-ion batteries are very very expensive to build and that this has NOTHING to do with the price of lithium.I hope the Ford bean counters know that the most efficient Li-ion chemistry is Li-COBALT, and that COBALT is MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE THAN NICKEL.
I have always believed that in an era of CAFE rules and arbitrary government mandates WEIGHT is the controlling factor. But I wonder if these Li-ion batteries being discussed here are actually lighter in weight, since they require more manufacturing engineering and it results in multiple safety systems being required for fire suppression and cell breakdown management.
Magnets: My partner in TMR informed me this morning that the magnets that Ford is to be utilizing to thrift the use of dysprosium are only made in Japan, so that Ford will remain dependent on Japanese access to Chinese dysprosium in any case.
This brings me to Molycorp, which is, of course, hurt by Ford;s reduction of its use of lanthanum, because lanthanum is a principal product of Molycorp. It accounts for some 25-28% of the output of Mountain Pass.
In addition to that you must note that the Chinese restriction in the number of licenses is not to restrict the total amount of rare earths produced but to CONSOLIDATE its more than 129 legal mines into just a dozen or so COMPANIES! Just one of those companies Baotou Heavy will now have under its control a group of REE mining companies that not only has the capability of producing 50,000 mt of light rare earths per year but has the capacity to produce MANY TIMES that amount from combined reserves and resources much larger in net rare earths contained than either Mountain Pass or Mt Weld.
The Chinese are consolidating their REE industry to make it SAFER, ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY, and MORE PRODUCTIVE and therefore COMPETITIVE. Share traders who do not take this into account are very foolish or do not themselves own the shares and are simply churning for commissions or short term profits at the margins.
Ironically it is the Chinese demand for nickel and cobalt that is driving Ford's moves while the misunderstanding of resource economics drives a company's share prices up as its strongest competitors act to reduce costs and improve efficiency.
Hedge For Inflation And Deflation With Precious Metals Convertible Securities - Part 1 - U.S. Securities [View article]
I am totally at a loss to understand why you would even include Molycorp in your list. The revenues of some of your list members actually exceed that of the entire rare earth sector not only at the mine-that revenue is trivially small by global standards-but even at the point in the supply chain where a mining company can integrate itself into a magnet alloy provider. Your metric seems to be the type of security a company issues rather than the substance of the company issuing the security.
I note that Lynas got its operating permit this morning, and as of this minute, is operating the largest solvent extraction plant in the world for the separation of light rare earths into the ACTUAL products their customers want. Does this factor into your analysis?
Please explain exactly why you match Molycorp with, for example, Newmont?
Is Molycorp Getting A Bum Rap? If So, It's Time To Buy [View article]
GWMG's Less Common Metals subsidiary in Great Britain does NOT process other firms' products. It BUYS rare earth metals from Chinese or Japanese suppliers and adds value to them by producing high end rare earth permanent magnet alloys that their CUSTOMERS use to manufacture high end rare earth permanent magnets in Europe and Japan.
The Steenkampskraal site is ready to begin mining the highest grade rare earth ore on this planet. GW has shown only 35,000 toms net so far on the site of PROVEN resources. Nonetheless this ore body mined at 2,500 mta will produce nearly 500 tons of dysprosium in its 14 year run of life. Molycorp at 50,000 mta would produce 98 tons of dysprosium. GW has an immediate internal demand for all of the nd, sm, and dy it can produce at Steenkampskraal.
LCM will process the mine concentrates in the UK to make 700 mt per year of neodymium, which will be refined into high purity metal that WILL THEN REPLACE purchased material from China.
GW's properties in Canada are undeveloped becasue the investment community has been totally snowed by announcement hype from companies that have just discovered the idea of vertical integration, but have unfortunately also disciovered that just talking about it and making announcements doesn't do much except separate investors from their capital in endlessly incrasing amounts for diminishing returns.
I note that GW has an SX plant under construction by a Chinese company that has been doing SX without a break for 20 years and has access to the immense (by contrast to the west) Chinese knowlede nad EXPERIENCE base in this processing area.
I don't understand how a property can be under-productive when it is not yet in production. Are you underproductive when you're asleep?
Oh and by the way. Steenkampskraal will move just 40-80 tons a day of rock to get its 2,500 mta output of REEs. Molycorp must move more than 2,000 tons per day to get its projected output.
GW's vertical integration is the result of excellent long term planning and marketing not last minute panic buying and foolish undercapitalization.. GW's operations can be enlarged. Can Molycorp's be downsized? That will be finally the existential question: Who is providing what the market ACTUALLY wants at the lowest price with the lowest breakeven?
Please respond to my questions exactly rather than telling me how wrong I am. Better yet ask Molycorp for ACTUAL cost data not what's going to be maybe when.
Molycorp can be saved. It just needs to be downsized and reorganized to match the real market.
Future Quite Bleak For Rare Earths Miner Molycorp [View article]
Professor,
How right you are. See my comment at SA's publication of the AH heavy rare earth announcement, which announcement was like calling a duck pond the basis of duck soup. There's a very long uphill path ahead for MCP, and I don't think management cares about anything other than the positioning of announcements. I watch small investors trying to call each others' bluffs, and I see the vast gulf between talking about things and doing them and I marvel thar the capital formation mechanism called the stock market is so efficient (at raising capital not at using it wisely)
Future Quite Bleak For Rare Earths Miner Molycorp [View article]
Ed,
If you mean Ross Bhappu then I noted when I looked at the SEC paperwork that he offloaded a boatload of insider shares at the top. Around 400 million dollars worth of "profit." Thus I think the purchase of 2.5 million 10 dollar shares was just safe bet. He was using a little of the money he already made. It's a good cover against angry derivative suits. One of us is right. If you're long on MCP I hope it's you who's correct about this.
Molycorp Mired In The Mud: Perhaps A Domestic "American"Total Rare Earth Supply Chain Should Be A Collaborative Project. [View instapost]
Translation: Until a metallurgy is run at full "scale," it is also just on-going laboratory scale work. In chemical engineering scale-up a pilot plant will be built after the successful laboratory work and it will then be the pilot plant that is scaled (or "ramped up" [if large enough])up to full production.
Note please the problems Molycorp seems to be having are in scale-up. The information is opaque but it seems to be safety design that is flawed; it may be even a process flaw, which is an economic setback (to say the least) when a chemical engineering project must be redesigned as to process flow.
Now, finally, as to using a "synthetic process leach solution," this is what one must almost always do first prior to the mine being permitted for full-scale "mining." In Ucore's case it was the desire to synchronize the separation work with the hydrometallurgical work that drove the use of "synthesized" PLS.
In Ucore's case its metallurgy, or most efficient low cost extraction of the desired elements from the ore, was done, as is standard procedure, by a specialized independent and qualified third-party contractor. This contractor determined what reagents and conditions to use to minimize costs and maximize efficiency.
In order to reduce costs and time required to complete the project Ucore retained Intellimet and kept it abreast of the metallurgical work.
Once the metallurgy was settled (not necessarily finished) Ucore had Intellimet "synthesize" a solution of the process leach solution that would result from the proposed metallurgy and begin its, Intellimet's, work on separation and purification.
Intellimet's first success was in designing a process to pre-treat the PLS at the metallurgical "hydromet" plant (nearby or on site at Bokan Mtn) to remove the nuisance elements, iron, uranium, and thorium from the PLS. This was a substantial move. Uranium and thorium MUST be removed from the PLS to a level below that allowed for radioactive content for commercial transport, but JUST AS IMPORTANTLY the presence of large quantities of IRON, which is common in rare earth deposits, directly impacts the cost of separation and purifying the PLS, because iron must be chemically removed before the PLS is run for rare earth separation and purification. Feeding solutions containing iron into solvent extraction or solid-phase extraction plants designed to separate the rare earths from each other can be a costly mistake.
In general laboratory scale-up in Chemical engineering is as much an art as a skill. Experience really counts. In my 30s I worked with a company that did contract scale up and pilot production of pharmaceuticals for major Pharma concerns in Europe, and I can tell you reproducing laboratory work in pharmaceuticals for scale up purposes makes rare earth separation seem quite basic BY COMPARISON. I note that Dr. Hammen of Intellimet first met solid phase extraction in his work as a young PhD in the American pharmaceutical industry. I note also that China's leading academic expert in solvent extraction separation for rare earths also learned his craft in the pharmaceutical industry and even today consults to the American pharmaceutical industry on the separations of (molecularly) almost identical sugars and proteins from each other.
Separation aside the best example of ignored scale-up roadblocks that I know is the glossing over by the lithium-ion battery industry of the near impossibility of scaling up ECONOMICALLY the various laboratory successes in energy density or recharge times that are daily reported as "breakthroughs."
One of the biggest problems in the American mining industry is the lack of general research and development in the separation and refining of the technology metals that are co-produced or produced as byproducts.
(Political incorrectness alert): Until Americans start promoting engineering and science AGAIN with the same vigor now used to promote gender and diversity studies we are riding a wagon with a broken axle, and the horse is getting tired. Our American values and the amount of capital we devote to them are seriously out of proportion to our most urgent needs. I am not preaching autarky (look it up), I am preaching autonomy.
Thanks for the opportunity to rant.
Jack
Molycorp Mired In The Mud: Perhaps A Domestic "American"Total Rare Earth Supply Chain Should Be A Collaborative Project. [View instapost]
I congratulate Ucore on its singular achievement, but I would much rather not have the problem of deradioactivation than have to devise a chemical processing/mining engineering solution to removing it for further processing to get at the desired elements. Ucore has done what everyone in mining thought would be impossibly expensive and for which no good technology has existed, or at least put into use for this purpose, up until now anyway.
Canadian securities' law requires that announcements of grade, tonnage, process, and process efficiency and cost be verified by independent qualified third parties, so Toronto's Bay Street talks about everything but the important stuff when its denizens are selling exploration company shares. I am in America , so I can tell you there is a very good probability that the REE separation/purification game is about to change dramatically. Get a large popcorn and wait for the main feature (for those of you old enough to understand that metaphor)
Molycorp Mired In The Mud: Perhaps A Domestic "American"Total Rare Earth Supply Chain Should Be A Collaborative Project. [View instapost]
Parr, of course, should be "par," the golf term. SA's editing software leaves much to be desired for iPads.
Jack
Molycorp Mired In The Mud: Perhaps A Domestic "American"Total Rare Earth Supply Chain Should Be A Collaborative Project. [View instapost]
I have not been to Steenkampskraal, but my TMR colleague, Dr Gareth Hatch has been to the site. I have myself been to Zandkopsdrift, which I was told at the time was 60 KM from SK.
Although deductive logic is not the best guide to exploration the fact that two such high grade deposits are so close to each other has always made me think that there is a lot more out there (at both sites).
I am old enough to remember "scientists" and popular writers debating the existence of a female orgasm, so I find the discussions of whether or not there are more REEs ore bodies at SK to be Parr for the course of National Geographic informed exploration geology.
Molycorp Mired In The Mud: Perhaps A Domestic "American"Total Rare Earth Supply Chain Should Be A Collaborative Project. [View instapost]
You have asked a good and a multi-part question, but I don't think all of the parts are necessarily inter-related.
1. In my opinion the GWTI "operation" is indeed today superfluous to GW's vertical integration model. Note, however, that the Chinese separation technology supplier is only a minority capital partner and that, as I read the published documents the Chinese company is entitled to a percentage of the operation's "profits" not of any "metals."
2. It is my understanding that Ucore indeed has an exclusive license for using SPE technology from Intellimet, specifically developed for the purpose, to process its Bokan ore. I do not believe that Ucore has at this point any additional claims on the process as used to separate the REEs or to de-radioactivate the ore concentrates (other than from its company owned deposits in Alaska)
3. Intellimet is the property of a 68 year old PhD chemist and his immediate family and lifelong collaborators, which group includes two more PhDs in chemistry from Stanford. The 68 year-old, Dr Richard Hammen, introduced himself to me at a Hard Assets Conference in 2009 in San Francisco. I listened to his story and failed to really understand it fully, but I asked him to call Mark Smith at Molycorp and offer his services and/or technology. I had visited Mountain Pass in June of that year, and I saw then that they were working on bringing the original SX plant back on line after its half-decade shutdown. Molycorp was then private, and I had not heard of any plan to replace the original SX plant. In fact I then thought that Dr Hammen was talking about a form of Ion Exchange separation, which was used then, and is still used, to ultra-purify the heavy rare earths in particular. I didn't think that Molycorp knew much about IEx and I thought they might be interested.
I had forgotten the meeting when I got a call from an irate Mark Smith late in 2009 or early in 2010 berating me for "disparaging" Molycorp by telling Dr Hammen that i thought they could use his help in process engineering. It seemed to me that it was Mr Smith who was being foolish by ignoring Dr Hammen. I was not intimidated by a threat to sue me made by Smith on that call, and I told him that I would send him my jurisdictional information to help his lawyers. I never heard from him again-to this day.
However a year ago Dr Hammen called me and asked me to come to his lab-I have never been to his home or garage (if he has one)-in Missoula, Montana. I did, and I was delighted to see a table top demonstration of the separation of neodymium from praseodymium. I was delighted because it was a demonstration of a technology, Solid-Phase extraction, that I had never known to be applicable to REE separation or purification, and the process was hundreds of times faster than SX or IEx , very very inexpensive, and could be used with any amount of feed NO MATTER HOW SMALL.
It is no secret that Intellimet is working with Ucore, but I have a non-disclosure agreement with both parties, so I cannot comment on the work other than I have above.
I think that the Ucore PEA, which should be out shortly, will be of very great interest to the REE mining and refining community.
4. I think that anyone who hasn't already contracted to utilize or build an SX plant for separation of the REEs should wait for a few more months before doing so. I also think that those who have built or are building SX plants for light REEs separation, in particular, should wait before commissioning any further SX/IEx plants for heavy REE separation.
Thank you sincerely for asking your questions
Jack
Energy, Imagination And Politics: A Toxic Cocktail For Your Portfolio [View article]
Your table of sales by power train shows just the US market. Can you give us the percentage breakdown, by power train, for the global OEM market in those same years? I think that only the richest countries have any significant market for short range high priced status markers. I think that in the global market place IC power trains account for 98% of sales.
Also, why is it with battery manufacturers going bankrupt that we don't see anyone worrying about shortages of batteries for future scrap like the Tesla? Where are the batteries going to come from for the million rolling toasters to be sold in 2015?
Did you see the story out of Michigan of a local reporter finding the workforce in the LG battery factory just sitting around doing nothing while the proceeds of the $300 million federal "grant" keep them in snacks. Is there excess capacity for the Volt battery? How can that be?
Electric Vehicles, Front-Loading The CO2 Emissions [View article]
Electric Vehicles, Front-Loading The CO2 Emissions [View article]
The US company, Formation Metals, Inc., has been trying to start up a cobalt mine in mining friendly Salmon, Utah, for the last 12 years. It would be America's only primary cobalt mine. The environmentalists, NOT THE LOCAL MINING FRIENDLY PEOPLE have blocked it. It seems hypocritical, but in fact it's just STUPID. The Eco-freaks simply do not know what they're doing.
Conflict metals, toxic heavy metals, and so forth are a big deal in Al Gore's world, but creating jobs and growing the safest mining industry on earth-not so much.
Jack
Electric Vehicles: Front Loading The Filth [View article]
I have now arrived in Germany where I will be speaking about the rare earths critical to hybrids, EVs, and most of all, IC, powered cars and trucks to the SAE on Thrusday in Stuttgart. You are of course entirely right when you do an overall toxicity audit of the residues produced from the manufacturing and operation of motor cars.
I admit that the front end audit is horrifying overall and the back end though not as bad is also an eye opener. What is the impact of the average useful life of the vehicle on the back end numbers? Note that batteries are not only not reconditioned they are also disposed of (wasted again)and replaced, so that there is another load of front end contamination required to "extend" the life of the vehicle.
In the Soviet Union and its dependencies the automobiles and trucks available were of uniform design from year to year and were so costly in terms of average income that they were run into the ground, literally. Sheet metal repairs were not considered important and there was no infrastructure to support any cosmetic repair industry. The joke is that although these vehicles were spewing raw gasoline, oil, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide they lasted for decades. I remember well that a Romanian Dacia pickup truck was called a Chinese limousine, because it could carry 3 Chinese in the cab and six in the pickup box. The pollution per capita was thus less in use than the most fuel efficient western glamorous looking machine. Dacia exported 80 such limos a day to China.
If we keep up this mindless enthusiasm for the environmental problem of the moment with subsequent legislation making whatever it is into a permanent resource drain while ignoring all of the consequences such as the ones you enumerate here then you're right we will simply run out of technology metal and mineral resources because we will use up our ability to generate enough capital to keep this avalanche of waste creation going.
How many of the commenters are multi-car owners that utilize their cars to carry one person at a time on multiple shopping trips to decide which redundant luxury item to buy.
The hypocrisy is no longer even noticed.
Ford (F) says it’s cutting consumption of rare earths used in its hybrid and electric cars by 500K lbs./year and will save hundreds of dollars per car in the process. But shares of rare-earth leader Molycorp (MCP +5.6%) shoot higher anyway, adding to gains a day after China announced a 40% cut in the number of permits to mine rare earths. REE +5.7%, AVL +4.5%. [View news story]
First of all the nickel-metal hydride battery that Ford has been successfully using for nearly 10 years WITHOUT A PROBLEM in its well made, well engineered HYBRIDS uses on the average 2.3 kg of LANTHANUM per battery and very little of any other rare earth metal. Therefore the press release is telling you that IF FORD WERE TO MAKE AND SELL 100,000 HYBRID EVs per year without using the proven reliable NiMH battery it would then not use 243,000 kg or, approximately 500,000 lbs of LANTHANUM. LANTHANUM price today is less than $20/kg and DROPPING. But let's use the $20 figure. This means that each NiMH battery contains $46 of lanthanum. Watch out at this point for the spinning propeller! The same battery uses FIVE TIMES AS MUCH NICKEL, AND NICKEL SELLS FOR THE SAME PRICE AS LANTHANUM TODAY! So, in fact, it's not the 500,000 lbs of lanthanum that has Ford's bean counters worried it's the 2,500,000 lbs of NICKEL that accounts for more than 80% of the cost of the metals in a proven, reliable, long lasting in many cycles NiHM battery.
Please also note that Lithium-ion batteries are very very expensive to build and that this has NOTHING to do with the price of lithium.I hope the Ford bean counters know that the most efficient Li-ion chemistry is Li-COBALT, and that COBALT is MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE THAN NICKEL.
I have always believed that in an era of CAFE rules and arbitrary government mandates WEIGHT is the controlling factor. But I wonder if these Li-ion batteries being discussed here are actually lighter in weight, since they require more manufacturing engineering and it results in multiple safety systems being required for fire suppression and cell breakdown management.
Magnets: My partner in TMR informed me this morning that the magnets that Ford is to be utilizing to thrift the use of dysprosium are only made in Japan, so that Ford will remain dependent on Japanese access to Chinese dysprosium in any case.
This brings me to Molycorp, which is, of course, hurt by Ford;s reduction of its use of lanthanum, because lanthanum is a principal product of Molycorp. It accounts for some 25-28% of the output of Mountain Pass.
In addition to that you must note that the Chinese restriction in the number of licenses is not to restrict the total amount of rare earths produced but to CONSOLIDATE its more than 129 legal mines into just a dozen or so COMPANIES! Just one of those companies Baotou Heavy will now have under its control a group of REE mining companies that not only has the capability of producing 50,000 mt of light rare earths per year but has the capacity to produce MANY TIMES that amount from combined reserves and resources much larger in net rare earths contained than either Mountain Pass or Mt Weld.
The Chinese are consolidating their REE industry to make it SAFER, ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY, and MORE PRODUCTIVE and therefore COMPETITIVE. Share traders who do not take this into account are very foolish or do not themselves own the shares and are simply churning for commissions or short term profits at the margins.
Ironically it is the Chinese demand for nickel and cobalt that is driving Ford's moves while the misunderstanding of resource economics drives a company's share prices up as its strongest competitors act to reduce costs and improve efficiency.
Hedge For Inflation And Deflation With Precious Metals Convertible Securities - Part 1 - U.S. Securities [View article]
I note that Lynas got its operating permit this morning, and as of this minute, is operating the largest solvent extraction plant in the world for the separation of light rare earths into the ACTUAL products their customers want. Does this factor into your analysis?
Please explain exactly why you match Molycorp with, for example, Newmont?
Is Molycorp Getting A Bum Rap? If So, It's Time To Buy [View article]
The Steenkampskraal site is ready to begin mining the highest grade rare earth ore on this planet. GW has shown only 35,000 toms net so far on the site of PROVEN resources. Nonetheless this ore body mined at 2,500 mta will produce nearly 500 tons of dysprosium in its 14 year run of life. Molycorp at 50,000 mta would produce 98 tons of dysprosium. GW has an immediate internal demand for all of the nd, sm, and dy it can produce at Steenkampskraal.
LCM will process the mine concentrates in the UK to make 700 mt per year of neodymium, which will be refined into high purity metal that WILL THEN REPLACE purchased material from China.
GW's properties in Canada are undeveloped becasue the investment community has been totally snowed by announcement hype from companies that have just discovered the idea of vertical integration, but have unfortunately also disciovered that just talking about it and making announcements doesn't do much except separate investors from their capital in endlessly incrasing amounts for diminishing returns.
I note that GW has an SX plant under construction by a Chinese company that has been doing SX without a break for 20 years and has access to the immense (by contrast to the west) Chinese knowlede nad EXPERIENCE base in this processing area.
I don't understand how a property can be under-productive when it is not yet in production. Are you underproductive when you're asleep?
Oh and by the way. Steenkampskraal will move just 40-80 tons a day of rock to get its 2,500 mta output of REEs. Molycorp must move more than 2,000 tons per day to get its projected output.
GW's vertical integration is the result of excellent long term planning and marketing not last minute panic buying and foolish undercapitalization.. GW's operations can be enlarged. Can Molycorp's be downsized? That will be finally the existential question: Who is providing what the market ACTUALLY wants at the lowest price with the lowest breakeven?
Please respond to my questions exactly rather than telling me how wrong I am. Better yet ask Molycorp for ACTUAL cost data not what's going to be maybe when.
Molycorp can be saved. It just needs to be downsized and reorganized to match the real market.
Future Quite Bleak For Rare Earths Miner Molycorp [View article]
How right you are. See my comment at SA's publication of the AH heavy rare earth announcement, which announcement was like calling a duck pond the basis of duck soup. There's a very long uphill path ahead for MCP, and I don't think management cares about anything other than the positioning of announcements. I watch small investors trying to call each others' bluffs, and I see the vast gulf between talking about things and doing them and I marvel thar the capital formation mechanism called the stock
market is so efficient (at raising capital not at using it wisely)
Jack
Future Quite Bleak For Rare Earths Miner Molycorp [View article]
If you mean Ross Bhappu then I noted when I looked at the SEC paperwork that he offloaded a boatload of insider shares at the top. Around 400 million dollars worth of "profit." Thus I think the purchase of 2.5 million 10 dollar shares was just safe bet. He was using a little of the money he already made. It's a good cover against angry derivative suits. One of us is right. If you're long on MCP I hope it's you who's correct about this.
Jack Lifton
Future Quite Bleak For Rare Earths Miner Molycorp [View article]