Cleaner Greener China

Two days back, the Gas 2.0 article Hoarding The Rare Earth Wealth: China May Limit Export Of Rare Elements came across my RSS. The title was one that had me immediately looking for a trade dispute in the making, but as I read through the article (and its source at Telegraph), I was puzzled by the tone of the article:

The big scare about oil is that it’s a dirty and diminishing resource. We are running low on supplies while polluting our environment. While we do consume oil at a ghastly rate, there are plenty of other materials that go into the cars, computers, and cell phones that we have all grown very accustomed to. Rare metals not easily accessible. China currently controls 95% of the rare-metal market, having flooded the market last decade with cheaper metals and wiping out most of the competition.

Perhaps I am missed something when I was putting together the materials for class at CEIBS, but last time I checked, wasn’t sustainability about preserving resources that were rare? It was an article that lead me to post the following comment (a comment they chose not to publish):

Seriously.  Now China is evil for hoarding?

What ever happened to we need to do more with less, we need to innovate and use our resources better?

PErhaps you should see this as a positive and as another force for firms to innovate.  Rare metals are RARE, and by keeping them from being used by firms who see no need to find other ways by themselves, they will be forced to.

If an auto firm is forced to move from oil to hybrid by market outcry, and then from hybrid to electric due to scarcity of resources, then mission accomplished.  ZERO EMISSIONS.

Pick a side guys.  Anti-China is not a side in the global warming debate, it is a barrier to collaboration, progress, and solutions.

R
www.cleanergreenerchina.com

Taking this a bit further out though, what I would like to draw readers attention to is the fact that what this article is saying is that to develop hybrid cars (and get off oil) what we essentially need to do is mine for rare metals and elements to create hybrid fuel cells. Rare metals and elements that are only found in certain locations, and are in limited supply.

Sounds awefully similiar to oil, and it makes me think about what the NYT would have headlined had these metals only been foudn in the Colorado Rockies, and the roles were reversed.

Protecting the Rare Earth Wealth: US Limit Export Of Rare Elements in bid to Preserve the Environment??