Comment on BYD’s Second-Generation Blade Battery Makes Western EV Tech Look Ancient
PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 1 day agoI really think the fact that China controls the vast majority of the rare earths is grossly understated when discussing the explosion of electric vehicles there. The US recently discovered a huge volcanic lithium deposit, but I suspect that there’s a lot of gallium going into the Chinese batteries that the US just doesn’t have access to.
timwa@lemmy.snowgoons.ro 20 hours ago
China does not control the vast majority of rare earths because they’re only found in China (or even because they’re particularly rare, they’re not.)
China controls the market because they were the only people who actually bothered to build extraction and refinement capabilities.
If the US invested half the money it puts into “clean coal” or oil and gas extraction into rare earth extraction and processing, it would have its own supplies. But that would be woke, or something.