alt Hacker NewsAmerica has a tungsten problem
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This website has no author attribution and this is the only article on it. I would be very suspicious of its claims (not that I disagree with them, just that unattributed works on brand new websites are not ALWAYS the most trustworthy).
The United States has exported the dirtiest businesses internationally for quite a few years (raw mineral extraction is a dirty, nasty business, with slim margins). Now that China has become more adversarial and also more established (you mean people want to actually get PAID to slave away in a mine, or even worse, refuse to even work in a dangerous and dirty pit mine?!) the US is facing some hard decisions. We need many of these materials, and we have them, but we haven't had the will to mine them. Lots of people want to open US government lands to these resource extraction outfits, but there's right worry about the potential for ecological destruction.
This is not the first time that this has been a problem.
In WW2 all sides needed more tungsten, hence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_Crisis
As a side note, Tungsten is a Swedish word ("heavy stone"). It was first "discovered" by a Swede, and they called it Tungsten. Its atomic symbol is W, for wolfram, the German word for it, which even the Swede's use. I find it mildly amusing. (it is to do with tungsten rich ores and the name of the ores that had been known about for a while)
I really would like to see answers to the four questions at the end. Though I would hazard a guess that the answers to the first three can be summed up as "it's easier and cheaper to let China do the dirty work." The last question I cant answer as I don't understand boom-bust mining cycles.
Edit to add:
> After all, it turns out tungsten actually isn't hard to find! It's all over the United States. In fact, it's pretty much all over the world.
The Wikipedia Tungsten article states the largest reserves are in China followed by Canada, Russia, Vietnam and Bolivia. This contradicts the articles claim. Just because it's all over does not mean it is easy to dig up and refine. Some clarification is needed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten#Production
Caught my eye due to family events. One of my uncles was killed in the Pine Creek mine in California. He was repairing an ore crusher when somebody switched it on. Pre-OSHA and tagout days.
I doubt we'll be pinched by tungsten shortages. The fusion application isn't going to come on for at least two decades. Smaller apps will be met by known reserves.
That said, it is a cool material. Looking for aluminum bars at Alan Steel (CA) years back, I was stunned when I tried (and failed) to pick up a 12" long by 6"diameter piece of what turned out to be tungsten misfiled in the aluminum section. Density, thy name is tungsten.
There are at least three US tungsten mining startups.[1][2][3] It looks like the product is the stock, not the mineral. They're all in the money-acquisition stage. Two have animated American flags on their sites. The third is Canadian-owned.
It's worse than the wannabe rare earth mining companies.
[1] https://www.unitedstatestungsten.com/
[2] https://investornews.com/critical-minerals-rare-earths/ameri...
Btw, the paper referenced for tungsten production is co-funded by a US tungsten exploration/mining company: https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/harnessing-tungsten-fo...
I can only read the free part of the paper (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09203...). I wish it would elaborate more on the challenges with recycling.
1. Fusion is not going to be a reality any time in the next 50 years.
2. Why does the US import tungsten? Is it that we don't have any, or it's cheaper to just buy it from China?
They're working on it.
Invested in an Australian tungsten miner late last year. Has an operating profitable mine in Spain and active Government support to restart the large Mt Carbine mine in Queensland.
Antimony is another critical mineral. A number of smallcap Antimony/Tungsten miners are exploring potential deposits in Idaho and Tennessee and Australia, but timelines are long.
This reminds me of another article I read today about Gallium.
Original Link: https://www.wsj.com/business/the-defense-department-is-infat...
Now try copper, aluminum and more. I saw a clip from a conference that said for copper, at 3% GDP growth, the global demand in the next 18 years will exceed the last 10,000 years, but 80% of known reserves have already been mined.
It seems to me that development in the future is going to be constrained. Not to be dramatic but are we in the sort of happy pre-pandemic days not knowing the changes heading our way? Or am I being too dramatic?
What about cobalt? For the largest part of the market, tungsten carbide cutting tools, it's usually a composite of tungsten carbide and cobalt.
Thankfully, in most industries that use tungsten carbide, there is a lot of recycling of the material (though probably not enough.)
Like anything, it's a complex problem, with no easy answers.
PRC tungsten reserves are also depleting, mines are processing more rocks for same output and sooner or later PRC going to quota tungsten exports even more for domestic stockpile and prevent over extraction.
Also related tangent, remember that anecdote about PRC finally making ball point pen tips? That was basically central gov slapping PRC metallurgists to speedrun tungsten carbide precision manufacturing for advanced munitions (penetrators), not ball point pen tips which was rounding error consideration.
The UK has a big tungsten deposit; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemerdon_Mine
Come buy our tungsten! (We'll throw in a choice of Eccles cake or Tunnocks tea cakes as a special offer)
Just want to say respect for making the blog and leading with a self-taught post about tungsten. Very cool dude stuff. Add an RSS feed.
The US govt already tracks the geopolitical status of "Critical Minerals" at the USGS:
So we are finally building the Rods from God
Are they secretly building the "Rods from God"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
Between stable and contract honoring entities it's also possible to trade for things that not everyone produces, or do large long term investments in things like mines or refineries outside your own territory.
There is likely a good amount of tungsten, along with other useful elements, sitting buried in US landfills.
It may take a while, but one day our old landfills will turn into mines.
Not surprising. In addition to Tungsten or rare earth materials, I am sure there are many more "problems" that America is dependent on China.
It's worth mentioning that the US has tungsten mines, but they are not operating currently. https://www.usgs.gov/data/tungsten-deposits-united-states
Tungsten is the least of their problem. When a population cannot afford health care system, and have to walk with their passport so they are not sent to jail, you have a broken country. Not to mention the financial problems.
Tungsten won't matter when there is no country.
Fort Knox is full of tungsten
obligatory simpsons reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTLYris4kJU
> One wonders: Why does China produce >80% of the world's tungsten? Why has there been zero domestic tungsten mining in the United States?
Mining and refining rare earth is a dirty process. NIMBYs pushed it farther and farther away until it was on the other side of the world.
Am I the only one who finds this material rather dense?
Between the critical strategic/military need, the by-far largest producer being an unfriendly rival power, and commercial production looking like a very poor fit for the use case - the Old School solution would be for the gov't to own & probably operate the needed mines, refining facilities, and stockpiles.
But between our low-functioning gov't and our lower-functioning Capitalist-Ideological Complex, I'd be surprised if such a solution was even mentioned.
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My fireplace has 1" cubes of tungsten, aluminum, and magnesium, plus a cube of selenite and quartzy-style synthetic prism, all arranged on little stands really close to the floor, so reachable by children. Neighbor 2.5 year old last year was very put out when he couldn't lift the W cube. It is really a lot of fun to hold. Dropping it on one's foot is ill-advised, particularly if you are 2.5 years old.