TIL a steady transfer of rare earth metals from China is necessary for all of the computers of today to continue working. Is it like a subscription. Rare earth pass, subscribe now.
Otherwise, ya, hermit life FTW
partial_accumen@lemmy.world
on 21 Apr 19:11
collapse
Otherwise, ya, hermit life FTW
It won’t be hermitage for us, it will likely be death from starvation and disease. Global supply chains, including those for food production and distribution required modern technology. If you’re going back to pre-computer world you have to roll the clock back for how much of a population the world was able to support. The first transistor was made in 1947, which is arguably the beginning of modern electronics (a few vacuum tube computers existed before this time).
World population a few years later in 1951 was 2,536,927,035. The world population today is 8,231,613,070. So your suggested change will kill off about 5,694,686,035. Even Marvel’s Thanos was only trying to kill off half of the population, and here you are suggesting Thanos wasn’t going far enough where you want about 70% of everyone dead.
To think either one of use would survive is hubris.
Oh no, that argument about current capabilities ruins my whole schtick, let me pick up a PS so I can counter argue a red herring…
You must be from the US
edit: more than half of the people in the world live in Africa/Asia, I don’t see those regions being particularly affected by rare earth metal restrictions. Microsoft, OpenAI and Apple et al might be fucked though, and that means that scenario would be a good thing.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world
on 21 Apr 22:02
collapse
You don’t think nations in Africa or Asia use computers, electronics, telecommunications equipment, medical device for things like imaging or chemical analysis in their logistics or supply chains?
Ahh! I understand now! You didn’t read the thread you’re responding to where the OP said these metals shouldn’t be mined at all. You just jumped in and provided an answer for a question you didn’t understand, then you attack my response because of YOUR misunderstanding. You think you’re responding to a tariff question, and not the OPs position of climate change.
Please try to read what you’re replying to next time before you make yourself look foolish like this again.
Yes. We obviously aren’t responsible enough to handle these devices as it is now. We are eroding our planet of its life by causing drastic changes to our climate, caused by burning up massive amounts of fossil fuels to power our “AI”. This is gross and detestable, and we should reverse course immediately until we can find better alternatives to handle semiconductor manufacturing processes, and find better ways to power these devices. Not stopping now will only add more Co2 emissions to our planet’s atmosphere, which will increased global temperatures.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world
on 21 Apr 19:02
collapse
What you’re suggesting is “pennywise and pound foolish” if your goal is CO2 reduction. Semiconductors and Rare Earth metals are required for our best weapons against CO2 emissions, those being wind turbines and PV solar panels.
We are eroding our planet of its life by causing drastic changes to our climate, caused by burning up massive amounts of fossil fuels to power our “AI”.
Energy demands are far FAR larger than the minuscule (by comparison to other energy users) AI data center waste.
Not stopping now will only add more Co2 emissions to our planet’s atmosphere, which will increase global temperatures.
Fossil fuel lovers will back you 100% on reduction of semiconductors as it means a lock-in for electricity generation to mostly fossil fuels.
I am not going to lie, i just don’t have the energy to put together all the research that has been done on the energy consumption of AI neural networks for you. They are consuming more energy than entire States in the USA use. Then theres cryptocurrency. Then there is the fact that we have global storefronts, distributers, resellers, supermarkets, and food production that is designed around creating hyper capitalist worlds of consumerism that only exists because it is so god damn easy to add to cart and have one of everything.
You will never need one of everything. We don’t need to produce just to produce. We aren’t sharing. We are hoarding. We are stashing. Products are assembled and put on store shelves at such an unsustainable rate that there isn’t enough time or energy to figure out how to properly reuse or recycle them or their byproducts. The lowest quality, most pollutive products pile up. They pile up in landfills, along roads, and in oceans. Hell, there are microplastics in the most remote regions planet earth. Its filthy and disgusting. You cant even find clean water in the wild anymore.
All because we have a way to tap 3 buttons and get delivered something new to consume.
Hyper fucking capitalism only becomes more hyper thanks to rare earth metals (which also are just tossed in the trash once their use is up).
partial_accumen@lemmy.world
on 23 Apr 05:38
collapse
I am not going to lie, i just don’t have the energy to put together all the research that has been done on the energy consumption of AI neural networks for you.
I did all that before i answered you because I wanted to make sure my thinking was accurate.
Total electricity (not energy, because energy is oil, gas, coal, etc, tool, just talking electricity here) used by all data centers in the USA for all computing is about 5% of the total USA electricity consumption. source.
They are consuming more energy than entire States in the USA use.
True, but I’m not sure what relevance that has. Lots and LOTS of industries use way WAY more electricity:
“The industrial sector accounts for 33% of all the electricity used in the world (the largest sector for energy consumption is residential housing, followed by commercial businesses). According to the U.S Energy Information Administration, in the United States, 77% of all industrial electricity goes to manufacturing, 12% to mining, 7% to construction, and 5% to agriculture. From the list of high energy consumption industries in manufacturing, chemicals account for 37%, followed by petroleum and coal products at 22%, paper and paper products at 11%, primary metals 8% and the remainder is made up of food, non-metallic metals and all other categories.”
I’ll agree its a waste, but of the 4.4% used by ALL datacenters 1.5% of that is crypto.
AI, by itself, last year was about 1% of the 4.4%.
If you’re rationally focused on CO2 reduction, all of compute is a drop in the bucket compared to a number of heavy industries. Again, my numbers here was only about electricity, which does have CO2 concerns, but lots of those other industries use way more electricity in addition to other CO2 producing energy sources (like natural gas/coal/oil, etc).
So if your true goal and concern is CO2 reduction, your priorities should be going after the much bigger fish.
Thats the thing. Compute ENABLES all of that industry. Compute ENABLES all that residential energy usage. Compute ENABLES commercial businesses to operate.
Those sources are referring to direct energy usage, but isn’t accounting for indirect production enabled by that technology.
Im not saying there aren’t other fights to battle. All im saying is halt this nonsense until we can figure out how to clean planet Earth of all the crap we have already produced. Piling on isn’t helping at all. Leave those rare earth metals in the ground and figure out how to recycle them ones we have already mined. Figure out how to pull from landfills all that forgotten ewaste.
Its going to take time and effort. Its not going to be profitable. Its not going to fast.
Personally, I believe every company who produces a product must also provide a way to reuse, recycle, or return each and every product they sell. Phone manufacturers, solar panel fabricators, and wind turbine manufacturers should be the ones leading the charge on this. It shouldn’t be up to any third party service, government, or country to have that burden.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world
on 23 Apr 13:13
collapse
Thats the thing. Compute ENABLES all of that industry. Compute ENABLES all that residential energy usage. Compute ENABLES commercial businesses to operate.
Those sources are referring to direct energy usage, but isn’t accounting for indirect production enabled by that technology.
I agree with this, but this is why I asked you the second question in my original post to you. That question was “And all the services you consume that use these?”
So if you’re saying “yes” to that too, then you’re essentially wanting to roll the clock back to life back in 1940 or so. The consequences on human life will be devastating if we do that. It may be cutting the human population on Earth in half. A good chunk of what compute enables is human life.
Its not rolling back the clock imo. We have already pulled out those resources. They are in our possession. We don’t need to mine fresh rare earth metals.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world
on 23 Apr 13:49
collapse
Its not rolling back the clock imo. We have already pulled out those resources. They are in our possession. We don’t need to mine fresh rare earth metals.
So if your policy goes into place, all extraction of rare earth materials stops at, lets say, midnight. We’ve got some spares on the shelf, but without replenishment, and knowing that replen will never come from virgin materials again, those components are horded.
With the global knowledge of this, industry and consumers rush to buy up remaining stock. In three months most electronics stores will be bare electronics. This includes mobile phone stores too. In about 2 months we’ll see new automobile supplies dry up because specific critical control modules simply can’t be built new anymore. Most cars on the road today will break, and simply be parked or scrapped because replacement parts are simply non-existent.
Existing deployed systems all over the world will start to break and not be fixed anymore. Simple things like digital signage at stores will break and remain dead or be ripped out altogether. Lines (queues) will be much longer as many kiosk driven activities now have to be done by humans. Think airport or train check in. Delays in post or package shipping will increase as transport infrastructure starts to break down.
Most of the western world will still have food for many months, but variety will decline dramatically. Anything delivered by aircraft will suddenly cost much MUCH more money because carriers will be trying to keep low hours on now (mostly) un-repairable aircraft.
New computers will start getting bigger again and slower again. Much of the benefits of these materials making computers smaller, faster, and require less electricity.
It will take probably a decade for your recycling program to come online at any scale that can replace what we have for supply chain right now. Even then, recycling can’t easily replace some of the materials as they are bonded chemically during time of manufacture so many lower cost semiconductors simply stop being made.
None of this speaks to the massive economic impact to the world where tens of millions of jobs start to disappear because the world they did relied on affordable devices which are now a premium priced item. Economic upheaval felt by this will make the tariff war we’re going through right now seem like an ideal fantasy.
It will be very eerie to watch our societies and technologies slowly crumble before our eyes and things that were considered near throwaways be now treasured relicts of the past of an age of abundance.
Honestly, I couldn’t have put it into better words than that. That perfectly defined that transition that we need to head into. We have to start now We need to work together to make this happen. We need to see this capitalist society go away and we need to move into something more sustainable. If we are going to go into a massive economic disruption, then we need to make it worthwhile. We need to build within the shellof the old with what we already have. All of that sounds painful, but if we want to move into a world where we won’t kill the planet, we must do it. The sooner the better.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world
on 23 Apr 14:27
collapse
Lots of people will likely die if this goes forward. You’re okay with that? Are you okay with being one of the dead?
If anyone dies, its because those with resources are not cooperating and not helping make sure we can feed and house everyone. We can do this without anyone dying, as long as we all work together.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world
on 23 Apr 15:30
collapse
We can do this without anyone dying, as long as we all work together.
Have you met humanity? We don’t do “all work together”.
expatriado@lemmy.world
on 21 Apr 15:40
nextcollapse
and the strong permanent magnets used in efficient generators and motors
Effective immediately, exporters of products containing Scandium, Dysprosium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Lutetium, Samarium, and Yttrium must apply for an export license from the China Ministry of Economy. The application requires customers to detail the final use of the material.
The Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine and Processing Facility, owned by MP Materials, is an open-pit mine of rare-earth elements on the south flank of the Clark Mountain Range in California, 53 miles (85 km) southwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2020 the mine supplied 15.8% of the world’s rare-earth production. It is the only rare-earth mining and processing facility in the United States.[1][2] It is the largest single known deposit of such minerals.[3]
As of 2022, work was ongoing to restore processing capabilities for domestic light rare-earth elements (LREEs) and work has been funded by the United States Department of Defense to restore processing capabilities for heavy rare-earth metals (HREEs) to alleviate supply chain risk. [4] The mine was reported as operating in 2025.[5]
After China’s 2010 rare earth elements embargo, the United States, the European Union, and Japan filed a case against China at the World Trade Organization, ultimately forcing Beijing to remove export quotas by 2015. The United States also revived rare earth mineral processing, including efforts to reopen the Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine in California. In 2023, Washington intensified its “friendshoring” strategy by allocating additional resources to domestic mining and refining through the Department of Defense and Department of Energy budgets, while also strengthening supply chain partnerships with allies like Canada and Australia.
U.S. efforts to reduce dependence on China for critical minerals face a number of significant hurdles. First, domestic refining expansion remains slow, with new processing plants and smelters taking 10–20 years to become operational. For example, the Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine, which reopened after China’s 2010 export controls, still sent 98 percent of its raw materials to China in 2019 due to the lack of U.S. processing capacity.
With our re-commissioned processing facilities, we now deliver separated and refined products, including high-purity NdPr oxide, the cornerstone of the world’s strongest and most efficient permanent magnets.
I don’t know what portion of processing you’re capable of doing for what materials, but I sure hope that you guys have found a way to fill that processing capacity gap and reliance at some point between 2019 and now.
EDIT: Though Russia’s been obtaining US components via shell companies in China using false pretenses, and I suppose that that’s a sword that cuts two ways, unless China intends on also cutting off the rest of the world. We’ve played the “shell company in other countries” game ourselves, and I imagine could do so again if need be.
The Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” is a retired long-range, high-altitude, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed and manufactured by the American aerospace company Lockheed Corporation.[N 1] Its nicknames include “Blackbird” and “Habu”.[1]
The SR-71 was developed in the 1960s as a black project by Lockheed’s Skunk Works division.
Titanium was used for 85% of the structure, with much of the rest being polymer composite materials.
The more significant problem, however, was that the United States simply did not have sufficient reserves of domestic titanium ore to construct planes from. The Soviet Union, however, did and had made it available for export.
Of course, if the Soviet Union had known that its exports were being used to build American planes, then it certainly would not have sold them. And even if the United States had not declared the purpose of its imports, bureaucrats in Moscow would likely have raised their eyebrows at the quantities of titanium that the U.S. government was suddenly interested in. This led the Central Intelligence Agency
FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
on 23 Apr 06:23
collapse
The biggest flex we (US) could do is pouring money into NASA and grabbing asteroids.
threaded - newest
Good. Stop mining this and leave it alone.
Are you willing to give up all the products that need these? And all the services you consume that use these?
Yes.
So no modern electronics or computers then? So back to maybe basic transistors at best? You’re cool with that?
TIL a steady transfer of rare earth metals from China is necessary for all of the computers of today to continue working. Is it like a subscription. Rare earth pass, subscribe now.
Otherwise, ya, hermit life FTW
It won’t be hermitage for us, it will likely be death from starvation and disease. Global supply chains, including those for food production and distribution required modern technology. If you’re going back to pre-computer world you have to roll the clock back for how much of a population the world was able to support. The first transistor was made in 1947, which is arguably the beginning of modern electronics (a few vacuum tube computers existed before this time).
World population a few years later in 1951 was 2,536,927,035. The world population today is 8,231,613,070. So your suggested change will kill off about 5,694,686,035. Even Marvel’s Thanos was only trying to kill off half of the population, and here you are suggesting Thanos wasn’t going far enough where you want about 70% of everyone dead.
To think either one of use would survive is hubris.
Nice MO (besides the voting manipulation)
Oh no, that argument about current capabilities ruins my whole schtick, let me pick up a PS so I can counter argue a red herring…
You must be from the US
edit: more than half of the people in the world live in Africa/Asia, I don’t see those regions being particularly affected by rare earth metal restrictions. Microsoft, OpenAI and Apple et al might be fucked though, and that means that scenario would be a good thing.
You don’t think nations in Africa or Asia use computers, electronics, telecommunications equipment, medical device for things like imaging or chemical analysis in their logistics or supply chains?
Ahh! I understand now! You didn’t read the thread you’re responding to where the OP said these metals shouldn’t be mined at all. You just jumped in and provided an answer for a question you didn’t understand, then you attack my response because of YOUR misunderstanding. You think you’re responding to a tariff question, and not the OPs position of climate change.
Please try to read what you’re replying to next time before you make yourself look foolish like this again.
Yes. We obviously aren’t responsible enough to handle these devices as it is now. We are eroding our planet of its life by causing drastic changes to our climate, caused by burning up massive amounts of fossil fuels to power our “AI”. This is gross and detestable, and we should reverse course immediately until we can find better alternatives to handle semiconductor manufacturing processes, and find better ways to power these devices. Not stopping now will only add more Co2 emissions to our planet’s atmosphere, which will increased global temperatures.
What you’re suggesting is “pennywise and pound foolish” if your goal is CO2 reduction. Semiconductors and Rare Earth metals are required for our best weapons against CO2 emissions, those being wind turbines and PV solar panels.
Energy demands are far FAR larger than the minuscule (by comparison to other energy users) AI data center waste.
Fossil fuel lovers will back you 100% on reduction of semiconductors as it means a lock-in for electricity generation to mostly fossil fuels.
I am not going to lie, i just don’t have the energy to put together all the research that has been done on the energy consumption of AI neural networks for you. They are consuming more energy than entire States in the USA use. Then theres cryptocurrency. Then there is the fact that we have global storefronts, distributers, resellers, supermarkets, and food production that is designed around creating hyper capitalist worlds of consumerism that only exists because it is so god damn easy to add to cart and have one of everything.
You will never need one of everything. We don’t need to produce just to produce. We aren’t sharing. We are hoarding. We are stashing. Products are assembled and put on store shelves at such an unsustainable rate that there isn’t enough time or energy to figure out how to properly reuse or recycle them or their byproducts. The lowest quality, most pollutive products pile up. They pile up in landfills, along roads, and in oceans. Hell, there are microplastics in the most remote regions planet earth. Its filthy and disgusting. You cant even find clean water in the wild anymore.
All because we have a way to tap 3 buttons and get delivered something new to consume.
Hyper fucking capitalism only becomes more hyper thanks to rare earth metals (which also are just tossed in the trash once their use is up).
I did all that before i answered you because I wanted to make sure my thinking was accurate.
Total electricity (not energy, because energy is oil, gas, coal, etc, tool, just talking electricity here) used by all data centers in the USA for all computing is about 5% of the total USA electricity consumption. source.
True, but I’m not sure what relevance that has. Lots and LOTS of industries use way WAY more electricity:
“The industrial sector accounts for 33% of all the electricity used in the world (the largest sector for energy consumption is residential housing, followed by commercial businesses). According to the U.S Energy Information Administration, in the United States, 77% of all industrial electricity goes to manufacturing, 12% to mining, 7% to construction, and 5% to agriculture. From the list of high energy consumption industries in manufacturing, chemicals account for 37%, followed by petroleum and coal products at 22%, paper and paper products at 11%, primary metals 8% and the remainder is made up of food, non-metallic metals and all other categories.”
source
I’ll agree its a waste, but of the 4.4% used by ALL datacenters 1.5% of that is crypto.
AI, by itself, last year was about 1% of the 4.4%.
If you’re rationally focused on CO2 reduction, all of compute is a drop in the bucket compared to a number of heavy industries. Again, my numbers here was only about electricity, which does have CO2 concerns, but lots of those other industries use way more electricity in addition to other CO2 producing energy sources (like natural gas/coal/oil, etc).
So if your true goal and concern is CO2 reduction, your priorities should be going after the much bigger fish.
Thats the thing. Compute ENABLES all of that industry. Compute ENABLES all that residential energy usage. Compute ENABLES commercial businesses to operate.
Those sources are referring to direct energy usage, but isn’t accounting for indirect production enabled by that technology.
Im not saying there aren’t other fights to battle. All im saying is halt this nonsense until we can figure out how to clean planet Earth of all the crap we have already produced. Piling on isn’t helping at all. Leave those rare earth metals in the ground and figure out how to recycle them ones we have already mined. Figure out how to pull from landfills all that forgotten ewaste.
Its going to take time and effort. Its not going to be profitable. Its not going to fast.
Personally, I believe every company who produces a product must also provide a way to reuse, recycle, or return each and every product they sell. Phone manufacturers, solar panel fabricators, and wind turbine manufacturers should be the ones leading the charge on this. It shouldn’t be up to any third party service, government, or country to have that burden.
I agree with this, but this is why I asked you the second question in my original post to you. That question was “And all the services you consume that use these?”
So if you’re saying “yes” to that too, then you’re essentially wanting to roll the clock back to life back in 1940 or so. The consequences on human life will be devastating if we do that. It may be cutting the human population on Earth in half. A good chunk of what compute enables is human life.
Its not rolling back the clock imo. We have already pulled out those resources. They are in our possession. We don’t need to mine fresh rare earth metals.
So if your policy goes into place, all extraction of rare earth materials stops at, lets say, midnight. We’ve got some spares on the shelf, but without replenishment, and knowing that replen will never come from virgin materials again, those components are horded.
With the global knowledge of this, industry and consumers rush to buy up remaining stock. In three months most electronics stores will be bare electronics. This includes mobile phone stores too. In about 2 months we’ll see new automobile supplies dry up because specific critical control modules simply can’t be built new anymore. Most cars on the road today will break, and simply be parked or scrapped because replacement parts are simply non-existent.
Existing deployed systems all over the world will start to break and not be fixed anymore. Simple things like digital signage at stores will break and remain dead or be ripped out altogether. Lines (queues) will be much longer as many kiosk driven activities now have to be done by humans. Think airport or train check in. Delays in post or package shipping will increase as transport infrastructure starts to break down.
Most of the western world will still have food for many months, but variety will decline dramatically. Anything delivered by aircraft will suddenly cost much MUCH more money because carriers will be trying to keep low hours on now (mostly) un-repairable aircraft.
New computers will start getting bigger again and slower again. Much of the benefits of these materials making computers smaller, faster, and require less electricity.
It will take probably a decade for your recycling program to come online at any scale that can replace what we have for supply chain right now. Even then, recycling can’t easily replace some of the materials as they are bonded chemically during time of manufacture so many lower cost semiconductors simply stop being made.
None of this speaks to the massive economic impact to the world where tens of millions of jobs start to disappear because the world they did relied on affordable devices which are now a premium priced item. Economic upheaval felt by this will make the tariff war we’re going through right now seem like an ideal fantasy.
It will be very eerie to watch our societies and technologies slowly crumble before our eyes and things that were considered near throwaways be now treasured relicts of the past of an age of abundance.
Honestly, I couldn’t have put it into better words than that. That perfectly defined that transition that we need to head into. We have to start now We need to work together to make this happen. We need to see this capitalist society go away and we need to move into something more sustainable. If we are going to go into a massive economic disruption, then we need to make it worthwhile. We need to build within the shellof the old with what we already have. All of that sounds painful, but if we want to move into a world where we won’t kill the planet, we must do it. The sooner the better.
Lots of people will likely die if this goes forward. You’re okay with that? Are you okay with being one of the dead?
If anyone dies, its because those with resources are not cooperating and not helping make sure we can feed and house everyone. We can do this without anyone dying, as long as we all work together.
Have you met humanity? We don’t do “all work together”.
and the strong permanent magnets used in efficient generators and motors
en.wikipedia.org/…/Mountain_Pass_Rare_Earth_Mine
warontherocks.com/…/a-federal-critical-mineral-pr…
mpmaterials.com/mountain-pass
I don’t know what portion of processing you’re capable of doing for what materials, but I sure hope that you guys have found a way to fill that processing capacity gap and reliance at some point between 2019 and now.
EDIT: Though Russia’s been obtaining US components via shell companies in China using false pretenses, and I suppose that that’s a sword that cuts two ways, unless China intends on also cutting off the rest of the world. We’ve played the “shell company in other countries” game ourselves, and I imagine could do so again if need be.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird
nationalinterest.org/…/crazy-story-how-russia-hel…
The biggest flex we (US) could do is pouring money into NASA and grabbing asteroids.