There is a kind of resource, whether it is our country or the United States, which is also a superpower, that is particularly important, even to the extent that it can influence the development of the country, and is used in various high-precision and cutting-edge fields, especially in the military field. For ordinary people, those cumbersome technical terms may sound obscure, but the number of aircraft cannons is the most intuitive confirmation.
In fact, not only aircraft cannons, but all modern industrial development must use this almost universal resource rare earth.
What exactly are rare earths? Why is every industry inseparable from this powerful resource? Without rare earths, what would the United States rely on to create a strong military force? And what to rely on to create a large number of aircraft missiles?
First of all, let's talk about what rare earth is, in fact, rare earth is a combination of many kinds of homogeneous elements, professionally speaking, it is the sum of 17 metal elements in the periodic table of lanthanides and scandium and yttrium, there are currently 250 kinds of rare earth ores in the world, whether it is centuries ago, or in the world of great changes today, this is some very precious "soil".
Looking at the world, which countries have such a precious resource? The main thing is our country, India and the United States, but the United States is the country that is most reluctant to mine its own rare earths, and it has always been a "closed but not mined" attitude.
In January this year, our country published the "Rare Earth Management Regulations (Draft for Comments)", which officially clarified that our country's rare earth resources will be restricted from exporting, which is mainly based on two reasons, one is that we also have huge demand, coupled with the fact that this resource itself is non-renewable, we will also establish our own rare earth strategic reserves.
Since our country restricts the production of rare earths, and our country does not export rare earths, what is the United States thinking and doing at this moment? Are there any initiatives to do so?
As the United States, which dislikes the mining of its own rare earth resources the most, the policy of sealing and not mining has also been around for a long time, much earlier than our country.
In fact, during the Second Industrial Revolution, the United States had already begun to collect its own rare earth industry, and within a few decades after World War II, the United States quickly became the world's largest rare earth country.
At that time, the rare earth mines in the Montimpass area of the United States had met more than half of the world's demand, but since the 80s of the last century, they have begun to decline, and in 2002, they were completely closed.
Soon after, ** also announced that it would no longer mine and refine rare earth elements, and all the remaining were mothballed. Since then, the United States of rare earth resources basically have to be imported from our country, but now our country's rare earth resources are also facing a crisis, at present, China's proven reserves have been less than 4 percent of the global total, and compared with the United States, has proven reserves accounted for 13% of the global total, ranking third in the world.
After understanding the situation of rare earth resources, let's take a look, what will happen to the United States if there are no rare earths?
If such a situation really occurs, it will be difficult for aircraft missiles and some aerospace equipment to be produced normally, and this is a very dangerous signal for a big country.
According to the data released by Lockheed Martin in the United States, a famous F-35 series of ** fighters, the production process needs 417 kg of rare earth elements, and at present, in the US army, there are more than 400 F-35 series ** fighters are in service, the consumption of rare earth resources is very huge, not to mention the follow-up to build fighters, missiles, and aerospace industry, so the reserve of rare earth is also very important.
According to the plan of the United States, it will continue to produce more F-35 series fighters to replace the FA-18 "Hornet" carrier-based aircraft and F-16 "Fighting Falcon" multi-role fighters that are about to be retired.
In addition to the military demand, and the demand for industrial production is also large, there is also an analysis from the American think tank, the United States will need 15 years to achieve self-sufficiency in rare earth resources.
Fifteen years is not a long time, but what fills the gap? Moreover, the mining process of rare earth resources is very complicated, so it is chosen to announce re-mining at this time, and there is also a 50-year recovery period.
And in addition to the time problem, there is another difficulty that needs to be broken through, that is, the United States has the largest reserves of rare earths, but they are all "fake rare earths", what is "fake rare earths"? Rare earths are originally a naturally occurring elementHow can there be a difference between truth and falsehood?
In fact, it is not that rare earth elements are true or false, after all, rare earth elements are not our country's jade, and there is a difference between true and false, the reason why the United States is a fake rare earth, the main reason is that rare earth resources are divided into three categories: light rare earth, medium rare earth and heavy rare earth, each of which includes seven or eight elements.
So many elements are not introduced one by one, in a way that is easier to understand, a ton of light rare earth is 3000 yuan, and a ton of heavy rare earth can be sold for hundreds of thousands of yuan.
In the large family of rare earth elements, heavy rare earths are rarer and more used in more high-end technical fields, especially the most advanced equipment in the United States, which needs heavy rare earths more. The heavy rare earth resources are in the east of the Asian continent, and our country has a lot of heavy rare earths, and it is also controlled at the moment, but the heavy rare earth resources in the United States are relatively small, and more are light rare earths, and the United States still has a great import demand for heavy rare earths.
For the current world pattern, having resources is equal to everything, from the perspective of rare earth resources, we have mastered a very important and critical link, which is also the basis for us to become a strong country, but our country's resources have also lost a lot, and it is natural to take restrictions and management to ensure that these non-renewable strategic resources are better protected.
And with these resources, our future is more promising, and what we need to consider is how to protect resources and increase strategic reservesSo what will the U.S. do when its rare earth reserves are insufficient?