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Originally Posted by glatt
cool! Hope they have a breakthrough.
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Rare earth metals are not really rare. Rare earths are difficult to extract from other 'dirt'. It is the extraction - not the element itself - that makes the element rare. How to solve a shortage of rare earth? Innovate. Develop new extraction methods.
Who create new jobs, new industries, new markets, and destroy recesssions? The nations that innovate. Rare earths are but another example because so many other new innovations (including superconductivity and disk drives) require them.
The world is full of silicon and lithium. Only nations that innovate aggressively create new jobs from products also based in these 'more common' elements. The elements themselves are not important. How those elements can be extracted and used are important.
Advantages of a lithium battery would be lost on a motorcycle. But then lessons from Clayton Christensen's "Innovator's Dilemma" may apply. Sometimes a product that makes little sense becomes the best solution.