China Puts Squeeze on Rare Earth Metals Resulting in Compact Flourescent Bulb Prices to Skyrocket
Posted by Jim Hoft on Friday, September 16, 2011, 4:31 PM
Thanks Congress. Thanks EPA. Thanks global warming junk scientists.
Thanks to US lawmakers the labor-intensive compact fluorescent lightbulb production is thriving – in China.
Terrific. By closing or nationalizing dozens of the producers of rare earth metals — which are used in energy-efficient bulbs and many other green-energy products — China has sent the price of compact fluorescent bulbs soaring in the United States.
The New York Times – Yahoo reported:
In the name of fighting pollution, China has sent the price of compact fluorescent light bulbs soaring in the United States.
By closing or nationalizing dozens of the producers of rare earth metals — which are used in energy-efficient bulbs and many other green-energy products — China is temporarily shutting down most of the industry and crimping the global supply of the vital resources.
China produces nearly 95 percent of the world’s rare earth materials, and it is taking the steps to improve pollution controls in a notoriously toxic mining and processing industry. But the moves also have potential international trade implications and have started yet another round of price increases for rare earths, which are vital for green-energy products including giant wind turbines, hybrid gasoline-electric cars and compact fluorescent bulbs.
General Electric, facing complaints in the United States about rising prices for its compact fluorescent bulbs, recently noted in a statement that if the rate of inflation over the last 12 months on the rare earth element europium oxide had been applied to a $2 cup of coffee, that coffee would now cost $24.55.
An 11-watt G.E. compact fluorescent bulb — the lighting equivalent of a 40-watt incandescent bulb — was priced on Thursday at $15.88 on Wal-Mart’s Web site for pickup in a Nashville, Ark., store.
Wal-Mart, which has made a big push for compact fluorescent bulbs, acknowledged that it needed to raise prices on some brands lately. “Obviously we don’t want to pass along price increases to our customers, but occasionally market conditions require it,” Tara Raddohl, a spokeswoman, said. The Chinese actions on rare earths were a prime topic of conversation at a conference here on Thursday that was organized by Metal-Pages, an industry data firm based in London.
Soaring prices are rippling through a long list of industries.
“The high cost of rare earths is having a significant chilling effect on wind turbine and electric motor production in spite of offsetting government subsidies for green tech products,” said one of the conference attendees, Michael N. Silver, chairman and chief executive of American Elements, a chemical company based in Los Angeles. It supplies rare earths and other high-tech materials to a wide range of American and foreign businesses.
It sure is a good thing we shut down all of those light bulb plants across the US, huh?
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KOW commented:
Dont forget shutting down all those oil rigs off the Gulf because we would be using less energy because of all these Green technologies.
Ginger commented:
OT… Is she going to run? Hope not! She does look good!
http://www.foxnews.com/imag/Beauty/Did+Hillary+Clinton+Have+Plastic+Surgery%3F
rbosque commented:
America:
Please don’t cast your vote again for an idiot Communist.
uncivil & right commented:
Horde incandescents. I do.
CT commented:
The CHICOMS are not our friends they are an ENEMY state!
Hope the message gets through before it’s too late.
chris commented:
I have 32 rental units – I do not let tenants put CFL’s in – too much liability – wait until you see claims against property managers become the new asbestos and mold jackpots for deadbeats. What a joke
Swifty commented:
CFLs are most likely more dangerous than they have let on at this time.
Horde the old or go right to LEDs instead.
Valerie commented:
There are LED manufacturers in the United States.
http://www.greenledlights.org/led-lighting-manufacturers.html
squeaky commented:
[China has said it will not use exports of so-called rare earth minerals as a diplomatic bargaining tool.] as we slip off the saudi hook onto the chinese hook.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11643375
Valerie commented:
#2 September 16, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Ginger commented:
Looks like regular skin treatments, to me. No surgery, no down-time, no strange results.
yourmaster commented:
Don’t worry, I have a plan to lower these costs by billions…
all people have to do is use the blood of liberals/progressives/libtards/global warmists
as the new energy source for the flourescent lightbulbs and all green jobs.
only problem is… they need to be massacred first
….but your sacrifice will not be in vain libtards for… IT SAVES THE ENVIRONMENT!
Bwahahahahahahaha
P. Aaron commented:
I got yer damn ‘settled science’ right here!
dfbaskwill commented:
One of Thomas Edison’s original bulbs has been burning continuously since he first turned it on. These stupid bulbs will never do that.
mg4us commented:
Beside these bulbs being indebted to the Chinese, they are environmentally hazardous materials for disposal and when they break. . they they get discarded, they will pollute and contaminate our water supplies and water tables. . . and may even get into our food supply. .
Think mercury was bad. . the stuff in this is mercury on steroids. . .
As for China and how they play. . look at this coming to a theater near you:
http://www.twodeforcethemovie.com/index.html
Rock commented:
WTF strikes again, what a waste of DNA. Only difference between WTF and a snail, Escargot is not cheap, WTF a cheap empty suite.
I have always argued WTF was not stupid, I stand corrected, he is, his handlers are not. Dummy on a string, comes to mind.
Sasja commented:
In one of our inserts the city sends with our water/garbage bill, we were instructed to dispose of these idiotic bulbs by taking them to the hazardous waste site. They are not to be included with the regular trash pick up. I am buying up incandescents, Sylvania before GE, where I can find them.
KOW commented:
I will say that these bulbs do last a long time. I was changing bulbs 3 or 4 times a year, now one of these has last 2 years, that being said, my mom broke one and just picked up the pieces. I told her that there was hazardous material in it, nothing has happened, but she is 74, not good.
Of course fracking is bad, but all the mercury now being sent to landfills, that is fine, because we are saving our preventing Global Warming.
mg4us commented:
Perhaps this is Obama’s strategy . . . use the dimwit bulbs so he can be the brightest in the room. . lol lol lol
Obama
Incompetent, Inept, Inexperienced and radical too!
Taqiyyotomist commented:
OT
F’n hilarious, (hey, sometimes he does this rare thing!):
http://tinyurl.com/6j7fupl
(The Political Commentator, via polurls.com/red, condensed from a 195-character link — via the magic that is tinyurl — leaving me 195 characters with which to have my way.. So to speak.)
Jon Stewart on Obama’s “Jobs Speech”. If you laugh out loud only once today, it may be from watching this clip.
Besides, tomorrow is The “DAY OF RAGE!!!!!”, a peaceful assembly of leftists in several American cities, planned for months by peaceful demonstrators who will kick your windows in and assault you randomly.
Laugh today, at least.
Bob Z commented:
I’m sure Sores and Buffett will make some money from this and gladly pay some extra taxes
logicfirst commented:
#9
“as we slip off the saudi hook onto the chinese hook.”
Do you know what Saudi Arabia & China have in common? The more money we send to those countries for their resources or finished goods, the more US Treasuries they purchase or at least used to. The federal reserve requires our politicians to continue this game & not get in the way.
If we were to stop buying foreign goods and keep our dollars & jobs at home, where would the government get the 40 cents for every dollar it spends? Until recently our gov gets that 40 cents from foreign countries that just so happen to benefit from American consumer dollars.
I don’t see how we can rebuild this nation until the whole debt based currency and all of the games surrounding it are stopped.
dnb commented:
Why is oil a rare earth commodity we shouldn’t use, but CFL made from rare earth materials okay to use? I can’t follow environmentalist logic.
Why is it illegal to kill a bald eagle in its egg, but okay to kill a baby in the womb?
Must be democrat logic I don’t understand.
shibumi commented:
“Horde incandescents. I do.”
LOL.
You’re not alone…
LL commented:
It’s hope and change I can believe in…
Gravelyvoice Jim commented:
At least they will be able to transport them here for cheap once the China Hub tax credits get doled out to the chosen winners…
Druid commented:
An 11-watt G.E. compact fluorescent bulb was priced on Thursday at $15.88.
A rough estimate for the cost$ of environmental impact is that the $$$ one purchases goods and services for has an ultimate direct correlation to consumption of natural resources / environmental impact.
Therefore, one CFL at $15.88 has about 60 times the environmental impact as one incandescent bulb (until a short time ago they were 4 / $1.00). With a payback period of “never”.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it you tree-hugging sap-sucking… posers!
Taqiyyotomist commented:
#26 Druid
Damn. God help us.
bg commented:
++
OT possibility..
China Dodgers
[]In the 1970s, the Chinese government issued a pamphlet declaring
that baseball would “help build the (Communist) party” by promoting
“the diligent study of Marxism, Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.”
Since then, the Chinese haven’t progressed very far on the field. They
bombed out of the 2009 World Baseball Classic in the first round. But
off the field, it’s a whole different story.
Today, the Times revealed that China is putting up the
capital for a $1.2 billion bid for the Los Angeles Dodgers.]
more here..
==
Betsy Ross commented:
Ahhh…the always and forever entity known as “unintended conscequences”.
Yep, it will bite Congress in the @ss every single time they try to be smarter than
We The People…
Bring Back Incandescent….
you dim bulbs ; )
Taqiyyotomist commented:
OT:
http://tinyurl.com/5txvdrz
YouTube — Ann Barnhardt’s latest, approximately 1 hour long.
If you call yourself a Christian, you need to watch this.
The topic: “Islamic Sexuality: A Survey of Evil”
The link is to part 1 of 4.
Here are the other three:
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mZPIbz-n_c
Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEKAuJewbXg
Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfqNPJVWzpw
Fear not. Love (i.e. Jesus Christ — cf. I John ch. 4) takes fear, clamps jumper-cables to it’s nipples, and throws the breaker.
Ann Barnhardt, God bless you, and may He and your arsenal (with which He has blessed you) protect you in these times to come. Completely ganking from Westley in The Princess Bride, “There is a shortage of perfect minds in the world… it would be a pity to damage yours.”
(I’ll add that the original quote would be wholly true, yet quite inappropriate.)
Taqiyyotomist commented:
Re: Westley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XegOczOvfXY
big L commented:
1. The rare earths are the reflective entity in the lines of the roads, the”STOP” signs in the sterret and cross-walk stripes. In calif they are wearing out because they can’t get the paint.
2. the CGLs have a part of the light spectrum that is bad for humans. Some lab has done research on them. Yahhoo “the CFL Bad Spectrum’ it isscary. the brain hasthe pineal ody. Itis called the third eye and has to do with hormones. I think the CFLs screw with that and are going to make people ill. (but we won’t have any decent healthcare so buh-bye)
Buffalobob commented:
How many times will the voters in the US continue to be duped by the progs and their environmental save the slug mentality. Vote for a democratic prog at any level and you will pay dearly.
Taqiyyotomist commented:
#32
Don’t worry about that s**t.
Have faith in Christ.
Oh DREAD! The bad CFL spectrum!
These bodies of ours are but vessels.
Read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs or The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom…
…and you MIGHT JUST SEE.
There is so much more than this.
Nanna1 commented:
How long will the American people put up with this? This country is fast becoming a place I don’t recognize. No longer the land of the free. Thanks to Obama, EPA, Dept of Energy, Dept of Agriculture, Dept of Education, IRS, ACLU,et al.
This simply has to stop!!!! It has to!!
Mr. X. commented:
Hasbro closed the Easy-Bake-Oven factory in Massachusetts too.
tommy mc donnell commented:
what a coup for the myth. destroy a capitalist economy, build up a marxist one, cause enviromental pollution, all in one sweet shot.
lynched1 commented:
Do not buy them.
Militant Conservative commented:
Glad I bought a few cases of incandecent bulbs. That way the dumb asses buy the
expensive crap and I’ll come in a few years later. LOL
this is how government ruins your life. Little nudges. LOL poor sorry bastards.
A tax on the the illeterate.
powder is dry, see the future. OHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHH!
Paul commented:
I don’t support these compact bulbs… I checked though after I posted it on Facebook then I deleted my post.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/GE-78939-Energy-Smart-Compact-Fluorescent-11W-Bulb/16911745
Only $5.88 here
Paul commented:
The Walmart site shows the same price for Nashville, Ark also…..
Patty commented:
Humm, put food on the table or have light in your home…what to do, what to do.
Rare earth metals. Are they diamonds, rubies or gold. OMG! having yet another hissy fit, here.
Taqiyyotomist commented:
OT and BTW
—snip—
nice
late 13c., “foolish, stupid, senseless,” from O.Fr. nice “silly, foolish,” from L. nescius “ignorant,” lit. “not-knowing,” from ne- “not” (see un-) + stem of scire “to know.” “The sense development has been extraordinary, even for an adj.” [Weekley] — from “timid” (pre-1300); to “fussy, fastidious” (late 14c.); to “dainty, delicate” (c.1400); to “precise, careful” (1500s, preserved in such terms as a nice distinction and nice and early); to “agreeable, delightful” (1769); to “kind, thoughtful” (1830). In 16c.-17c. it is often difficult to determine exactly what is meant when a writer uses this word. By 1926, it was pronounced “too great a favorite with the ladies, who have charmed out of it all its individuality and converted it into a mere diffuser of vague and mild agreeableness.” [Fowler]
“I am sure,” cried Catherine, “I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should I not call it so?” “Very true,” said Henry, “and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk; and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! It is a very nice word indeed! It does for everything.” [Jane Austen, "Northanger Abbey"]
—snip—
QUIT BEING SO “NICE”, REPUBLICANS.
QUIT BEING SO FEARFUL, REPUBLICANS. REALIZE YOUR SPINES, ALL OF YOU!
Thanks, Ann Barnhardt (see my last few posts), for that.
Patty commented:
We have stockpile the old bulbs. Thank God, we will be normal amongst the madness of this world.
Taqiyyotomist commented:
#40, 41
See: “Store pricing may vary.”
I’d bet my last paycheck that the Arkansas Wal-Mart price is closer to that “$5.88″ figure, and also that California, New York, or Oregon prices are closer to (or even topping) the quoted upper end of the price range.
Liberals will take money any way they can.
Taqiyyotomist commented:
link for my #43, in the interest of credit where credit is due:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=nice&allowed_in_frame=0
Gimme a Break, I'm just a Hobbit commented:
Mandating what kind of light bulbs we may or may not use is not an infringement on freedom. And Barack Obama lowered sea levels and brought unicorns and smiley faces to all the children of the world.
Gimme a Break, I'm just a Hobbit commented:
Oh yeah, don’t let me forget to buy some more incandescents tomorrow. The closet I’ve been storing them in is no longer full.
RefudiateObama2012 commented:
Guess who was ahead of the curve on potential problems regarding rare earth metals? She wrote a FB post almost a year ago. In it, she wrote:
“Some of the countries we’re now reliant upon and will soon be beholden to can easily use energy and mineral supplies as a weapon against us.
The solution? Simply, please don’t elect politicians who cast votes that lock up our plentiful supplies. Please consider the case of China bending us over a barrel as it develops rare earth minerals while we ban mining. Please consider Venezuela and Russia and Saudi Arabia and Brazil (as we subsidize their off-shore drilling) and all other energy-producing countries as the Left locks up ANWR, NPR-A, and other American lands that are teeming with our own needed energy supplies.
“Drill, baby, drill and mine, baby, mine.” Yep, the mantra may be mocked by the Democrats, but serious consequences ensue when we let the Left make us rely on foreign countries to feed us energy. The joke is on us if they win.”
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=444530368434
aprilnovember811 commented:
These giant wind turbines are killing thousands of bald eagles and other birds. I can’t stand any of it. I won’t use these light bulbs. I’ll order online from Canada if I have to. I’m sick of all of this green crap.
ohiochili commented:
I am buying incandescent bulbs every week. I wonder if I will be able to afford the bill to light my home once they close all these power plants. Remember the messiah telling us how our energy bills would necessarily skyrocket?
They get us one way or another. The libs won’t be happy until we’re all as miserable as they are.
Greg commented:
Remember 1973 when gas rationing occurred do the arabs refusing to sell oil over the Israel existence.
At the same time there was a toilet paper shortage. Majority of which occurred due to people hoarding rolls.
The light bulb shortage is beginning. better go get your inventory. If you can buy penny shares of a light bulb mfg, you will score when congress votes to allow incandescent bulbs again. If they would vote to allow only US mfg incandescent bulbs I would respect them more
The Monster commented:
“the rare earth element europium oxide”
That’s not an element. Europium is an element. Oxygen is an element. Europium oxide (Eu2O3) is a compound of those two elements. Aren’t professional NYT journalists supposed to have all those layers of fact-checkers and editors to make them superior to pajama-clad bloggers?
yeosailor commented:
It’s just a big money-making scheme.
Gather wood.
yeosailor commented:
Heh, firewood.
Just-Saying commented:
While they’re spinning their wheels about “the jobs, the jobs”, both the Senate and the House ought to legalize incandescent bulbs. Factories will re-open, and people will have many jobs! [Not to mention, we'll be able to break bulbs without fear again...]
.
hermie commented:
How about all those electric cars that President Downgrade wants to force all of us to buy? Rare earth metals are used in these vehicles’ already enormously expensive batteries.
tommy mc donnell commented:
tell your congressional representative to repeal the ban on incandescent bulbs. see if they listen.
RedBeard commented:
Gee, this comes as a total surprise, that government-mandated marketplace controls have failed us. How can that be? I mean, the Soviet 5-Year Plans were such booming successes.
But I ain’t worried, cuz our president cares, and is controlling our lives for our own welfare.
Trialdog commented:
YES!!!
Go China Go!
Got to love a country with a realistic plan.
Finncrisp commented:
Lights out, courtesy of Chicoms. Barry must be beaming, but we can’t see it because he is in the dark.
This tool of the world must go in 2012. SO tired of the destructive policies. Still waiting for the Democrats, now become Marxists, to see the light:)
mcc commented:
Another reason to stick with incandescent:
http://www.israel21c.org/briefs/study-links-led-light-and-cancer
Deonna Tucker commented:
First they try to poison our kids with toxic paint now they want to overcharge us for crappy lights that might catch on fire or fill our lungs with toxic fumes; not to mention the fact that they don’t last any longer, it takes awhile before they get bright enough to read by, they contain mercury so can’t be just thrown away, and if that isn’t enough, they glow an eerie green when you shut them off & they are UGLYYYY.
Deonna Tucker commented:
Since they already “own” us I suppose they can pretty much do anything they want, it’s either buy the expensive bulbs or they foreclose. American, American what cha’ gonna do, what cha’ gonna do when they come for you?