Almost every known way to extract rare earths
from their mineral concentrates means that
thorium just literally drops out like a rock
and you have it.
So while you're meeting the world's rare earth
demands, thorium is free.
So it's going to be the most valuable commodity
in the world with almost no value.
Mountain Pass was originally closed, according
to CEO Mark Smith, because of the EPA and
the state of California and some thorium that
came out of a ruptured tailing site.
Thorium represents this unknown and unlimited
liability to rare earth production, so it
plays into the hands of China.
First, China provided rare earth elements
very cheaply to everybody in the world by
their cheap labor, lack of enforceable environmental
regulations, and their appreciate currency.
Essentially, consolidate and control the rare
earth market.
And then they said, "Well, now all of you
are coming to our door to buy our rare earths.
We don't want to sell the raw material anymore.
Our manufacturers can buy it cheaper than
your manufacturers."
They impose a huge export tax on rare earth
elements.
So, one had a choice to accept a huge tax
and an increase in the price of the product
or relocate factory into mainland China and
buy rare earth elements on the local market
without tax.
It's a strategy and it's working pretty well.
Manufacturers which use rare earth elements
in their products relocated their manufacturing
base inside China.
The jobs in manufacturing transferred from
the United States and western Europe into
the Chinese mainland.
They've moved all the way up the value chain
and are actually able to leverage their position
into capturing other countries I.P.
If Toyota really wants to build a million
battery packs, in the end, if they don't find
a solution to the heavy rare earth problem,
they'll be building them inside China.
So what we need to be able to do is let another
entity take that thorium, develop uses and
markets, including energy.
So, let's say, for example, you've got a single
rare earth refinery creating about 20,000
tons of heavy rare earths a year.
On current consumption, that's about 130 percent
of domestic consumption for rare earths.
That automatically undermines China's advantage.
Now, there's two places on the planet Earth
where you have a guaranteed supply of heavy
rare earths.
What can your country leverage that into?
This is the fulcrum you need to get back into
the world economy as a manufacturer value
added producer.
On another note, you would produce enough
thorium, which would historically have been
dumped in the tailings lakes, to provide power
to the entire western hemisphere, and I've
been told in every single presentation that's
an understatement.
If we can convince our government to step
up to the responsibility of dealing with the
rare earth issue, which means dealing with
the thorium issue, put ourselves on the path
for a new era in new US economic growth, and
a path towards total energy independence.
The Chinese, who apparently have had a more
far-sighted approach to thorium for quite
some time than we have, I have been told,
have been stockpiling it for years, as they
mine for rare earth, since 99 percent of the
rare earths that we use, including those magnets?
Well, when those got mined, there was probably
some thorium that came up with it that's probably
sitting in some barrels over in China right
now, waiting for Dr. Jhang to finish his experiments
with thorium molten salt reactors and to start
putting them to use.
China has committed the equivalent of a billion
dollars U.S., which, by the way, is roughly
the calculations that John and I and others
have come up with for the cost of actually
developing your first units.
So, going all the way through I.P. to fully
constructed operational units.
This is the most important thing that's going
to happen in the next 24 months, and whoever
gets that is essentially going to control
the destiny and the roll out of energy for
the foreseeable future.
We believe that the United States should be
leading that, I can assure you the plan includes
every single partner that we can bring into
this worldwide, our friends in Canada, our
friends in Brazil, our friends in Europe.
If developed outside the United States, the
NRC is facing absolutely very real problems
in terms of credibility.
You can't have the world move on without you
with what, for all practical and measurable
purposes, is a safer form of energy.
Why are we sustaining an energy system that
was the byproduct of the Cold War?
I think, if we can all just kind of go back
in time, I'll bet you that all of Europe felt
like America was today's China.
What we did to the Europeans coming out of
the first World War, and the second World
War, buying up all the globe's resources,
becoming the industrial producer of everything.
It felt very similar.
But, remember, we were about 130 million people
back then.
They're 1.3 billion!
They need it.
They need the power, they need to be able
to realize the promise of thorium.
But, I'd also like to see us succeed.
We were working on this stuff a long time
ago, we made great progress on it.
We set it down in 1974 for kind of dumb reasons,
and I think it's high time that we picked
that thread back up again.
