EV engine with no rare earths

[Jam]

To paraphrase a quote from Jurassic Park, engineers will find a way.

http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...no-rare-earths

With the Chinese firmly in charge of the world’s supply of rare earth metals, the Japanese have been hard at work trying to devise means to reduce their reliance on rare earths in the manufacture of things like electric car motors. Now, researchers at Tokyo University of Science say they have done it. Their “switched reluctance motor” requires no rare earths, which could circumvent a major supply chain issue while driving down the cost of EVs.

[LargoWinch]

Re: EV engine with no rare earths

To paraphrase a quote from Jurassic Park, engineers will find a way.

http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...no-rare-earths

Interesting Jam. What are the estimated cost savings/increase of getting rid off of RE in the EV engine?

[Jam]

Re: EV engine with no rare earths

Interesting Jam. What are the estimated cost savings/increase of getting rid off of RE in the EV engine?

They didn't say. But, I think, the bigger issue is the independence of China-controlled supply of RE.
On a related note, makes me wonder if an (efficient) electrical generator is possible without permanent magnets.

[LargoWinch]

Re: EV engine with no rare earths

They didn't say.

It is one thing to be independent from China-controlled's RE, it is another thing to pay more (or possibly much more) than other alternatives for it.

[aaron]

Re: EV engine with no rare earths

http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20110703D03JFF04.htm

Vast Trove Of Rare Earths Found In Pacific

TOKYO (Nikkei)--Deep in the seabed of the Pacific Ocean, Japanese researchers have uncovered areas believed to hold rare-earth-metal deposits 1,000 times as large as those on land.
Specialists including Yasuhiro Kato, associate professor of earth science at the University of Tokyo, and researchers from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology will publish their findings Monday in the electronic version of the British journal Nature Geoscience.

[c1ue]

Re: EV engine with no rare earths

Reluctance is a damned dangerous beast.

I can see how it would work, but in practice you're talking about TV cathode tube electric field densities: i.e. can and will kill you if released.

For a motor it would probably be even higher.

[Jam]

Re: EV engine with no rare earths

Great find aaron. So, it looks like we can put to rest worries about shortages of RE as a potential show stopper to build all those wind turbines. Except, of course, extraction from 3 to 6 km below the ocean surface might not be cheap. And, the environmentalists (known to Steve as ecofrauds ) might oppose such exploration.

[lektrode]

Re: EV engine with no rare earths

Great find aaron. So, it looks like we can put to rest worries about shortages of RE as a potential show stopper to build all those wind turbines. Except, of course, extraction from 3 to 6 km below the ocean surface might not be cheap. And, the environmentalists (known to Steve as ecofrauds ) might oppose such exploration.

ya think?

(ok, one last one for this am - step1, resist the urge to reply)

if the way they do it on land is becoming an issue - just imagine what will happen a couple miles down, where nobody can watch....

• JULY 27, 2011

China Makes Milestone Dive

Submersible Reaches Ultradeep, Overtaking U.S. in Hunt for Undersea Resources


By JEREMY PAGE

BEIJING—China surpassed current U.S. capabilities in a race to explore resources in the deepest parts of the world's oceans and set its sights on beating world leader Japan next year.
China's Milestone Dive

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ChinaFotoPress/Zuma Press China's Jiaolong completed a Pacific Ocean dive to 5,057 meters in the eastern Pacific on Tuesday.





The Jiaolong, China's first manned deep-sea submersible completed a Pacific Ocean dive to 5,057 meters (16,591 feet). It set the Chinese record at 6:17 a.m. Beijing time Tuesday in the northeastern Pacific, between Hawaii and the North American mainland, according to a statement on the website of the State Oceanic Administration.
The three-person vessel carried out various tests, including landing on the seabed several times, and took photographs of sea creatures during the operation, which lasted almost six hours and was the second of four planned dives, according to the statement.
The dive means that the Jiaolong—named after a mythical Chinese sea dragon—is capable of reaching 70% of the ocean floor, the state-run Xinhua news agency said, adding that the vessel was expected to attempt a dive to 7,000 meters—the maximum it is designed to withstand—in 2012.
If that dive is successful, it would allow the Jiaolong to explore 99.8% of the seabed and put it at the top of a list of just five manned submersibles capable of diving below 3,500 meters, where many rich mineral deposits are thought to reside.
Japan's Shinkai can go down to 6,500 meters, Russia's Mir and France's Nautile to 6,000 meters, and the U.S.'s Alvin to 4,500 meters, although an upgraded version of the Alvin, designed to reach 6,500 meters, is scheduled to be ready by 2015.
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The capability of such vessels is significant as rising prices for many industrial commodities mean there is growing interest among state-run and private mining companies in exploiting mineral resources under the oceans, which cover about 70% of the Earth's surface.
The Jiaolong's feat received wide coverage in state media in China, where experts have compared such deep sea ventures to space exploration, in which Beijing is also now a world leader.
"It will pave [the] way for a record-breaking 7,000-meter test dive in 2012," Xinhua quoted Wang Fei, deputy director of the State Oceanic Administration and leader of the dive-testing team, as saying.
"The purpose of this diving test program is to find problems with the Jiaolong and improve it constantly," he was quoted as saying.
"At a depth of 5,000 meters, the Jiaolong withstood great pressure amounting to 5,000 tonnes per square meter."
Chinese officials have said the Jiaolong is designed to explore for valuable mineral resources on the ocean floor.
The British journal Nature Geoscience published a paper this month in which Japanese researchers claimed to have discovered vast deposits of rare-earth minerals—used in a variety of high-tech products—on the ocean floor east and west of Hawaii at depths ranging from 3,500 meters to 6,000 meters.
China hasn't addressed whether it will explore for rare-earth deposits specifically.
The Jiaolong is diving at the site in the Pacific because China was granted rights to explore for minerals there in 2001 by the International Seabed Authority, a U.N. body that oversees mining in international waters.
ISA, meeting at its headquarters in Jamaica, also approved last week applications from China and Russia—the first from any countries—to explore relatively newly discovered deposits called polymetallic sulphides that form around volcanic vents in ridges on the seabed.
China applied last year to explore the site in the Southwest Indian Ridge, which bisects the ocean between Africa and the Antarctic. Russia applied to explore a Mid-Atlantic Ridge site.
U.S. scientists in an Alvin discovered polymetallic sulphides, which contain base metals that include copper, lead and zinc, as well as gold and silver, in 1979, when they found vents spewing superheated fluids on the ocean floor off the west coast of Mexico.
But many experts say that U.S. investment in such research has declined over the past two decades, even as some resource-hungry emerging economies stepped up their efforts to develop deep-sea exploration technology.
Another obstacle for the U.S. is that it is hasn't ratified the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, and so is only an observer, rather than a full member of ISA.
China, which has ratified the convention and is an ISA member, has been active in deep-sea exploration since 2002, when it launched a program that included developing the Jiaolong.
Chinese scientists using an unmanned submersible discovered potential polymetallic sulphide deposits at two sites in the Atlantic Ocean, two in the Pacific, and one in the Indian Ocean during a 10-month research trip that ended last year, according to state media.
The Jiaolong also planted a Chinese flag on the floor of the South China Sea last year, fueling fears in the region that China could use its newfound technology for commercial or military purposes in disputed waters. Chinese officials say the Jiaolong is for civilian use only and foreign experts agree its primary purpose is to help explore undersea reserves of the metals and other natural resources that China needs to keep its economy growing.

and then, the week before:

• JULY 22, 2011

U.N. Clears China Sea-Floor Plan

Beijing's First Manned Deep-Sea Craft, the Jiaolong, Will Explore the Ocean Floor for Minerals


BY JEREMY PAGE

BEIJING—As China's first manned deep-sea craft prepared for a landmark dive to 5,000 meters, or 16,400 feet, that surpasses current U.S. capabilities, a United Nations body approved Beijing's plan to explore a swath of ocean floor between Africa and Antarctica for metal deposits.
In the first of four planned dives, the Jiaolong submersible reached 4,027 meters at 5:26 a.m. Thursday, Beijing time, according to China's State Oceanic Administration. State media said it had been due to make another attempt at 5,000 meters early Friday, but the dive was postponed because of high seas that were expected to last three days.

[ASH]

Re: EV engine with no rare earths

China doesn't necessarily dominate the supply of rare earths because of where deposits are located -- my understanding is that it dominates the supply because its production costs were low enough to undercut other suppliers ("tolerant" environmental regulations and cheap labor), so operations outside China shut down. Although it would take time and capital to re-constitute the mining infrastructure, we could go back into rare earth production. I found this brief discussion about where deposits are located:

"Rare earths are relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust, but discovered minable concentrations are less common than for most other ores. U.S. and world resources are contained primarily in bastnäsite and monazite. Bastnäsite deposits in China and the United States constitute the largest percentage of the world’s rare-earth economic resources, while monazite deposits in Australia, Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and the United States constitute the second largest segment. Apatite, cheralite, eudialyte, loparite, phosphorites, rare-earth-bearing (ion adsorption) clays, secondary monazite, spent uranium solutions, and xenotime make up most of the remaining resources. Undiscovered resources are thought to be very large relative to expected demand." Quoted from the United States Geological Survey's Mineral Commodity Summary (2).

Large undeveloped deposits of rare earth minerals are known to occur in China. Significant deposits are also known in Australia. Exploration is identifying new deposits in Canada and the United States.