On 3/15/2012 10:47 AM, Ed Huntress wrote:
O
I wonder how many Tungsten deposits there are in the continental US that
might be exploited if the price goes up enough.

Hundreds. The US has quite a bit of tungsten. Canada does, too, in the
Yukon, and theirs is high-quality ore.

We don't mine it for the same reason we don't mine molybdenum:
environmental issues. And they're heavy issues, involving questions
like, "How soon do you want to die to get some more tungsten?"

Rising prices *should* encourage solutions to the environmental
problems. Then markets will prevail.

Meantime, let's suck up all we can from China. I'd rather they turn
out thousands of crippled mutants than us. d8-)

Whoop! I got tungsten mixed up with molybdenum mining, and toxicity.
Actually, I mentally got them reversed.

Moly is highly toxic. Tungsten and its compounds are not. Most of the
environmentl problems with tungsten involve leeching of soluble
compounds from tailing ponds and the like.


There is more to i that just that, though.

China drove the price down to the point of putting competitors out of
business.

If the price rises to the point where it is economically viable to start
mining again, they could dump the market and run everybody off again.