[kurthr]

The chip supply chain is a lot shorter and more concentrated than the mining supply chain. If you're thinking of "rare earth" metals in particular, it's probably better to focus on the refining rather than digging out of the ground. Between South America, West Africa, and Australia there are lots of mines for most of the metals, but only refining in China (because it has been highly subsidized by both monetary and regulatory means since the 90s). Silicon refining is similarly bottlenecked even though the high quality input material is mostly US sand.

[beauzero]

Refining is dirty and dangerous so it has been pushed out. Used to work for a Canadian gold mine in Montana in the mid 90's. Most of the friends I graduated with went overseas for new mines or were Environmental engineers focused on cleaning up messes from the late 1800's early 1900's.

[kurthr]

Yeah, lack of regulation is actually a pretty big subsidy for large scale "rare earth" metal refining.

[defrost]

What's a few inland lakes of acid residue toxic metal soup along with tailings piles classified as low level radioactive waste between friends though?

These are still being created today, not just as a practice from the 1800's.

It is the price of technology, better to address these as we progress rather than pushing them out of mind and sight and kicking the can down the road for future generations.

[BostonEnginerd]

There's substantial wafer capacity in the US, from silane production, through polysilicon granule production and wafer making. There are several different wafer makers in the US with both 200mm and 300mm wafer capacity.

Some of the silane and polysilicon companies are US owned, but I don't think that any of the wafer makers are US headquartered anymore.

[throwawaymaths]

Isn't all high grade silicon derived from one place in the US?

[kurthr]

Spruce Pine - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce_Pine_Mining_District

It's the purest source, but lots of cheap PV poly is made from other stuff.

[faktory]

We HAVE have to focus on the rare earth part or you are basically just giving China the whole thing as they control more then 90% of refinement (and almost all of mining)