India Must Recycle, Mine, Refine, Import, Critical Rare Earth Mineral Products To Get Away From Chinese Market Dominance

A worry on what to do with EV Lithium batteries once their life is over, in about eight years, based on current technology, is being addressed. Instead of heaping them up without use, the batteries can be recycled to extract critical rare earth minerals. This process is faster, and is at least 25% cheaper than setting up greenfield mines and refining facilities, and, deals with some part of the waste material at the same time.

India could even import expired EV batteries to recycle their rare earth minerals and magnets. It already runs some of the largest ship scrappage facilities in the world and attracts many large ships at the end of their useful life from all over the world.

China’s trade war with America is based on restricted sale and export of critical minerals/ metals/magnets. But it also restricts such sales in general, so that the requirements cannot be sourced from third countries not on the embargoed list. This has prompted most of the world to seek alternatives.

India and its fast-developing aatmanirbharta manufacturing programme is hard hit as stockpiles of the rare earth magnets run out.  

Besides recycling, several countries including major consumers in the US and Europe, plan to increase the mining of their own resources and set up refining plants for end products.

So far, most countries who have been hit with Chinese embargoes, were content to source them from China for its cost advantages, and the fact that mining and refining rare earth minerals is a highly polluting business. Despite being a near monopoly on the part of China, the price of rare earth minerals, metals and magnets have been falling according to Australia. This may be another engineered tactic on the part of the Chinese to keep competition out.

However, even as countries resolve to reduce this dependence on China, alternative facilities cannot sprout overnight. The sudden shortage is crippling the Electrical Vehicle (EV) production market. In addition, the renewable energy resources area, in which India has been making rapid strides is also hampered. Likewise, the crucial defence manufacturing ventures that use sophisticated electronics as well. For the moment the leverage advantage is definitely with China.

India is not only planning to mine its own reserves of rare earth minerals but has been active in setting up trade agreements with other countries in Africa and South America that have these resources. America has large reserves in- country as well, and could well become a new developed source.  

So while China, because of its dominance and economies of scale in the field can hamper and disrupt various activities for now, it is probably not for too protracted a period.  Other supply chains are under development, with cooperation between nations without involving China. Explorations are ongoing in new countries like Oman, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Thereafter, as this effort is up and running over the next few years, China may find itself in trouble trying to export these very monopolistic resources that it has spent so much time and money developing.

Meanwhile India is already taking some concrete steps. It proposes to incentivise domestic production of rare earth minerals and magnets by Indian companies with an amount of Rs. 1,345 crores. The key target sectors are electric vehicles, electronics and defence. One item for example, neodymium magnets, are crucial in EVs, wind energy systems, mobile phones, defence equipment.

The early Indian initiative is designed to support the production of 1,500 tonnes of rare earth magnets. India currently produces only 1% of global output in critical rare earth minerals even though it has 6% of the global reserves. India is also exploring a partnership with Australia which has at least 5% and is selling it to Japan, that has managed to reduce its dependence on China to 60%. However, Australia is highly dependent on China for its trade and investments and cannot go against Chinese wishes.

Therefore, India is also looking elsewhere for supplies. Presently, China controls 69% of the rare earth minerals, metals and magnets production and market. America contributes 12%, Myanmar holds 11% and Australia accounts for 5%. Myanmar has a strong alliance with China, that takes the joint tally to about 80%. The manufacturing process combines light rare earth elements such as neodymium and praseodymium with traces of heavy rare earths such as dysprosium and terbium. Procuring all these elements is not easy. India currently produces the light rare earth items some 2,900 tonnes worth, and none of the heavy earth minerals. Most of the product is found in coastal beach sands with low mineral content. Samarium-cobalt magnets are being developed in a pilot plant for the defence industry. Explorations are going on in different coastal and sand rich interior states like Rajasthan.

Its Lithium that has been discovered in J&K, but that is another part of the EV jigsaw.

Efforts are also ongoing to develop Sodium-Ion batteries in countries like Japan, ever more efficient internal combustion engines with almost nil pollution in various developed economies. This will prolong and preserve their automotive fuel based industries. Then, there is propulsion using hydrogen. India has made both buses and trains at the trial stage that can run on hydrogen and have nil pollutants. It also has hydrogen producing factories. Other technological applications such as nuclear energy are also being explored to take a leaf out of nuclear-powered submarines, aircraft carriers, and some specialised ships.

For the moment however, there is very little option but to persuade China to sell us rare earth minerals and magnets to keep various industries going. This will take negotiation and give and take. America, for example, that had put restrictions on high-end electronic chips from being sold to China, has been forced to lift them in exchange for the rare earth products.

(964 words)

July 23^rd, 2025

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

 

When Will The UK Government Funded BBC Have Its Anti India Switch Fixed

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) put out a hurried report apparently implying Indian pilot error for the Air India plane crash a month ago. It was typically based on a selective interpretation of the preliminary findings from the Indian investigative authorities.

The report did not emphasise the tendency of the fuel switches to malfunction and disengage despite the provision of locking mechanisms.

In a glaring expression of bias, probably intended to shield aircraft maker Boeing and jet engine maker General Electric, the BBC glossed over the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) bulletin from 2018 pointing out problems with the fuel switches in Boeing 737 jet aircraft. The same switches are also installed in the 787-8 Dreamliner that crashed.

The BBC instead pointed out that the FAA bulletin from 2018 just highlighted the problem that could, and in this instance did have fatal consequences, did not mandatorily insist on the fuel switches being fixed or replaced. Instead, the FAA stressed inspection. Was it laxness then on the part of the American FAA compounded by Boeing? Are even the faulty switches being sought to be foisted on Air India’s inspection negligence?

The tendency of the BBC to put out slanted reports on matters Indian is not new. It has done so time and again making up quite a long list, this being only the latest example. As a British entity financed by the licence fee paid by ordinary TV watching Britons, but not averse to accepting donations from all sorts of entities including the Chinese and countries that are against Israel.

Its irresponsible actions against India, probably a consequence of large number of anti-India Communists in their ranks,  that seem to dislike the Congress administration as much as the Modi one, pro-Pakistan origin employees, and a colonial hangover. However, all this lying and half-truth, not only harms its own reputation, but potentially also Indo-British relations.

These relations are now being taken up a notch by the implementation of a hard negotiated Free Trade Agreement (FTA). There is also an ongoing negotiation and competition between Rolls Royce of Britain and Safran of France to collaborate with India to manufacture a brand new AMCA sixth generation stealth fighter engine. Other military engine collaborations for the Indian Navy are also in the works even as the British economy is not doing very well.

A preliminary report on this first Air India crash in decades, released by the Indian Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) on July 13^th  one month after the end of Air India AI 171 at Ahmedabad, stated that the fuel switches were apparently switched off for both engines.

They were switched off, one after the other, just1-3 seconds after take-off, and then switched on again, probably by the pilots, or because they were free floating, unable to lock into OFF or RUN positions. One engine came back to life providing some thrust after some 10-14 seconds, but the aircraft could not gain height even after that.

The cockpit voice recorder had one pilot asking the other why he had switched off the fuel and the other pilot saying he had not. The plane could not climb beyond 670 metres and the pilot cried May Day before crashing into a trainee doctor’s hostel building just 39 seconds after take-off. It burst into flames after three explosions caused by its momentum, the impact, and full tanks of aviation fuel.

Notably, the AAIB preliminary report mentioned that a 2018 US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) bulletin concerned the fuel control switch locking mechanisms on Boeing 737 jets. When disengaged, the switches could move more easily through vibration, contact or other factors. The FAA did not mandate fixes in the bulletin, only recommending inspections to ensure proper locking engagement. This suggests that perhaps both the fuel switches malfunctioned and were not properly locked into place in the ill-fated aircraft before take-off. This is the latest position even as the AAIB has not suggested any further action on the part of Boeing or GE at this time.

But the speculation on what happened began a month ago. Soon after the 787-8 Dreamliner, Flight AI 171 on 12^th June crashed. It killed 241 people on board and 19 on the ground, with 67 more injured.

Western ‘aviation experts’ were quick to cast speculative aspersions of pilot error on the two Indian pilots. Their clear objective, probably funded by Boeing and General Electric (GE) themselves, was to drive the narrative away from the aircraft company and its GE engines that failed. This is because any culpability established by the investigations from the successfully recovered black box, the cockpit flight recorder and the relevant wreckage would likely result in expensive law suits against Boeing and GE. These, if they went against them, would involve billions of dollars in payouts. Objectivity and balance was clearly missing in the early reactions, including those in media reports, social media posts. podcasts and so on.

 Only one Western expert notably suggested the possibility of software malfunctions in the aircraft.

Indian commentators advanced many other theories steering clear of blaming the highly experienced but dead pilots. They spoke of software malfunctions too, possible sabotage, maintenance issues, inherent flaws and shortcoming of the aircraft. They cited erstwhile Boeing executives criticising the manufacture process and short cuts taken by Boeing for the Dreamliner. At the same time, this particular aircraft had been in operation for 11 years prior and there are some 1,175 Dreamliners operating in various airlines all over the world since it began to fly in 2011.  

Early speculations included possible bird hits on both engines though later there was no evidence of this found.

Only one passenger in seat 11A escaped miraculously, almost unscathed, and he said he heard a loud bang followed by the aircraft losing height

(963 words)

July 13^th 2025

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee