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Mining Neg
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Notes
This includes answers to both the Lunar mining and the asteroids mining affs.
Common advantages you will see being read for lunar mining affs: (these will usually mine for helium-3 in order to use for nuclear
reactors)
-Terrorism – helium 3 makes it harder for terrorists to steal nuclear material, can also be used to detect nuclear weapon building
-Warming – helium 3 is a more efficient energy source that can replace fossil fuels that cause warming
Common advantages you’ll see from asteroid mining affs: (these will mine for rare earths from asteroids. Sometimes you’ll see an aff
that mines rare earth from the moon. In that case, you should read the asteroid mining answers, not the lunar mining ones)
-China war – rare earths are being hoarded by China, that makes the US angry and causes trade war/nuclear war. Availability of rare
earths from asteroids means we won’t get mad at China.
-Hegemony – rare earths are often used in military technology and missiles, if China cuts off rare earth supply then the military would
be screwed. Hence, why we need to have an alternate source of rare earths, from things like asteroids.
-Asteroids – developing the technology needed to go mine asteroids would probably allow the development of tech capable of
deflecting an asteroid were one to approach the earth.
These advantages are pretty tenuous and the aff’s ability to solve them are pretty weak.
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Lunar Mining
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Terrorism Frontline (1/3)
1. Nuclear detection fails – inaccuracies mean it’ll only catch incompetent weapon makers who
would have failed in the first place
Coll 7 – Steve Coll, Pulitzer-Prize Winning President Of New America, March 12, 2007, “The Unthinkable: Can The United States
Be Made Safe From Nuclear Terrorism?” The New Yorker, Fact Section, A Reporter At Large, Vol. VV No. 000issue, Lexis: pg. 48
Charles Ferguson is a former nuclear submarine officer trained in physics; he left the Navy for a career in security studies and
is currently a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2003, he co-wrote an unclassified report titled "Commercial
Radioactive Sources: Surveying the Security Risks." About two years later, F.B.I. agents working on an international terrorism
case asked to meet with him. They brought a document showing that some of his report had been downloaded onto the
computer of a British citizen named Dhiren Barot, a Hindu who had converted to Islam. Barot, it turned out, had been
communicating with Al Qaeda about a plan to detonate a dirty bomb in Britain, and he had used a highlighting pen on a
printout of Ferguson's study while conducting his research. The report described how large amounts of certain commercial
radioactive materials might pose a danger to a terrorist who tried to handle them. "This seems to have worried him," Ferguson
told me, referring to Barot, "so he decided to look at smoke detectors." Some detectors contain slivers of americium-241; the
isotope's constant emission of radiation creates a chemical process that screens for smoke. Barot informed his Al Qaeda
handlers that he was thinking about buying ten thousand smoke detectors to make his bomb. In fact, to make a device that
would be even remotely effective, Ferguson said, he would have had to buy more than a million. "Either his reading
comprehension was poor or he was evading the assignment," Ferguson told me. In Britain, last October, Barot pleaded guilty to
terrorism-related charges. Barot appears to have been only marginally more competent than Jose Padilla, the hapless American
convert to Islam who travelled to Pakistan, met with Al Qaeda leaders, and then flew to the United States, where he was
arrested amid great fanfare, in June 2002. John Ashcroft, then the Attorney General, held a press conference in which he
accused Padilla of "exploring a plan" to build a dirty bomb, charges that were later omitted from an indictment against him.
The Barot and Padilla cases raise a strategic question-whether it is worth setting up an expensive, imperfect system whose
effectiveness would be greatest against slow-witted terrorists. The Bush Administration is now spending about four hundred
million dollars annually on radiation-detector research, but nuclear physicists who have studied the technology disagree about
how discriminating these sensors might become. One point on which everyone agrees, however, is that, of all the potentially
dangerous radioactive isotopes, it will always be most difficult to detect highly enriched uranium-235, one of the two materials,
along with plutonium, used to make fission weapons. Unless it is being compressed to explode, highly enriched uranium is a
low-energy isotope that does not emit much radioactivity-it is "dull," in the lexicon employed by scientists in the field. This
makes it relatively easy to shield inside lead casing, or to mask by surrounding it with brighter isotopes. Plutonium, by
comparison, is fairly bright, and many of the most dangerous isotopes that could be used in dirty bombs, such as cesium 137
and cobalt 60, are brighter still. Radiation sensors, then, will always be more effective against a Dhiren Barot than against, say,
the Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, a metallurgist who has spent many years studying fission weapons and
highly enriched uranium, as well as the challenges of international smuggling.
2. Intelligence solves – sensors can’t guarantee safety and tradeoff with more effective measures
Coll 7 – Steve Coll, Pulitzer-Prize Winning President Of New America, March 12, 2007, “The Unthinkable: Can The United States
Be Made Safe From Nuclear Terrorism?” The New Yorker, Fact Section, A Reporter At Large, Vol. VV No. 000issue, Lexis: pg. 48
<Critics of Wagner's ideas say that he is over optimistic about the long-term potential of sensor technology, and that heavy
spending on detectors will divert resources from the more important work of securing or eliminating dangerous nuclear
materials-plutonium, highly enriched uranium, and dirty-bomb components. There are, for example, roughly a hundred and
thirty-five civilian research reactors worldwide, including a number in the United States, that continue to use highly enriched
uranium; some of these facilities have worrisome security. Sensors will never be effective enough against smuggled highly
enriched uranium to justify the cost, Thomas Cochran, the director of the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense
Council, argues. And while detectors might be more effective against dirty-bomb isotopes, Cochran says, the risks don't justify
the expenditures. "That's not to say you should do nothing, but most of these things are going to be caught by good intelligence
and not by the borders," Cochran said. He believes that the country would be much safer much faster if the federal government
would concentrate on the painstaking challenge of reducing the number of nuclear weapons and materials at home and
abroad.>
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Terrorism Frontline (2/3)
3. Nuclear terror and theft is extremely unlikely
Mueller ‘10 (John, Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies and a
Professor of Political Science at The Ohio State University, A.B. from the University of Chicago, M.A. and Ph.D. @ UCLA, Atomic
Obsession – Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda, Oxford University Press)
Even those who decidedly disagree with such scary-sounding, if somewhat elusive, prognostications about nuclear terrorism
often come out seeming like they more or less agree. In his Atomic Bazaar, William Langewiesche spends a great deal of time and
effort assessing the process by means of which a terrorist group could come up with a bomb. Unlike Allison—and, for that matter,
the considerable bulk of accepted opinion—he concludes that it "remains very, very unlikely. It's a possibility, but unlikely."
Also: The best information is that no one has gotten anywhere near this. I mean, if you look carefully and practically at this process, you
see that it is an enormous undertaking full of risks for the would-be terrorists. And so far there is no public case, at least known, of any appreciable
amount of weapons-grade HEU [highly enriched uranium] disappearing. And that's the first step. If you don't have that, you don't have anything. The
first of these bold and unconventional declarations comes from a book discussion telecast in June 2007 on C-SPAN and the second from an interview on National Public Radio. Judgments in the book itself, however, while consistent with such conclusions, are expressed more ambiguously,
even coyly: "at the extreme is the possibility, entirely real, that one or two nuclear weapons will pass into the hands of the new stateless guerrillas, the
jihad-ists, who offer none of the retaliatory targets that have so far underlain the nuclear peace" or "if a would-be nuclear terrorist calculated the odds,
he would have to admit that they are stacked against^ffen," but they are "not impossible."5 The previous chapter arrayed a lengthy set of obstacles
confront-: v ,„ ing the would-be atomic terrorist—often making use in the process of Langewlesche's excellent reporting. Those who warn about the
likelihood of a terrorist bomb contend that a terrorist group could, if often with great difficulty, surmount each obstacle—that doing so in each case
is, in Langewiesche's phrase, "not impossible."6 But it is vital to point out that, while it may be "not impossible" to surmount each individual step, the
likelihood that a group could surmount a series of them could quickly approach impossibility. If the odds are "stacked against" the terrorists,
what are they? Lange-wiesche's discussion, as well as other material, helps us evaluate the many ways such a quest—in his
words, "an enormous undertaking full of risks"— could fail. The odds, indeed, are stacked against the terrorists, perhaps
massively so. In fact, the likelihood a terrorist group will come up with an atomic bomb seems to be vanishingly small.
ARRAYING THE BARRIERS Assuming terrorists have some desire for the bomb (an assumption ques-tioned in the next
chapter), fulfillment of that desire is obviously another matter. Even the very alarmed Matthew Bunn and Anthony Wier contend
that the atomic terrorists' task "would clearly be among the most difficult types of attack to carry out" or "one of the most
difficult missions a terrorist group could hope to try" But, stresses the CIA's George Tenet, a terrorist atomic bomb is "possible" or
"not beyond the realm of possibility." In his excellent discussion of the issue, Michael Levi ably catalogues a wide array of
difficulties confronting the would-be atomic terrorist, adroitly points out that "terrorists must succeed at every stage, but the
defense needs to succeed only once," sensibly warns against preoccupation with worst-case scenarios, and pointedly formulates
"Murphy's Law of Nuclear Terrorism: What can go wrong might go wrong." Nevertheless, he holds nuclear terrorism to be a "genuine
possibility," and concludes that a good defensive strategy can merely "tilt the odds in our favor."7 Accordingly, it might be useful to
take a stab at estimating just how "difficult" or "not impossible" the atomic terrorists' task, in aggregate, is— that is, how far
from the fringe of the "realm of possibility" it might be, how "genuine" the possibilities are, how tilted the odds actually are. After all,
lots of things are "not impossible." It is "not impossible" that those legendary monkeys with typewriters could eventually output
Shakespeare.8 Or it is "not impossible"—that is, there is a "genuine possibility"—that a colliding meteor or comet could destroy
the earth, that Vladimir Putin or the British could decide one morning to launch a few nuclear weapons at Ohio, that an
underwater volcano could erupt to cause a civilization-ending tidal wave, or that Osama bin Laden could convert to Judaism,
declare himself to be the Messiah, and fly in a gaggle of mafioso hit men from Rome to have himself publicly crucified.9 As
suggested, most discussions of atomic terrorism deal in a rather piecemeal fashion with the subject—focusing separately on individual
tasks such as procuring HEU or assembling a device or transporting it. However, as the Gilmore Commission, a special advisory panel
to the president and Congress, stresses, setting off a nuclear device capable of producing mass destruction presents "Herculean
challenges," requiring that a whole series of steps be accomplished: obtaining enough fissile material, designing a weapon "that
will bring that mass together in a tiny fraction of a second" and figuring out some way to deliver the thing. And it emphasizes that
these merely constitute "the minimum requirements." If each is not fully met, the result is not simply a less powerful weapon,
but one that can't produce any significant nuclear yield at all or can't be delivered.10 Following this perspective, an approach that seems appropriate is
to catalogue the barriers that must be overcome by a terrorist group in order to carry out the task of producing, transporting, and then successfully detonating an
improvised nuclear device, an explosive that, as Allison acknowledges, would be "large, cumbersome, unsafe, unreliable, unpredictable, and inefficient." Table 13.1
attempts to do this, and it arrays some 20 of these— all of which must be surmounted by the atomic aspirant. Actually, it would be quite possible to come up with a
longer list: in the interests of keeping the catalogue of hurdles down to a reasonable number, some of the entries are actually collections of tasks and could be divided
into two or three or more. For example, number 5 on the list requires that heisted highly enriched uranium be neither a scam nor part of a sting nor of inadequate quality
due to insider incompetence, but this hurdle could as readily be rendered as three separate ones. In contemplating the task before them, woixftlsbe atomic terrorists
effectively must go through an exercise that looks much like this. If and when they do so, they are likely to find the prospects daunting and accordingly uninspiring or
even terminally dispiriting. "
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Terrorism Frontline (3/3)
4. No nuclear retaliation - Obama wouldn’t do it
Crowley 10 (Michael, Senior Editor – New Republic, “Obama and Nuclear Deterrence”, The New Republic, 1-5,
http://www.tnr.com/node/72263)
As the story notes, some experts don't place much weight on how our publicly-stated doctrine emerges because they don't expect
foreign nations to take it literally. And the reality is that any decisions about using nukes will certainly be case-by-case. But I'd still
like to see some wider discussion of the underlying questions, which are among the most consequential that policymakers can
consider. The questions are particularly vexing when it comes to terrorist groups and rogue states. Would we, for instance,
actually nuke Pyongyang if it sold a weapon to terrorists who used it in America? That implied threat seems to exist, but I actually
doubt that a President Obama--or any president, for that matter--would go through with it.
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XTN #1 – Detection Fails
Detection methods fail – they are so inaccurate they only catch fools who would have been caught
otherwise – a determined terrorist would just avoid detection – that’s Coll
U.S nuclear detection fails
Wagner, 5 (August 2005, B.S degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge and deputy leader of the
Biological and Quantum Physics Group at LANL, “Nuclear Detection to Prevent or Defeat Clandestine Nuclear Attack”, IEEE
Xplore)
It is certainly true that even a perfect U.S.-based nuclear-detection system would not provide protection for all Americans. For
example, imagine a system that could provide 100% probability of detection, with zero false alarms, and which covers every
square inch of U.S. territory and every centimeter of our borders. Even with such a system in place, the adversary might detonate
a nuclear device in a port before the cargo was inspected and, thus, wreak havoc in a U.S. city. It is important to recognize,
therefore, that a detection system would only be one piece of an effective multilayered defense.
Poor technology and false alarms make detection fail
Coll 7 – Steve Coll, Pulitzer-Prize Winning President Of New America, March 12, 2007, “The Unthinkable: Can The United States
Be Made Safe From Nuclear Terrorism?” The New Yorker, Fact Section, A Reporter At Large, Vol. VV No. 000issue, Lexis: pg. 48
In the meantime, America's radiation-sensing system is, at least for now, detecting radioactive briefcase clasps, manhole
covers, and chafing dishes. These are among the contaminated products caught by detectors recently at border crossings; in New
York's seaports alone, there have been twenty such cases. On a recent morning when I visited a sensor outpost at the Port of Newark,
four young Customs officers with pistols strapped to their belts huddled in a booth filled with computers as trucks rumbled through a
line of radiation portals, which are shaped like metallic archways. The officers had joined Customs thinking that they would mainly
battle narcotics traffickers; now they spend most of their time on terrorism issues, and they know more about isotopes than some highschool physics teachers do. Each time an alert in their booth sounds, a polite, calm computer voice speaks to them, as it did when
I stopped by: "Gamma alert, lane six." This happens more than two hundred times per day at the Port of New York and New
Jersey. The officers checked the driver's papers, scanned the truck's sides with a handheld isotope identifier, consulted their computer
screens, and within minutes announced their conclusion: denture cleaners, potassium-40. They spoke in the bored, slightly sardonic
tone common among police officers, as if they were reviewing a burglar's jimmying techniques. At some point, perhaps after the
expenditure of a great amount of money, it will probably be cops like these, and not scientists or defense theorists, who decide
where radiation detection should rank on the long and diverse list of counterterrorism techniques. The Department of
Homeland Security recently announced an initiative to experiment with the installation of radiation detection at some bridges, tunnels,
roadways, and waterways leading into Manhattan; later, the department hopes to surround other cities. The N.Y.P.D. fears that the
sensors might prove to be too costly and would generate too many false alarms. Nearly three hundred thousand cars and trucks cross
the George Washington Bridge in both directions on an average day; without an efficient way to process radiation alerts, a single
convoy of banana trucks could jam up traffic for hours. "There are a lot of possible concerns that could surface with it," Raymond
Kelly, the N.Y.P.D.'s commissioner, told me. Yet, he said, "we see this as something certainly worth trying." Kelly wants to deploy
rings of sensors fifty miles or more from New York, so there would be a better chance of spotting an incoming device. In February, he
held talks with his counterparts in Connecticut and New Jersey. Still, Kelly said, the entire project remains "very conceptual in
nature."
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XTN #3 – Impact Unlikely
The likelihood of use is less than one in 3.5 billion.
Mueller ‘10 (John, Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies and a
Professor of Political Science at The Ohio State University, A.B. from the University of Chicago, M.A. and Ph.D. @ UCLA, Atomic
Obsession – Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda, Oxford University Press)
ASSIGNING AND CALCULATING PROBABILITIES Assigning a probability that terrorists will be able to overcome each
barrier is, of course, a tricky business, and any such exercise should be regarded as rather tentative and exploratory, or perhaps simply as
illustrative—though it is done all the time in cost-benefit analysis. One might begin a quantitative approach by adopting probability
estimates that purposely, and heavily, bias the case in the terrorists' favor. In my view, this would take place if it is
assumed that the terrorists have a fighting chance of 50 percent of over-coming each of the 20 obstacles displayed in
Table 13.1, though for many barriers, probably almost all, the odds against them are surely much worse than that.
Even with that generous bias, the chances that a concerted effort would be successful comes out to be less than one
in a million, specifically 1,048,576. Indeed, the odds of surmounting even seven of the 20 hurdles at that unrealistically ,
even absurdly, high presumptive success rate is considerably less than one in a hundred . If one assumes, somewhat
more realistically, that their chances at each barrier are one in three, the cumulative odds they will be able to pull off
the deed drop to one in well over three billion— specifically 3,486,784,401. What they would be at the (still entirely realistic) level
of one in ten boggles the mind. One could also make specific estimates for each of the hurdles, but the cumulative probability statistics are likely to come
out pretty much the same—or even smaller. There may be a few barriers, such as numbers 13 or i6, where one might perhaps plausibly conclude that the
terrorists' chances are better than 50/50. If the device were set off on a container ship in port, numbers 17 to 20 would be partially collapsed—though an
ill-timed deto-nation would destroy only the ship itself. And perhaps the 20th barrier, the actual detonation of the device, could be assessed in a somewhat
broader context; even if the bomb failed to go off, the horror induced by the fact that the terrorists got that far would still be very significant, though,
obviously, it would be less than would be provoked by an actual explosion.12 However, any such considerations are likely to be more than
counterbalanced by those many barriers for which the likelihood of success is almost certainly going to be exceedingly small—for example, numbers
4,5,9, and 12, and, increasingly, the (obviously) crucial number 1. Moreover, in this formulation, the actual process of creating the device—a highly
challenging technological task by almost all accounts—is rendered as only one (or maybe two) barriers (number 12 plus, perhaps, number 11). As alarmist
Garwin notes in a book he coauthored before 9/11, "the task of actually fabricating a nuclear explosive, once the design is fixed, is not trivial. It could be
done, but not on a tight schedule and not with high confidence."13 By assigning a likelihood of success in this task of one chance in two or one chance in
three, I suspect I very much err on the" generous side. In assembling the list, I sought to make the various barriers indepen-dent, or effectively
independent, from each other, although they are, of course, related in the sense that they are substantially sequential. However, while the terrorists must
locate an inadequately secured supply of HEU to even begin the project, this discovery will have little bearing on whether they will be successful at
securing an adequate quantity of the material, even though, obviously, they can't do the second task before accomplishing the first. Similarly, assembling
and supplying an adequately equipped machine shop is effectively an independent task from the job of recruiting a team of scientists and technicians to
work within it. Moreover, members of this group must display two qualities that, although combined in hurdle 9, are essentially independent of each other:
they must be both technically skilled and absolutely loyal to the project. Nonetheless the cumulative probability estimate might be attenuated by the fact
that there are at least a few synergies between the barriers— although It could be argued that they are intellectually independent, they may not, strictly
speaking, be statistically so. For example, in assembling its bomb-making team, a terrorist group might be inclined to let the quality of absolute loyalty
trump the one of technical competence. This would increase the chances that the bomb-making enterprise would go undetected, while at the same time
decreasing the likelihood that it would be successful. However, given the monumentality of the odds confronting the would-be atomic terrorist,
adjustments for such issues are scarcely likely to alter the basic conclusion. That is, if one drastically slashed the one in 3.5 billion
estimate a thousand fold, the odds of success would still be one in 3.5 million . Moreover, all this focuses on the effort
to deliver a single bomb. If the requirement were to deliver several, the odds become, of course, even more
prohibitive. Getting away from astronomical numbers for a minute, Levi points out that even if there are only ten
barriers and even if there were a wildly favorable 80 percent chance of overcoming each hurdle, the chance of final
success, following the approach used here, would only be 10 percent. Faced even with such highly favorable odds at
each step, notes Levi, the would-be atomic terrorist might well decide "that a nuclear plot is too much of a stretch to
seriously try." Similarly, Jenkins calculates that even if there are only three barriers and each carried a 50/50
chance of success, the likelihood of accomplishing the full mission would only be 12.5 percent.14 Odds like that are
not necessarily prohibitive, of course, but they are likely to be mind-arrestingly small if one is betting just about
everything on a successful outcome.
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XTN #4 – No Retaliation
No nuclear retaliation – Obama wouldn’t fire a nuke at a country just because of a terrorist attack –
experts agree it’s a policy stance with no risk of being carried out– that’s Crowley
Won’t be public pressure to overreact
Mueller ‘5 (John, Professor of Political Science – Ohio State University, Reactions and Overreactions to Terrorism,
http://polisci.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/NB.PDF)
However, history clearly demonstrates that overreaction is not necessarily inevitable. Sometimes, in fact, leaders
have been able to restrain their instinct to overreact. Even more important, restrained reaction--or even capitulation
to terrorist acts--has often proved to be entirely acceptable politically. That is, there are many instances where
leaders did nothing after a terrorist attack (or at least refrained from overreacting) and did not suffer politically or
otherwise. Similarly, after an unacceptable loss of American lives in Somalia in 1993, Bill Clinton responded by
withdrawing the troops without noticeable negative impact on his 1996 re-election bid. Although Clinton responded with
(apparently counterproductive) military retaliations after the two U.S. embassies were bombed in Africa in 1998 as
discussed earlier, his administration did not have a notable response to terrorist attacks on American targets in Saudi Arabia
(Khobar Towers) in 1996 or to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, and these non-responses never caused it political
pain. George W. Bush's response to the anthrax attacks of 2001 did include, as noted above, a costly and wasteful stockingup of anthrax vaccine and enormous extra spending by the U.S. Post Office. However, beyond that, it was the same
as Clinton's had been to the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center in 1993 and in Oklahoma City in 1995 and the
same as the one applied in Spain when terrorist bombed trains there in 2004 or in Britain after attacks in 2005: the
dedicated application of police work to try to apprehend the perpetrators. This approach was politically acceptable even
though the culprit in the anthrax case (unlike the other ones) has yet to be found. The demands for retaliation may be
somewhat more problematic in the case of suicide terrorists since the direct perpetrators of the terrorist act are already dead,
thus sometimes impelling a vengeful need to seek out other targets. Nonetheless, the attacks in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia,
Great Britain, and against the Cole were all suicidal, yet no direct retaliatory action was taken. Thus, despite short-term
demands that some sort of action must be taken, experience suggests politicians can often successfully ride out this
demand after the obligatory (and inexpensive) expressions of outrage are prominently issued.
Even if there was political will --- knowing who to attack would be impossible.
Dowle ‘5 (Mark, Teaches at the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley, California Monthly, September, Accessed @ Berkley)
Because terrorists tend to be stateless and well hidden, immediate retaliation in kind is almost impossible. But some
nuclear explosions do leave an isotopic signature, a DNA-like fingerprint that allows forensic physicists such as Naval
Postgraduate School weapons systems analyst Bob Harney to possibly determine the origin of the fissile material in the
bomb. Nuclear forensics is not a precise science, Harney warns. Post-attack sites are almost certain to be contaminated
with unrelated or naturally occurring radioactivity, and there are numerous, highly enriched uranium stashes in the world
with unknown signatures. But there is no question, according to Peter Huessy, a member of the Committee on the Present
Danger and consultant to the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., that Russian forensic experts could quickly
detect Russian isotopes, and that highly enriched uranium (HEU) from, say, France could readily be differentiated from
American HEU. But, Huessy warns, distinguishing post-blast residues of Pakistani uranium from North Korean
uranium would be more challenging, probably impossible. Because neither country is a member of the International
Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA inspectors have been unable to collect from their facilities reliable isotope samples that
could be compared to post-attack residues. Even if the uranium were traced, the source nation could claim that the
material had been stolen.
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Warming Frontline (1/3)
1. Tipping point’s far off and can be solved with policy choices in the future
The Independent, 6-6-10, [“Scientists 'expect climate tipping point' by 2200,” Steve Connor,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-expect-climate-tipping-point-by-2200-2012967.html] E. Liu
The global climate is more than likely to slip into an unpredictable state with unknown consequences for human societies if
carbon dioxide emissions continue on their present course, a survey of leading climate scientists has found.
Almost all of
the leading researchers who took part in a detailed analysis of their expert opinion believe that high levels of greenhouse
gases will cause a fundamental shift in the global climate system – a tipping point – with potentially far-reaching
consequences. The 14 scientists, all experts in their fields of climate research, were asked about the probability of a
tipping point being reached some time before 2200 if global warming continued on the course of the worst-case
scenarios predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Nine of the fourteen scientists said that
the chances of a tipping point for the high scenario were greater than 90 per cent, with only one saying that the chances
were less than 50:50. At current rates of CO2 emissions, the world is on course for following the higher trajectory on global
warming suggested by the IPCC. The survey, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
was carried out by a team led by Granger Morgan of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh to try to assess the level of
consensus among climate scientists over some of the uncertainties about future predictions. They asked the 14
researchers, who included such climate luminaries as Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
Research in Germany and Tom Wigley of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, to
complete an email survey, which was followed-up by face-to-face interviews. One question focussed on the possibility of
a “basic state change” to the climate system “with global consequences persisting over several decades”. The scientists
were asked whether they thought such a tipping point was likely within the next 200 years based on three different climate
change scenarios – low, medium and high. The authors of the report found that for the high trajectory, 13 of the 14
experts said that the probability of reaching a tipping point was greater than 50 per cent, and 10 said that the chances
were 75 per cent or more. Mr Granger and his colleagues pointed out that the high temperature scenario was still within the
range of plausible scenarios offered by the IPCC. Myles Allen, a climate researcher at the University of Oxford, who was
one of the 14 interviewees, said that a basic change to the state of the climate system marks uncharted territory with
potentially unpredictable consequences. “This kind of study is helpful for people to understand that there is a clearly a
range of views among scientists and that is inevitable but the level of consensus is pretty high. People broadly agree about
what’s happening and what is likely under different scenarios,” Dr Allen said. All of the experts agree that in the coming
century we are likely to witness an increase in global average temperatures not experienced in the past 10,000 years.
However, a tipping point is a more qualitative change to the way the climate system behaves, Dr Allen said. “Part of the
point here is to try to quantify what it is we don’t know to quantify the chances of events and the things we can’t really
anticipate. The key thing we’re talking about is a transition to a climate that is fundamentally different to the one we’ve
experienced,” Dr Allen said. “It’s about a transition to a terra incognita of climate. It’s about moving into a territory for
the climate system that is fundamentally unexplored. The main concern is that we can’t really predict how ecosystems and
human society will respond to it,” he said. The increase in carbon dioxide emissions over the coming few decades will
be crucial in determining the sort of climate that the world will live in by the year 2200. Current CO2 levels, running at
about 380 parts per million (ppm), are likely to rise to 1,000 ppm if nothing is done to curb emissions from the burning of
fossil fuels such as oil and coal. “We are certainly capable of committing ourselves to an emissions trajectory that make
1,000 ppm in 2200 almost inevitable if we make the wrong decisions over the next 20 years,” Dr Allen said. “You are
actually talking about emissions most of which actually occur in the century we are in. The emissions that commit you to
1,000 ppm in the year 2200 actually occur mostly over the next 50 years. The emissions decisions we make over the next
50 years commit us to the climate we’re going to have to deal with 150 years time – that’s the point,” he said.
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2. Helium 3 doesn’t work in fusion – slow reactions and inefficient
Close 7 (Francis Close is a particle physicist who is currently Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of
Exeter College, Oxford. 08/03/07 “Fears over factoids (debunks mini black hole fears, He3 as fuel source)”
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/30679 JT)
Helium errors Let me now turn to the helium-3 factoid. At most fusion experiments, such as the Joint European Torus
(JET) in the UK, a fuel of deuterium and tritium nuclei is converted in a tokomak into helium-4 and a neutron,
thereby releasing energy in the process. No helium-3 is involved, so where does the myth come from? Enter "helium3 fusion" into Google and you will find numerous websites pointing out that the neutron produced in deuterium–
tritium fusion makes the walls of the tokomak radioactive, but that fusion could be "clean" if only we reacted
deuterium with helium-3 to produce helium-4 and a proton. Given that the amount of helium-3 available on Earth is
trifling, it has been proposed that we should go to the Moon to mine the isotope, which is produced in the Sun and
might be blown onto the lunar surface via the solar wind. Apart from not even knowing for certain if there is any
helium-3 on the Moon, there are two main problems with this idea – one obvious and one intriguingly subtle. The first
problem is that, in a tokomak, deuterium reacts up to 100 times more slowly with helium-3 than it does with tritium.
This is because fusion has to overcome the electrical repulsion between the protons in the fuel, which is much higher
for deuterium– helium-3 reactions (the nuclei have one and two protons, respectively) than it is for deuterium–
tritium reactions (one proton each). Clearly, deuterium–helium-3 is a poor fusion process, but the irony is much
greater as I shall now reveal. A tokomak is not like a particle accelerator where counter-rotating beams of deuterium
and helium-3 collide and fuse. Instead, all of the nuclei in the fuel mingle together, which means that two deuterium
nuclei can rapidly fuse to give a tritium nucleus and proton. The tritium can now fuse with the deuterium – again
much faster than the deuterium can with helium-3 – to yield helium-4 and a neutron. So by bringing helium-3 from
the Moon, all we will end up doing is create a deuterium– tritium fusion machine, which is the very thing the helium
aficionados wanted to avoid! Undeterred, some of these people even suggest that two helium-3 nuclei could be made to
fuse with each other to produce deuterium, an alpha particle and energy. Unfortunately, this reaction occurs even
more slowly than deuterium–tritium fusion and the fuel would have to be heated to impractically high temperatures
that would be beyond the reach of a tokomak. And as not even the upcoming International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor (ITER) will be able to generate electricity from the latter reaction, the lunar-helium-3 story – like
the LHC as an Armageddon machine – is, to my mind, moonshine.
3. Fusion reactors will rely on fossil fuel use
Cobb 7/26 (Kurt Cobb, is the author of Prelude, a peak oil-themed novel. He is also a columnist for the Paris-based science news
site Scitizen and his work has also been featured on Energy Bulletin, 321energy,Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique, EV
World, and many other sites, founding member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas—USA, serves on the board of
the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions, 7/26/11, “Fusion Delusion and the $6.3 Quadrillion Mining Project,”
OilPrice.com, http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fusion-Delusion-and-the-$6.3-Quadrillion-Mining-Project.html)
The potential financial rewards may make it seem possible. But wait! First, we have to perfect fusion using helium-3. This
is where the public and the media conveniently forget that scientists, some of them quite well-funded, have been working
on fusion energy for 60 years already. And yet, even the most lavishly funded of the current crop of projects,
the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), explains on its website that "[t]he timescale to
commercial fusion therefore extends until at least the middle of this century...." All this should tell us that the technical
hurdles to producing commercial electricity from fusion may never be breached or at least not in any time frame that
matters to a world whose main sources of energy, fossil fuels, will certainly peak and begin declining before mid-century
and likely much sooner. In addition, many of the services that are necessary to ITER are currently powered by fossil
fuels--though one must admit that ITER's location in France means it is more dependent on the power generation of
conventional fission reactors than it would be elsewhere. But even those fission reactors are heavily dependent on fossil
fuels for their servicing. To the already long, complex logistics chain for reactors, the proponents of the helium-3
fueled version of the fusion reactor hope someday to add mining on the Moon. Of course, it is in the nature of humans
to dream. And, their technological dreams have been made manifest in many ways in the industrial age. But the fulfillment
of those dreams has been largely due to the wide availability and low cost of energy resources, the vast majority of
them from fossil fuels.
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4. Helium-3 fusion is too far off to solve any problems
Cobb 7/26 (Kurt Cobb, is the author of Prelude, a peak oil-themed novel. He is also a columnist for the Paris-based science news
site Scitizen and his work has also been featured on Energy Bulletin, 321energy,Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique, EV
World, and many other sites, founding member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas—USA, serves on the board of
the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions, 7/26/11, “Fusion Delusion and the $6.3 Quadrillion Mining Project,”
OilPrice.com, http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Fusion-Delusion-and-the-$6.3-Quadrillion-Mining-Project.html)
The potential financial rewards may make it seem possible. But wait! First, we have to perfect fusion using helium-3.
This is where the public and the media conveniently forget that scientists, some of them quite well-funded, have been
working on fusion energy for 60 years already. And yet, even the most lavishly funded of the current crop of
projects, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), explains on its website that "[t]he timescale to
commercial fusion therefore extends until at least the middle of this century...." All this should tell us that the
technical hurdles to producing commercial electricity from fusion may never be breached or at least not in any time
frame that matters to a world whose main sources of energy, fossil fuels, will certainly peak and begin declining
before mid-century and likely much sooner.
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XTN #1 – Warming’s Slow
Warming is slow and easily mitigated – leading experts agree no tipping point for 200 years and future
policymakers can just fix it – that’s The Independent
<<<if they read Rahmstorf>>>
Our ev cites your author – he agrees that warming is easily adapted to and can be offset
Warming is an existential risk in 2500
AdhyBle'e Soio, 4-11-11, [“Global Warming : Year 2500 Earth No Livable,” Soio Today,
http://soiotoday.blogspot.com/2011/05/global-warming-year-2500-earth-no.html] E. Liu
Global warming, in addition to causing climate change, also raise the earth's average temperature 0.2 degrees Celsius per
10 years or 2 degrees Celsius in 100 years. The temperature rise of the causes of sea level rise as high as 20 centimeters.
Thus revealed the Head Center for the Study of Energy (PSE) UGM, Prof. Dr. Jumina, PSE office UGM, Yogyakarta
Sekip on Monday (4/11/2011). Furthermore, Jumina say, without any serious and systematic efforts to reduce emissions of
greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) into Earth's atmosphere, average temperature of the earth's surface in 2010 in
the range of 14.6 degrees celsius will increase to approximately 25 degrees Centigrade in the year 2500. "That is, the earth
will no longer be a comfortable shelter for humans, animals, and plants. Even very likely humans will not be able to
survive in such conditions," said Jumina.
Their impact is 12 centimeters of sea by 2100
Scientific American, 1-9-11, [“World's Small Glaciers Expected to Disappear by 2100 Because of Global Warming,”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-end-for-small-glaciers] E. Liu
In the most comprehensive study of mountain glaciers and small ice caps to date, a team of US and Canadian scientists
has projected that most of the world's smaller glaciers will be gone by 2100. The finding confirms that the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- the scientific group assessing climate risk -- was correct in
estimating that by that date, complete or partial melting of smaller glaciers will contribute about the same amount to sealevel rise as meltwater from the giant ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. The study also confirms that the IPCC was
wrong in stating that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. The study, in Nature Geoscience, found that half
of the world's smallest glaciers, with a surface area less than 5 square kilometres, will disappear entirely, with possible
implications for communities dependent on them for water supplies. Overall, the melting of small glaciers and ice caps
alone will contribute about 12 centimetres of sea level rise by 2100, based on an average of ten global climate models.
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XTN #2 – Inefficient
Helium 3’s not key to fusion – it’s more inefficient than alternatives available on earth and doesn’t react
as quickly making it useless – that’s Close
Helium 3 is less efficient and equally radioactive as alternatives
Packard 11 (Steve, Scientist, 5-10, http://depletedcranium.com/once-again-helium-3-from-the-moon-is-not-going-to-solve-ourenergy-problems/, accessed 7-8, JG)
Most fusion research has focused on deuterium and/or tritium (heavy isotopes of hydrogen) as fuel for generating fusion. The lowest
energy (and thus easiest) fusion reaction to produce uses deuterium fusing with tritium. Deuterium on deuterium fusion is another option, which requires
slightly more energy and higher temperatures. Other research has considered the use of boron as a fusion fuel. Deuterium is found in abundance
in all water on earth. Tritium is not found in nature but can be produced by the neutron bombardment of lithium.
Boron is also easily obtained. The only advantage of using helium-3as fuel (if you can call it that), rather than deuterium and
tritium is that it does not produce neutrons when it is used in combination with deuterium. In practice any fusion reactor
powered by helium-3 and deuterium will produce some neutrons because deuterium atoms will also fuse with other
deuterium atoms. So to be more accurate, a helium-3 fusion reactor would produce less neutron radiation than one fueled by deuterium alone or
deuterium and tritium. The reason that this is sometimes considered to be an advantage is that neutron irradiation tends to
leave materials radioactive and degrades most materials that would be used to construct a reactor. Consequently, the housing of a fusion reactor
would have to be replaced periodically after a certain number of years. The old housing would be slightly radioactive and considered low-level or mediumlevel waste. For those who consider all radioactive material evil this is a big problem. However, the lack of neutron production can also be
a disadvantage. The neutrons produced by a fusion reactor could be used to generate more fuel in the form of tritium
by surrounding the fusion reactor with lithium. They also provide a way of harvesting energy from the reaction. So a
helium-3 based reactor would generate a bit less low-level waste and might need to have the housing replaced somewhat
less frequently but would also not be capable of breeding more fuel. Oh, and did I mention this is all speculation since none of these
exist anyway?
High burn temperatures makes Helium-3 not considered
Schirber 8 freelance science writer in Lyon, France (Michael, , “How Moon Rocks Could Power the Future”, August 13 th,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26179944/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/how-moon-rocks-could-power-future/, MBIBAS)
Burning helium-3 requires higher initial energy than burning hydrogen isotopes. This is why ITER is not considering
helium-3 as a possible fuel at this time. However, Kulcinski's group works on a different method — called inertial
electrostatic confinement (IEC) — for achieving fusion reactions. Instead of using magnetic fields to confine a very hot plasma like ITER plans to do, IEC works
by accelerating nuclei towards each other with electric fields. Kulcinski and his collaborators have managed to sustain nuclear fusion in their small prototype system. The company Emc2 Fusion is also
all of these IEC demonstrations, at least for now, require much more input energy than they can
deliver. Most researchers agree that helium-3 is unlikely to be the first fuel used in fusion reactors. "One should never say never — it may
working on a similar design. However,
come to pass that helium-3 could become an important source of energy in the coming century," Spudis said. "That time has not come yet. And I suspect that it is still some time off."
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XTN #3 – Doesn’t Solve Fossil Fuels
Fusion can’t offset fossil fuels – even assuming energy production the fusion reactor itself is built with
massive fossil fuel consumption that still contributes to warming – that’s Cobb
Nuclear power is an insubstantial part of consumption
Beehner 2006
Lionel Beehner, Council on Foreign Relations, 2006 (Chernobyl, Nuclear Power, and Foreign Policy,
http://www.cfr.org/publication/10534/chernobyl_nuclear_power_and_foreign_policy.html)
Some experts say the revival of nuclear power may improve America's energy security and reduce its dependency on
countries like Saudi Arabia for its energy needs. But Ferguson says that any new nuclear plants built, while reducing
the United States' use of coal, would constitute "a drop in the bucket" in terms of affecting its overall supply, and
would have little effect on reducing its addiction to overseas oil. "Nuclear power is not going to lessen our need for
oil unless we do something to improve the efficiency of trucks and other automobiles," he says
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XTN #4 – Too Far Off
Helium 3 tech takes too long to solve – current technology is INCAPABLE of using energy from fusion –
we’ve been working for 60 years with no result and the aff requires even more– that’s Cobb
Engineering challenges means no nuclear fusion for 50 more years
Smil '6 -- Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Manitoba (Vaclav, 5/17-18/06, "ENERGY AT
THE CROSSROADS," http://www.globalcitizen.net/Data/Pages/1018/papers/20090715123226705.pdf, RG)
Prospects for new, more efficient, fission designs remains highly uncertain: public acceptance of nuclear generation and
final disposal of radioactive wastes remain the key obstacles to massive expansion. And it is also extremely unlikely that
nuclear fusion can be a part of an early (before 2050) or 18 of any solution. Engineering challenges of a viable plant
design (heat removal, size and radiation damage to the containment vessel, maintenance of vacuum integrity) mean
that the technique has virtually no chance to make any substantial contribution to the global TPES of the next 50
years (Parkins 2006). And yet this fata morgana of energy techniques keeps receiving enormous amount of taxpayer
monies: US spending on fusion has averaged about a quarter-billion dollars a year for the past 50 years with nothing
practical to show for it. Undoubtedly, things would have been different if more biologists, rather than nuclear physicists,
were in charge of R&D portfolios.
No practical fusion for 40 years at least
Campbell et al 9 (Michael, Henry M. Wise, Joseph Evensen, Bruce Handley, Stephen Testa, James Conca, Hal Moore; members
of the AAPG Energy Minerals Division Uranium Committee, “The Role of Nuclear Power in Space Exploration and the Associated
Environmental Issues: An Overview” Pg. 21-22 6/9 JF)
The IAEA report ( 2005a) indicates that personnel from both China and the Russian Federation have reported that the
lunar regolith could be mined for 3 He for use in nuclear fusion power plants on Earth in a few decades . They claim
that the use of 3He would perhaps make nuclear fusion conditions much easier to attain, removing one of the major
obstacles to obtaining fusion conditions in plasma containment reactors for power production on Earth. Schmitt (2006)
treats the subject in great detail, from mining on the Moon to energy production (see Livo, 2006 for review of text).
However, Wiley (2008), a 37-year veteran of fusion research and a former senior physicist (retired) at the Fusion Research
Center of the University of Texas at Austin, indicates that the higher the temperatures produced in the containment
vessel, the more radiation losses occur. Also, confinement problems have yet to be solved and he doesn't expect the
problems to be resolved for m any decades. This is based on the fact that the simplest reaction, Deuterium - Tritium
(D- T), is going to require m any more years to harness. Wiley indicated that the agreement on ITER was signed less
than two years ago and they are already having problems with both the design and budget (see Anon, 2008c). It will be at
least ten years, and probably much longer, before encouraging results emerge from work at the ITER facility in
France. He suggested that the ITER plans do not include a demonstration reactor. Add another 20 years to build a
demonstration reactor and then another 20 years to build a single power plant. Wiley also indicated that the standard
fusion argument is that even if there were reserves of Deuterium in sea water to fuel an operation for 1,000 years - the
Tritium has to be retrieved from a breeder reactor, which has not yet been constructed. So, even if 3He is readily available,
what real value is the resource until the physics problems have been solved and the plants are built to use D-T or
3He?
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Solvency Frontline
1. Lunar mining’s impossible – tech doesn’t exist and harsh environment destroys machines
Cheetham, Brad and Pastuf, Dan. 2008. [University at Buffalo, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. “Lunar
Resources and Development: A brief overview of the possibilities for lunar resource extraction and development.”
http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/~cheetham/index_files/Moon%20Paper%20441.pdf
Although there are financial difficulties in lunar development, other obstacles now being faced rest within the fields of
science and engineering. Although significant research has gone into lunar research over the last half-century, there
still remain several important and key questions that must be studied before development can fully commence.
Several key areas that require research involve lunar resource extraction, cryogenic storage of fuels, lunar dust, fusion
technology, and power-transfer of solar power satellites. While research in these topics is ongoing, the difficulties of these
issues will have to be dealt with. An important challenge that must be studied is the technology associated with lunar
resource extraction. Many engineering obstacles associated with the process of extracting oxygen and hydrogen
efficiently from the lunar regolith must be studied and solved before the opportunity will exist for these resources to
be produced in large quantities. It has been theorized that these materials can be extracted efficiently from the lunar soil
(Bustin), (J. Matchett). However, these activities have yet to be proven in the field. The lunar environment is a very
challenging environment for equipment to operate over long periods of time (Siekmeier). And as such will require
advanced materials and studies to find ways of dealing with the extremely abrasive lunar regolith and the extreme
temperature differences experienced between lunar day and night.
2. Lunar mining’s impossible- transportation laws, no human settlement, and no property rights
Whittington 11– Mark R. Whittington, writer for the Washington Post, USA Today, the LA Times, and the Houston Chronicle,
4/11/2011, “Moon Express Proposes Lunar Mining
Operations,”http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110411/sc_ac/8271305_moon_express_proposes_lunar_mining_operations, bs
One of the impediments to large scale mining of the moon's resources is the high cost of returning them to Earth. If
practical fusion energy were to become a reality, helium 3, a substance that does not occur naturally on Earth, might be
worth it at current transportation costs. But even rare earths may not achieve a cost/benefit ratio that would make
mining it on the Moon profitable. Another impediment is the lack of law governing property rights on other celestial
bodies such as the moon. There is nothing in international law that forbids a private company from extracting resources from
the moon. But the law is silent, so far, on rights to hold property, including land and mineral rights, on the moon. There is no
mechanism to resolve disputes between private companies, such as overmining claims. For large-scale lunar mining to take
place, these questions need to be resolved by international agreement. It would also be useful to have a human presence
on the moon, in the form of a lunar settlement, to be a core market for lunar mining entrepreneurs. If that settlement is
to be American, a change of policy and likely a change of administration would be required.
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XTN #1 – Space Mining Fails
Lunar mining isn’t feasible – it’s too hard to extract helium 3 with existing technology and lunar dust
makes the equipment malfunction – that’s Cheetham and Pastuf
Space dust and harsh environment make mining impossible
David Schrunk et al. 08, David G. Schrunk is an M.D., Aerospace Engineer, Faculty Member of the Kepler Space Institute,
author and Founder of the Quality of Laws Institute; Burton Sharpe; Bonnie Cooper; Madhu Thangavelu. 2008. Published by
Praxis, distributed digitally by Springer. “The Moon: Resources, Future Development, and Settlement.” Second Edition. <
http://books.google.com/books?id=oxLBa_8tLHAC&pg=PA46&dq=Initially,+the+mining+and+manufacturing+equipment&hl=en&e
i=pO4PTo3KB8jOgAenqqHbDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Initially%2
C%20the%20mining%20and%20manufacturing%20equipment&f=false>.
Initially, the mining and manufacturing equipment that is needed on the Moon will be imported from Earth.
However, the lack of an atmosphere means that there will be no protection from hazardous radiation and
meteorites, that waste heat cannot be dissipated by atmospheric convection, and that lubricants such as oil and
grease will evaporate in the lunar vacuum. The radical (in Earth terms) temperature extremes on the lunar surface
will also subject equipment to significant thermal stresses These harsh conditions will require substantial design
changes in virtually all equipment if it is to operate on the lunar surface. Another problem for lunar operations is
the abundance of dust. L.unar dust is an electrostatically charged abrasive powder that clings to spacesuits and
almost all other surfaces, including equipment and the seals around air locks. Dust contamination is a threat to
machine operations because it can obstruct and abrade moving parts, and interfere with visual tele-operations.
During the Apollo missions, the seats on spacesuits were compromised (in some cases becoming unsafe after only Iwo
uses). Dust coated the instruments and machinery and was very difficult to remove. The astronauts tried to brush
the dust oft each other before re-entering their surface module, but the brushing only embedded the particles more
deeply into their suits. Moreover, one of the astronauts suffered hayfever-like symptoms during the return journey:
likely caused by the dust that was brought into the cabin on suits and boots. Explosives that are used in mining
operations and the exhaust from rockets that land and take off from the Moon will carry the dust at high speeds for
long distances. Lunar dust will be a constant companion of machines and humans on the lunar surface, and its
negative features must be understood and overcome.
Lunar dust is easily disturbed—it disables machinery and poses health risks
Miller and Coit 8 (Joseph and David, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, “Lunar Property and Mining Rights” May 26 Pg. 14-15 JF)
One of the first things that Neil
Armstrong noted when first stepping off the Lunar Lander in 1969 was the surface of the moon. He made note of
how fine the sediment of the surface was. The sediment, called regolith, is obviously the most prominent surface type
currently on the moon, though there are outcroppings of rock and crater ridges. To mine for ferrous metals in the powder found on or near the surface
one needs only to run a magnet along the surface and collect what sticks (Klinkman). The major hazard in working with the surface dust is
that it is very dangerous to breath, can clog machinery and sticks to people in space suits. If there is any disturbance to
the surface, such as a space craft landing, the particles of dust can be accelerated to incredible speeds and blown to the
far reaches of the Moon. The blast of a liftoff may even drive some of the dust far enough to circle the moon before
settling down again on the surface, due to the lack of air resistance and relatively modest pull of gravity. These fine
particles can get into machinery and damage critical parts, disabling the machinery. The best way to remedy the problem of these
flying particulates would be to pave the surface.
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XTN #2 – Lunar Mining Unfeasible
Lunar mining’s impossible – too hard to transport materials back, restrictive mining laws mean
companies won’t invest, and lack of policy support – that’s Whittington
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Asteroid Mining
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1. About a 50 percent chance of a tipping point by 2200, and policy decisions can be made in 50
years – This cites Rahmstorf
The Independent, 6-6-10, [“Scientists 'expect climate tipping point' by 2200,” Steve Connor,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-expect-climate-tipping-point-by-2200-2012967.html] E. Liu
The global climate is more than likely to slip into an unpredictable state with unknown consequences for human societies if carbon
dioxide emissions continue on their present course, a survey of leading climate scientists has found.
Almost all of the leading
researchers who took part in a detailed analysis of their expert opinion believe that high levels of greenhouse gases will cause a
fundamental shift in the global climate system – a tipping point – with potentially far-reaching consequences. The 14 scientists, all
experts in their fields of climate research, were asked about the probability of a tipping point being reached some time before
2200 if global warming continued on the course of the worst-case scenarios predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC). Nine of the fourteen scientists said that the chances of a tipping point for the high scenario were greater than 90 per
cent, with only one saying that the chances were less than 50:50. At current rates of CO2 emissions, the world is on course for
following the higher trajectory on global warming suggested by the IPCC. The survey, published in the journal Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, was carried out by a team led by Granger Morgan of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh to try
to assess the level of consensus among climate scientists over some of the uncertainties about future predictions. They asked the 14
researchers, who included such climate luminaries as Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in
Germany and Tom Wigley of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, to complete an email survey,
which was followed-up by face-to-face interviews. One question focussed on the possibility of a “basic state change” to the climate
system “with global consequences persisting over several decades”. The scientists were asked whether they thought such a tipping
point was likely within the next 200 years based on three different climate change scenarios – low, medium and high. The authors of
the report found that for the high trajectory, 13 of the 14 experts said that the probability of reaching a tipping point was greater
than 50 per cent, and 10 said that the chances were 75 per cent or more. Mr Granger and his colleagues pointed out that the high
temperature scenario was still within the range of plausible scenarios offered by the IPCC. Myles Allen, a climate researcher at the
University of Oxford, who was one of the 14 interviewees, said that a basic change to the state of the climate system marks uncharted
territory with potentially unpredictable consequences. “This kind of study is helpful for people to understand that there is a clearly a
range of views among scientists and that is inevitable but the level of consensus is pretty high. People broadly agree about what’s
happening and what is likely under different scenarios,” Dr Allen said. All of the experts agree that in the coming century we are
likely to witness an increase in global average temperatures not experienced in the past 10,000 years. However, a tipping point is a
more qualitative change to the way the climate system behaves, Dr Allen said. “Part of the point here is to try to quantify what it is
we don’t know to quantify the chances of events and the things we can’t really anticipate. The key thing we’re talking about is a
transition to a climate that is fundamentally different to the one we’ve experienced,” Dr Allen said. “It’s about a transition to a terra
incognita of climate. It’s about moving into a territory for the climate system that is fundamentally unexplored. The main concern is
that we can’t really predict how ecosystems and human society will respond to it,” he said. The increase in carbon dioxide
emissions over the coming few decades will be crucial in determining the sort of climate that the world will live in by the year
2200. Current CO2 levels, running at about 380 parts per million (ppm), are likely to rise to 1,000 ppm if nothing is done to curb
emissions from the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal. “We are certainly capable of committing ourselves to an emissions
trajectory that make 1,000 ppm in 2200 almost inevitable if we make the wrong decisions over the next 20 years,” Dr Allen said.
“You are actually talking about emissions most of which actually occur in the century we are in. The emissions that commit you to
1,000 ppm in the year 2200 actually occur mostly over the next 50 years. The emissions decisions we make over the next 50 years
commit us to the climate we’re going to have to deal with 150 years time – that’s the point,” he said.
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2. Recycling can resolve a substantial portion of REE demand
UPI - 6/29/11, “Study: Rare earth elements can be recycled”
http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Study_Rare_earth_elements_can_be_recycled_999.html
Recycling of so-called rare earth elements could ease global concerns about a reliable supply of the substances now mined
mostly in China, researchers say.Writing in the journal Environment Science & Technology, scientists say the dozen or so rare earth
elements, or REEs, have unique physical and chemical properties making them essential for defense applications, computers,
cellphones, electric vehicles, batteries, appliances, fertilizers, liquid crystal displays and other products.But having only one major
source supply, China, is a worry, they say."Since 1990, China has played a dominant role in REE miningproduction; other countries
are almost completely dependent on imports from China with respect to rare earth resources," the researchers wrote.Researchers say
a "recycle and reuse" strategy could lessen that dependence.They say they've done the first-ever analysis of the amount of
REEs available in in-use products in the United States, Japan and China, the major users of the materials.They found nearly
99,000 tons REEs were included in products manufactured in 2007.This "invisible" stock, equivalent to more than 10 years of
mining production, "suggests that REE recycling may have the potential to offset a significant part of REE virgin extraction in
the future ... and minimize theenvironmental challenges present in REE mining and processing," the researchers said.
3. China outpaces competitors in green tech
Reuters, 1-29-10, [“China's green tech revolution,” Leonora Walet, http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/01/29/us-davos-greenchina-idUSTRE60S3HA20100129] E. Liu
(Reuters) - Targeting mainland China with his energy-saving inventions, Peter Fung and executives like him have their eye on
the hottest competitive advantage around: an ambitious government with deep pockets. "State support is the thing that drives
companies like us to seek our luck in China," said Fung, a Hong Kong-based investment banker turned entrepreneur as he extolled
the virtues of his company's air conditioner-cum-water heater, which promises energy savings to the more than 1.3 billion people who
endure China's long, fierce winters and harsh summers. Looking to capitalize on the billions the government is pouring into green
technologies, low production costs and an easy attitude to regulation, he is just one of thousands who are helping drive China
toward its ambition as the clean tech factory to the world. Tao Wang, a climate policy expert with WWF China, said the country
would this year develop its next five-year development plan to run from the start of 2011: this is likely to contain new steps to boost
alternative energy. Fung, who is executive director at Coolpoint Energy Ltd, hopes to pick up some of the country's financial support
through a manufacturing partnership with Chinese firms. But far more significant in terms of China's aims at the moment is its
ability to produce cheap solar and wind equipment. "China is practically throwing money at the sector," said Fung. "I won't
surprised if it eventually becomes the biggest clean-tech producer." Helped by state subsidies, the costs of solar and wind energy
have more than halved in recent years. They remain more expensive than coal-generated electricity, but China is uniquely placed to
scale up, and undercut its rivals' costs. Low-cost labor, cheap money and plenty of raw materials -- the formula that made China the
global manufacturing giant it is today -- have easily replicated in green technology, an industry that for decades was hobbled by high
costs. AS CHEAP AS COAL? "China may be one of the problems as it is the world's heaviest polluter, but it can also be part of the
solution," said Philippe Delhaise, CEO of CIS Carbon Rating, a global rating company for carbon-related environmental projects.
China already has over 50 percent of the global market for solar panels. Its companies are now looking to export their wind
turbines.
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XTN #1 – Warming’s Slow
Warming is slow and easily mitigated – leading experts agree no tipping point for 200 years and future
policymakers can just fix it – that’s The Independent
<<<if they read Rahmstorf>>>
Our ev cites your author – he agrees that warming is easily adapted to and can be offset
Warming is an existential risk in 2500
AdhyBle'e Soio, 4-11-11, [“Global Warming : Year 2500 Earth No Livable,” Soio Today,
http://soiotoday.blogspot.com/2011/05/global-warming-year-2500-earth-no.html] E. Liu
Global warming, in addition to causing climate change, also raise the earth's average temperature 0.2 degrees Celsius per
10 years or 2 degrees Celsius in 100 years. The temperature rise of the causes of sea level rise as high as 20 centimeters.
Thus revealed the Head Center for the Study of Energy (PSE) UGM, Prof. Dr. Jumina, PSE office UGM, Yogyakarta
Sekip on Monday (4/11/2011). Furthermore, Jumina say, without any serious and systematic efforts to reduce emissions of
greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) into Earth's atmosphere, average temperature of the earth's surface in 2010 in
the range of 14.6 degrees celsius will increase to approximately 25 degrees Centigrade in the year 2500. "That is, the earth
will no longer be a comfortable shelter for humans, animals, and plants. Even very likely humans will not be able to
survive in such conditions," said Jumina.
Their impact is 12 centimeters of sea by 2100
Scientific American, 1-9-11, [“World's Small Glaciers Expected to Disappear by 2100 Because of Global Warming,”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-end-for-small-glaciers] E. Liu
In the most comprehensive study of mountain glaciers and small ice caps to date, a team of US and Canadian scientists
has projected that most of the world's smaller glaciers will be gone by 2100. The finding confirms that the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- the scientific group assessing climate risk -- was correct in
estimating that by that date, complete or partial melting of smaller glaciers will contribute about the same amount to sealevel rise as meltwater from the giant ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. The study also confirms that the IPCC was
wrong in stating that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. The study, in Nature Geoscience, found that half
of the world's smallest glaciers, with a surface area less than 5 square kilometres, will disappear entirely, with possible
implications for communities dependent on them for water supplies. Overall, the melting of small glaciers and ice caps
alone will contribute about 12 centimetres of sea level rise by 2100, based on an average of ten global climate models.
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XTN #2 – Recycling Solves
Recycling used rare earths solve demand – the US is investing in infrastructure now to reuse old
materials which could produce up to 300,000 TONS to build green tech - that’s UPI
REE recycling supplies metal for green tech
CNet, 5-17-10, ["Rare-earth metal recycling needed to power green tech,” Martin LaMonica, http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_320005097-54.html] E. Liu
Metal recycling is the sleeper growth industry in green tech. Specialty metals, such as lithium and indium, and rare-earth
elements, such as neodymium, are required for production of many green-technology products, including batteries for hybrid cars,
LED lights, fuel cells, and solar panels. But to ensure future supply of these resources, recycling rates needed to increase substantially,
according to a report from the United Nations Environment Program. Preliminary findings were issued Thursday, with a full report
planned for later this year. More recycling is needed to ensure supply of metals for common products, such as electronics and car
batteries. (Credit: U.N. Environment Program) The recycling rates for specialty metals are only about 1 percent, according to a
U.N. panel on metals that is chaired by experts from India, Germany, and Yale University. "Boosting end-of-life recycling rates not
only offers a path to enhancing those supplies and keeping metal prices down, but can also generate new kinds of employment
while ensuring the longevity of the mines and the stocks found in nature," Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment
Program, said in a statement. There are substantial environmental benefits to recycling all metals, which is between two and ten
times more energy efficient than smelting metals from ores, according to the report. The report says recycling rates of more
common metals, such as copper, aluminum, lead, and tin, vary greatly. They can range from 25 percent to 75 percent and are much
lower in some developing countries. Increasingly, both specialty and common metals may be "mined" from existing products and
structures, such as electronic gadgets and buildings. For every person in the U.S., there is now about 530 pounds of copper that is
above ground, according to the report. Although there are environmental reasons to recycle, there's been a spike in interest over the
supply of specialty metals in the past year for financial reasons. In March, for example, scientists warned a congressional committee
that growth of green-technology industries will be choked by constraints over rare-earth elements from China, which has growing
demand and has put limits on exports. One of the biggest sources for lithium used in batteries for many upcoming electric vehicles is
in South America. Meanwhile, other lesser-known elements used in technology products are seeing a sharp rise in demand. For
example, 80 percent of all indium, an element used in production of semiconductors, LED lights, medical imaging, and some solar cell
materials, has been extracted over the past 30 years, according to the U.N. report.
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XTN #3 – China Solves Warming
China solves clean tech – it’s a huge investor in new innovations and is ambitious enough to fund large
renewable projects – that’s Reuters
China’s pushing for domestic and global emissions reductions
Wall Street Journal, 12-15-09, [“World's Top Polluter Emerges as Green-Technology Leader,” Shai Oster,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126082776435591089.html] E. Liu
Mr. Xu is part of a broader effort by China to introduce green technology to the world's fastest-growing industrial economy -- a
mission so ambitious it could eventually reshape the business, just as China has done for everything from construction cranes to
computers. China looms large over the global climate summit in Copenhagen, where Chinese officials are pressing the U.S. and
other rich nations to accept new curbs on their emissions and to continue to subsidize poor nations' efforts to adopt clean-energy
technology. China is the world's biggest source of carbon emissions. Less understood is the way China is now becoming a source of
some of the solutions. China's vast market and economies of scale are bringing down the cost of solar and wind energy, as well
as other environmentally friendly technologies such as electric car batteries. That could help address a major impediment to wide
adoption of such technologies: They need heavy subsidies to be economical. The so-called China price -- the combination of cheap
labor and capital that rewrote the rulebook on manufacturing -- is spreading to green technology. "The China price will move into
the renewable-energy space, specifically for energy that relies on capital-intensive projects," says Jonathan Woetzel, a director in
McKinsey & Co.'s China office. China's government is backing the trend. It wants to replicate the success of the special economic
zones that transformed cities such as Shenzhen from a fishing village near Hong Kong into one of the biggest manufacturing export
centers in the world. Set up when China began its economic reforms in the 1980s, the zones were designed to attract foreign
investment into light manufacturing to kick-start exports. They became engines of China's economic boom. Regulators will
announce several low carbon centers next year that will have preferential policies to promote low carbon manufacturing and
exports.
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Trade War Frontline
1. Trade war and economic leverage would only be net worse for China
Ian Fletcher, Adjunct Fellow at the San Francisco office of the U.S. Business and Industry Council, 9-28-10, [“Don't Fear a Trade
War With China,” Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/dont-fear-a-trade-war-wit_b_742811.html] E. Liu
Doomsayers argue that American retaliatory tariffs on Chinese exports would be met by Chinese tariffs on our own
exports, producing a cycle of retaliation that would choke off trade between the two nations. It is an easy disaster
scenario to imagine, especially if one believes the utter myth that such a cycle is what happened during the Great
Depression due to the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930. But this is actually unlikely, for a number of reasons. For a start, there
is the fundamental fact that China is unlikely to engage in catastrophic escalation because they, not we, are running the
surplus, so they are the ones with something to lose. (China's exports to the U.S. are more than four times America's
exports to China.) The only way a deficit nation can "lose" a trade war is by having its trade balance get even worse. Given
that the U.S. trade balance is already outlandish, it is hard to see how this could happen. Of course, China has other cards
up its sleeve, like threatening to dump its massive dollar reserves. But doing so would carry enormous costs for
Beijing. For a start, beginning to sell these reserves would reduce the value of the large reserves they would still be
holding. Furthermore, this would depress the value of the dollar -- exactly the opposite of their currency manipulation
strategy. Then there is the awkward problem of what China would do with all the money it would get by selling off its
dollars. There just aren't that many good alternatives for parking that much money. The Japanese don't want their currency
used as an international reserve currency (and will stymie anyone who tries), and the Euro has huge problems of its own
right now. Assets like gold and minor currencies are volatile or in limited supply. Other assets, like American or European
real estate or corporate stocks, are, by definition, denominated in dollars or euros, so this wouldn't get around the currency
problem. Similarly, China could threaten to stop buying U.S. Treasury debt (which would spike American interest rates),
but is constrained by the fact that this would reduce the value of the $840 billion or so that it already holds. This
action would also lower the price of the dollar by abandoning China's key lever for pushing it up. Furthermore, the U.S.
could retaliate by revoking the tax exemption of interest on foreign-held Treasury debt, established in 1984 by Treasury
Secretary Donald Regan. (As a true hypothetical doomsday scenario, we could even suspend interest payments on the debt,
though this would be irresponsibly disruptive and is thus extremely unlikely in peacetime.) The fundamental reality is that
the United States is already in a trade war with China. In the real world, as opposed to the fantasy of laissez faire
economics, international trade is adversarial. This doesn't mean that there aren't win-win aspects to it -- there are -- but it
does mean that there are enough win-lose aspects to it that nations need to actively defend their own economic
interests. This active defense is known as "mercantilism," and it is a game China has been playing for decades now while
the U.S. pretends the game doesn't even exist. (Ironically, the U.S. was itself founded as a mercantilist country, though
we've forgotten.)
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2. The market will adjust to the Chinese monopoly- we will find a way to decrease demand.
Clark 3/23
Hill Should Not Rush on Rare Earths By Colin Clark- former editor of DoDBuzz and Pentagon correspondent for Military.com. Colin
joined the Military.com team from Space News, where he covered Congress, intelligence and regulatory affairs. He won a national
award for his coverage of the first Quadrennial Defense Review. Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 4:53 pm
<http://www.dodbuzz.com/2011/03/23/hill-should-not-rush-on-rare-earths/>//DoeS
Congress should not require the Pentagon to create a stockpile of rare earth minerals because companies will adjust
their behavior to the international marketplace, a group of experts said today. “The sky is not falling. Contrary to
what you are reading in some newspapers and articles we are not going to run out of anything any time soon,” said
MIT professor Robert Jaffe. And greatly increasing US production of the 17 rare earth minerals is not the answer
either, he said. “Mine baby, mine is not the solution.” Jaffe was speaking primarily from the perspective of an
expert in rare earths, their production and uses. A Heritage Foundation economist on the panel, Derek Scissors, said
“there is no need for a stockpile. This falls exactly into the terrain that the government should not get into.” However, Jaffe
and Scissors said some basic research aimed at developing alternatives to the rare earths might be useful if the research was
truly basic and did not bleed over into applied research. The experts appeared to discuss whether Congress should act on
rare earths. Last September, the House passed the Rare Earths and Critical Materials Revitalization Act of 2010
overwhelmingly, 325 to 98. Their basic conclusion was that the Hill should leave things alone, except for carefully targeted
basic research funding to find alternatives to the rare earths. Scissor agreed that China dominates current production and
“can’t be trusted as a supplier. But he said rare earths largely came into use because they were cheap. “They weren’t
indispensable 10 years ago. They won’t be in another 10 years.” China, acting as a mercantilist economic power, will
continue to raise prices and squeeze supply. And that will drive companies and governments to recycle, find new
allows and other ways to avoid using the rare earths that China controls. “Now they are going to raise the prices and
we are going to use less rare earths,” he said.
3. China’s hold is shaky – Low supply and smuggling
Cindy Hurst, analyst with the US Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office. Her research has focused on various energy security
issues, North Korean drug trafficking, and, most recently, rare-earth elements. Her articles have appeared in Military Review, Joint
Force Quarterly, PennWell’s Oil & Gas Journal, the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security’s Security Journal, and the US Army
and Marine Corp Counterinsurgency Journal Colloquium. Her work has been cited and used by the international media, industry,
governments, and the Department of Defense, and she has spoken at various conferences. Ms. Hurst is a lieutenant commander in the
US Navy Reserve, 3-10, [“China’s Rare Earth Elements Industry: What Can the West Learn?,” Institute for the Analysis of Global
Security, fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/rareearth.pdf] E. Liu
The Issues China Faces According to Zhao Shuanglian, Vice Chairman of Inner Mongolia’s Autonomous Regions, “Rare
earth is a unique treasure, and it is also Inner Mongolia’s primary strategic resource.” 29 While China possesses
approximately 57 percent of the world’s reserves of rare earth elements, the industry within China is plagued with
disorderly development and poor management practices. The Chinese government fears that if the current poor mining
practices and lack of regulation continue, China will “become a rare-earth poor country, or even a country without rare
earth elements.” 30 Other issues facing China’s rare earth industry are smuggling and illegal mining activities,
environmental damage due to poor mining practice, and the growing challenge of ensuring its own domestic needs of rare
earth. Smuggling According to China Business News, due to the annual increased demand for rare earth elements, many
buyers are resorting to smuggling rare earths out of China. In 2008, approximately 20,000 tons of rare earth were reportedly
smuggled from the country. 31 Meanwhile, during that same year, according to official customs statistics, China exported
39,500 tons of rare earth oxide. This means that smuggling accounted for one-third of the total volume of rare earths
leaving China. 32 One aim of China’s “Rare-Earth Industry Development Plan of 2009-2015” is to try to curb some of the
smuggling by introducing regulations and policies to punish the smugglers. 33 Smuggling is potentially detrimental to
China’s rare earth industry because it keeps prices low and depletes resources quicker. Smuggling also indicates a severe
lack of control over the industry and can lead to even greater repercussions such as more damage to the environment.
Regulations on safe mining practice are nearly impossible to enforce in this type of environment. As it is, because of poor
management practices and the large scale of the industry, China already has difficulty in enforcing regulations to improve
safety and environmental measures in its rare earth industry. 28 Various other sources indicate that China possesses only
54 percent of global reserves. 29
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XTN #1 – No Trade War
No trade wars – tensions may rise but economic interdependence means neither country will risk
damaging their own economy to retaliate in trade – that’s Fletcher
Trade wars empirically fail to escalate
Bloomberg Businessweek, 9-14-09, [“Why the U.S.-China Trade Spat Won't Escalate,” Frederik Balfour,
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/sep2009/gb20090914_482219.htm] E. Liu
Whenever Washington and Beijing become embroiled in a trade row, there's always a fear it will escalate. But some Western
economists say the likelihood that President Barack Obama's decision on Sept. 11 to slap a 35% anti-dumping tariff on Chinese tire
exports will lead to a protectionist trade war looks small. China waited two days before announcing on its Ministry of Commerce Web
site probes into dumping and subsidies of chicken and auto parts from the U.S. And it's likely to move cautiously for fear of poisoning
the waters in advance of a bilateral meeting scheduled between Chinese president Hu Jintao and Obama in New York next week in
advance of the G-20 meetings in Pittsburgh. Both sides have been down this road before and this latest dispute may well resemble
a choreographed pas de deux. "The U.S. is not accusing China of doing anything wrong, and China has a track record of
responding rationally according to the [World Trade Organization] process," said Andy Rothman, CLSA China economist, on the
sidelines of its annual investor forum that kicked off in Shanghai on Sept. 14. "I don't think this is going to set off a trade war."
That's good news, especially as the world economy remains in a parlous state. China appears to be on track to achieve its 8% growth
target for gross domestic product this year thanks to huge government spending on investment. But the holy grail for the Chinese
government—to rebalance China's growth away from exports toward stronger consumer spending—appears as elusive as ever.
China doesn’t want a trade war – Favors peaceful solutions
China Daily, 2-10-10, [“Trade war is no option,” http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2010-02/10/content_9457847.htm] E.
Liu
On Monday, Vice-Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan played down that rising trade disputes between China and the United States
will be a mainstay of bilateral ties. The goodwill remark was meant to prevent current trade frictions between the two large
economies from escalating into a full-blown trade war that will certainly cripple the fragile global recovery. However, US
policymakers should not misread it as fuel to give them free play to rising protectionism within their country. As the biggest victim of
trade protectionism, China stands firmly against trade protectionism as well as the abuse of trade remedy measures. Last year
alone, the country was involved in 116 cases of trade protectionism, amounting to $12.7 billion. But the great protectionist pressure
imposed on China has not changed its long-term support for free trade and investment liberalization. China has time and again
made clear its hopes to properly solve trade disputes and trade frictions through dialogue and consultation, and to strengthen
bilateral and multilateral cooperation. Thanks to joint efforts by the international community to fight protectionism, the worst global
recession in decades has so far not given rise to disastrous trade wars that can make the situation much worse. Yet, as the global
recovery continues, the sense of urgency to resist protectionism is ostensibly waning in developed countries, especially those with
climbing unemployment. Because an unemployment recovery is simply unsustainable, US policymakers facing a near 10-percent
jobless rate have recently made concessions to more and more domestic interest groups by erecting trade barriers against Chinese
exporters. As a result, China and the US have been engaged in rising trade conflicts ever since Washington's car tire ruling last
September. Since this January, the US has made China's exports of wire decking products, electric blankets and drill pipe used for oil
wells targets of anti-dumping duties or anti-subsidy investigations. The latest symbolic response from China was last Friday's
announcement that preliminary anti-dumping duties would be imposed on broiler chicken imports from the US. Such an exchange of
fire accomplishes little for both economies. China is the third largest export market for the US and has been the fastest growing
market for years. If America is to double its exports in five years as its president has pledged, an all-out trade war with China will
make no sense and the consequences will be unaffordable for both sides. That is why Chinese policymakers are trying to get rising
trade disputes under control. We hope that the US side will get the message right.
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XTN #2 – Market Solves
Free market checks back – companies will naturally adapt to lower stockpiles and begin domestic
operations again – China only became a monopoly because it undercut costs – that’s Clark
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XTN #3 – China Hold Unsustainable
Even China’s stockpile isn’t sustainable –terrible regulations mean no extraction because of stealing and
smuggling which make supply shocks inevitable – that’s Hurst
China’s hold isn’t sustainable – Multiple geographic alternatives if incentive grows
Foreign Policy, 9-29-10, [“You Don't Bring a Praseodymium Knife to a Gunfight,” Tim Worstall,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/29/you-dont-bring-a-praseodymium-knife-to-a-gunfight?page=full] E. Liu
But the truth is that though most of the rare earths, both metals and oxides, do come from China, this isn't the same at all as
having a monopoly that is sustainable -- as Beijing is about to find out in a fairly painful manner. Now that the specter of a
monopoly being exercised for political ends has been raised, there will be sufficient political will to break that monopoly. Two
important facts about rare earths help explain why: They're not earths, and they're not rare. China has reached its dominant
supplier position through good old-fashioned industrial aggression, not innate geographical superiority. Cheap labor, little
environmental scrutiny, and a willingness to sell at low cost have made other producers give up. For competitors, like the owners of
Mountain Pass, a California mine that shut down in 2002 partly due to the China factor, that has been a daunting combination. For the
rest of us, it has been fantastic: Affordable rare earths have helped power the information-technology revolution, driving down the
cost of everything from hybrid cars to smart bombs. But the non-rarity of the rare earths themselves means that China's position isn't
sustainable. That California mine, for instance, could potentially supply 20 percent of world demand, currently around 130,000
tons a year. Another facility, Lynas Corp.'s Mount Weld in Australia, has the capacity to produce a similar amount. In fact, there are
enough rare earths in the millions of tons of sands we already process for titanium dioxide (used to make white paint) to fill the
gap, while we throw away 30,000 tons a year or so in the wastes of the aluminum industry. There's that much or more in what we
don't bother to collect from the mining of phosphates for fertilizers, and no one has even bothered to measure how much there is in the
waste from burning coal. If rare earths are so precious, why isn't the United States working harder to collect them? The main reason is
that, for these last 25 years, China has been supplying all we could eat at prices we were more than happy to pay. If Beijing wants to
raise its prices and start using supplies as geopolitical bargaining chips, so what? The rest of the world will simply roll up its sleeves
and ramp up production, and the monopoly will be broken.
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Solvency Frontline (1/2)
1. Lack of refining capability means we’re still dependent on China
Marc Humphries, Analyst in Energy Policy, 9-30-10, [“Rare Earth Elements: The Global Supply Chain,”
www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R41347.pdf] E. Liu
The supply chain for rare earth elements generally consist of mining, separation, refining, alloying, and
manufacturing (devices and component parts). A major issue for REE development in the United States is the lack of
refining, alloying, and fabricating capacity that could process any future rare earth production. There is one U.S.
company, Electron Energy Corporation (EEC) in Landisville, PA, producing samarium-cobalt (Sm-Co) permanent
magnets, while there are no U.S. producers of the more desirable neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets needed for
numerous consumer electronics, energy, and defense applications. EEC, in its production of its Sm-Co permanent
magnet, uses small amounts of gadolinium—an REE of which there is no U.S. production. Even the REEs needed for these
magnets that operate at the highest temperatures include small amounts of dysprosium and terbium, both available only
from China at the moment. EEC imports magnet alloys used for its magnet production from China. Santoku America, Inc.,
produces at its Tolleson, AZ, facility, both NdFeB and Sm-Co alloys used in the production of permanent magnets. They
are the only U.S. producer of the NdFeB alloy. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report illustrates the lack of
U.S. presence in the REE global supply chain at each of the five stages of mining, separation, refining oxides into metal,
fabrication of alloys and the manufacturing of magnets and other components. 26 China produces 97% of the REE raw
materials, about 97% of rare earth oxides, and is the only exporter of commercial quantities of rare earth metals (Japan
produces some metal for its own use for alloys and magnet production). About 90% of the metal alloys are produced in
China (small production in the United States) and China manufactures 75% of the neodymium magnets and 60% of the
samarium magnets. A small amount of samarium magnets are produced in the United States. Thus, even if rare earth
production ramps up, much of the processing/alloying and metal fabrication would occur in China. According to
investor analyst Jack Lifton, the rare earth metals are imported from China, then manufactured into military components in
the United States or by an allied country. Lifton states that many investors believe that for financing purposes, it is not
enough to develop REE mining operations alone without building the value-added refining, metal production, and
alloying capacity that would be needed to manufacture component parts for end-use products. According to Lifton,
vertically integrated companies may be more desirable. It may be the only way to secure investor financing for REE
production projects. 27
2. Mining’s not feasible – requires staffed missions
Space institute studies – 11, 3/21/11, “Space Studies Institute Update Winter 2011” http://ssi.org/2011/03/ssi-update-winter2011/#more-768
The panel discussion “Moon, Mars or Asteroids: Where Do We Go First For Resources?” was enlightening. The consensus
was that the Moon would be the first body to be used for non-terrestrial resources. The advantage the Moon has over
asteroids is logistical. Travel times to asteroids are long and mission opportunities are few, and the longer physical
distance makes teleoperation of mining equipment impossible.A successful asteroid mining expedition would involve
a human crew with a mission duration of years. Resupply would be difficult with current technology. The Moon, on the
other hand, is only three days away and has multiple flight windows per month. Teleoperation with a lunar time delay is
known to be possible, and spare parts or a human repair crew could be sent with comparative ease.
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Solvency Frontline (2/2)
3. Multiple accessible mines opening soon that can meet US demand
Cindy Hurst, analyst with the US Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office. Her research has focused on various energy security
issues, North Korean drug trafficking, and, most recently, rare-earth elements. Her articles have appeared in Military Review, Joint
Force Quarterly, PennWell’s Oil & Gas Journal, the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security’s Security Journal, and the US Army
and Marine Corp Counterinsurgency Journal Colloquium. Her work has been cited and used by the international media, industry,
governments, and the Department of Defense, and she has spoken at various conferences. Ms. Hurst is a lieutenant commander in the
US Navy Reserve, 3-10, [“China’s Rare Earth Elements Industry: What Can the West Learn?,” Institute for the Analysis of Global
Security, fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/rareearth.pdf] E. Liu
25Currently, outside of the U.S., there are several mines which have investors excited. Those mines are Thor Lake
(owned by Avalon) and Hoidas Lake (owned by Great Western), both located in Canada; Mount Weld (owned by Lynas
Corp), located in Australia; and Steenkampskraal (owned by Rareco, division of Great Western), located in South Africa. It
will take years, hundreds of millions of dollars before production is possible. The reserves at Thor Lake are under water in a
region that freezes over two to three months of the year. Hoidas Lake is located in remote northern Canada in
Saskatchewan. Mount Weld is located in an isolated region in the south-west of Australia. Mount Weld is probably the
most promising mine with its higher grade rare earth ore and easier accessibility compared to the two Canadian mines.
Construction and operations have begun for Mount Weld, however there are still a number of hurdles to overcome. In
addition, operations for Mount Weld will likely be costlier because the minerals will have to be transported to Malaysia,
where they will be further processed into the separate rare earth elements. Steenkampskraal is a former operating rare earth
mine, which has been restarted. The projected start-up dates are: 2010 - Steenkampskraal, 2011-12 – Mount Weld, 2012
– Hoidas Lake, and 2013 – Thor Lake. One potential threat is that, while China’s reduction in export quotas is currently
causing prices to go up, if China were to turn that around and bring prices back down, this could potentially put these and
other companies out of business even before they become fully operational. Mountain Pass California shows great
promise due to its infrastructure already being in place and the fact that the mine was fully operational until 1998. By
2010, Molycorp Minerals expects to produce 3,000 metric tons (3,310 tons) of rare earth annually. By 2012, Molycorp
expects to reach its peak production capacity, producing 20,000 metric tons (22,000 tons) of rare earths annually.
Cerium, lanthanum, praseodymium, and neodymium are expected to comprise the main elements produced. However,
Molycorp will also produce small amounts of other critical rare earths – samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium,
dysprosium, and erbium. Provided Mountain Pass stays on track, this may be enough to sustain many of the domestic
needs of the U.S., but it will be extremely difficult for the U.S. to ever be able to compete with China as a global
manufacturer of rare earth based products. To bolster its competitive edge, Molycorp is planning to reestablish domestic
supply chains by partnering with domestic magnet producers. Currently, Molycorp has a letter of intent with Arnold
Magnetics to produce NdFeB magnets using neodymium oxides produced from Mountain Pass. While this will hopefully
improve the outlook for the U.S., increased global competition for rare earth resources needs to be considered. For example,
Japan depends heavily on rare earth supplies for its manufacturing of high tech components, such as cell phones,
computers, and hybrid vehicles. 26In 2007, Dudley Kingsnorth put together a chart (See diagram 3) commonly referred to
in the rare earth industry as “the Dudley chart.” The chart depicts China’s demand coming close to its production levels by
the year 2012. Knowing that the chart was created prior to the current economic slowdown, Mark Smith asked Kingsnorth
to redo the chart with the current global economic slowdown in mind. Kingsnorth’s new projection pushed China’s demand
levels equaling the country’s production levels only by two years to 2014. However, according to Smith, one thing not
included in the chart is the use of rare earth elements in permanent magnet generators for the wind turbine industry. It was
not included because in 2007, the wind turbine industry was just coming to bear in the market. Today, however, a rapid
paced growth is occurring in the wind turbine industry. Therefore, according to Smith, “When you take the wind turbine
industry into account and the economic recession into account, everything just comes right back to 2012.” 67
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XTN #1 – No Refineries
Lack of refineries mean China still holds monopoly – we’d still have to send them any rare earths we
mine meaning we can’t change control of the stockpile – that’s Humphries
Processing capabilities still tie us to China – Takes a decade to develop
Johnson 10– R. Colin Johnson, Technology Editor at EE Times (Electronic Engineering Times), October 24, 2010, “Rare earth
supply chain: Industry’s common cause,” online: http://www.eetimes.com/General/DisplayPrintViewContent?contentItemId=4210064
Mines outside China will start mining ore in earnest in 2011. But since the 1990s, when the only U.S. mine closed, China
has also had to do the processing of rare earth ore into the metals, oxides and alloys used by industry. As a
consequence, it has almost exclusive patent ownership of those processes, which have been much improved in the
intervening 20 years. In fact, Molycorp is currently shipping its ore to China for processing. Until mines in other
countries develop their own processes, they will either have to ship their ore to China for processing or pay license
fees for using the Chinese techniques in their own processing plants. It thus may take up to a decade to develop a
supply chain that is independent of China.
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XTN #2 – Mining Fails
Mining’s not feasible – difficulty requires staffed missions which are too hard to set up, fund and execute
– that’s Space Institute Studies
Mining causes danger to humans
Watson 10 (Traci Watson, staff writer, 6-28-10, Physorg.org, “Landing on an asteroid: Not like
the movie”, http://www.physorg.com/news196920110.html)
• HUMANS CAN'T WALK OR DRIVE ON AN ASTEROID. Once they land on the asteroid "the size of Texas," the
heroes of "Armageddon" run over the spiky terrain, except when they're steering two tank-like vehicles. In reality, even the
biggest asteroids have practically no gravity. So anything in contact with the surface could easily drift away. "You don't
land on an asteroid," said former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, a longtime advocate of asteroid studies. "You pull
up to one and dock with it. And getting away from it, all you have to do is sneeze and you're gone." He envisions a
spaceship hovering next to the asteroid and occasionally firing its thrusters to stay in place. Astronauts wouldn't walk on an
asteroid. They would drift next to it, moving themselves along with their gloved hands. To keep from floating into space,
crewmembers could anchor a network of safety ropes to the asteroid's surface, but "that has its own risks, because
we don't understand how strong the surfaces of asteroids are and whether (they) would hold an astronaut in place,"
said Daniel Scheeres, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado. The minimal gravity also means that any dust
the astronauts stir up will hang in a suspended cloud for a long time. Because there's no weather on an asteroid,
there's no erosion to smooth the dust particles. "It's all going to stay pretty razor-sharp. It's not the most friendly
stuff in the universe," Korsmeyer said. Keeping humans safe as they explore an asteroid "is going to be really
tricky."
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XTN #3 – Other Mines Solve
Domestic mines solve demand – companies are opening mines that can operate within the decade and
produce rare earths in the US – that’s Hurst
Mojave desert reserves made the US a significant player in rare earths
Guardian – 10, 12/26/10 “Rare earth metals mine is key to US control over hi-tech future”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/26/rare-earth-metals-us
It's adeep pit in the Mojave desert. But it could hold the key to America challenging China's technological domination of the
21st century. At the bottom of the vast site, beneath 6 metres (20ft) of bright emerald-green water, runs a rich seam of ores that
are hardly household names but are rapidly emerging as the building blocks of the hi-tech future.The mine is the largest known
deposit of rare earth elements outside China. Eight years ago, it was shut down in a tacit admission that the US was ceding the
market to China. Now, the owners have secured final approval to restart operations, and hope to begin production soon. "We
will probably never be the largest [mine] in the world again. It will be hard to overcome China's status in that regard, but we
do think we will be a very significant supplier," Mark Smith, chief executive of Molycorp Minerals which owns the mine, told
reporters during a tour of the site.
Japan just found a billion tons of rare earth minerals in the Pacific
Meryn – 11, Richard Meryn, Associate Editor Industry Leaders Magazine, 6/6/11, “Rare Earth Minerals Discovered By Japan
Threat to China?” http://www.industryleadersmagazine.com/will-japan%E2%80%99s-find-of-rare-earth-minerals-threatenchina%E2%80%99s-monopoly/
According to the US Geological Survey, global reserves of rare earth minerals, found primarily in the United States, China,
Russia and some other parts of the former Soviet Bloc, amount to only around 110 million tonnes. A clear monopoly, even
within these countries, where the mining and supply of these extremely valuable commodities is concerned, belongs to China, which
is responsible for producing 97% of the world’s supply of rare earth metals. However, this could be set to change,
with Japan’s recent discovery of vast deposits, likely to amount to around 100 billion tonnes, of rare earth minerals in
the Pacific seabed. The viability of mining these recently found mineral deposits, however, still needs to be examined, but if logistics
do work out, it would basically mean an end to China’s monopoly within this particular industry sector.
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