alt Hacker News10-15 years to stand up legacy refining capability, which is heavy in pollution.
China invested decades into research and has made significant progress in extra refined, four nines purity rare earth minerals, required for advanced industries.
They may be two decades+ ahead of US at least, plus the talent pipeline
Sure no disagreement there - I think that just strengthens my point. Though I don’t think they are really 2 decades ahead because we can just start stealing their research and reverse engineering products as we see fit.