I’m fond of saying that we solve today’s problems with tomorrow’s technology. Now, we have a brilliant example of just that, and better still, this piece of tomorrow’s technology that is under development today is not only a great discovery, it’s a thumb in the eye of one of America’s major geopolitical rivals – China.
That’s an unalloyed good thing.
In April, China imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements, crippling American manufacturing across dozens of critical sectors. Ford temporarily shuttered production lines while European suppliers closed entire factories. In one calculated move, Beijing demonstrated its power to hobble the West.
This economic warfare represents decades of strategic planning. While America slept, China cornered the market on materials essential to modern civilization. By controlling 90% of rare-earth processing capacity, it dictates prices and decides who receives supplies. The periodic table became their ultimate economic weapon.
But weapons can be rendered obsolete through superior innovation. American scientists discovered that combining iron, the planet’s fourth-most abundant element, with atmospheric nitrogen makes a compound more magnetic than anything produced by China. This breakthrough doesn’t just match Chinese materials; it surpasses them.
That’s a great way to stick a metaphorical thumb in the eye of not only Chairman Xi, but in the eyes of all of the members of the Chinese Communist Party.
The key? Magnets. This whole thing started in the 1980s. China was producing cheap magnets and exporting them around the world, shutting down a lot of domestic manufacturing in its customer nations. Magnets have countless industrial applications, used in everything from electric motors to windmills to electronics.
Last April, China placed serious export restrictions on the rare-earth minerals, some of which are used in the development of industrial magnets. Enter good old American ingenuity.
Yet, while China was tightening its grip, American researchers at the University of Minnesota had been solving a puzzle that had frustrated scientists since the 1950s. Professor Jian-Ping Wang spent nearly a decade perfecting techniques to synthesize iron nitride magnets from the most abundant elements on Earth. His breakthrough, published in 2010, finally explained how combining iron with nitrogen can create a material with magnetization exceeding anything China produces from rare earths.
The physics is remarkable. Iron nitride retains full magnetization at 200 degrees Celsius, exceeding the temperature capability of all magnet compounds except those made from the scarcest and most expensive critical elements. Most importantly, the raw materials come from sources no nation can monopolize: Minnesota’s iron ore deposits and atmospheric nitrogen. Iron nitride represents something China cannot replicate — American innovation driven by scientific curiosity rather than state industrial policy — and reduces our national security and economic vulnerabilities while strengthening domestic manufacturing capacity.
Take that, China!
Read More: America’s Copper Revolution Happening Now in Arizona
Still Not Tired of Winning: First New American Rare-Earth Mine in 70 Years
Not only is this a great example of good old American ingenuity, it’s a great example of the kind of technological breakthrough that always seems to happen right here, in the United States, where we still (well, in most places) reward innovation, invention, and ingenuity.
We solve today’s problems with tomorrow’s technology. This is a great example of that, and it’s a great reason for some optimism that China, still, for all its bloviating, will never be the center of innovation that is the United States.
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