[hristov]

Any electricity produced by turning generators will require rare earths. This includes, every current non-trivial electricity source with the exception of solar. Gas, oil, coal and nuclear all work by heating steam and running it through a turbine that turns a generator that makes electricity. For hydro, the falling water turns the turbine/generator.

So any source of electricity that may replace these wind turbines (other than solar) will require about the same amount of rare-earths. And lets face it, Trump is doing his best to hamstring solar as well. He has cancelled all solar subsidies and has hit solar with major tariffs.

I think Occams Razor would lead to a very different conclusion.

[cesarb]

> Any electricity produced by turning generators will require rare earths.

AFAIK, not all kinds of rotating generators require rare earths; IIRC, induction motors don't need any permanent magnets.

[immibis]

AFAIK, modern wind turbines use types of induction motors because it allows them to adjust the rotation speed by applying a counter-rotating stator field (which is a very neat trick) - older turbines had to rotate at a fixed divisor of 3600 rpm (grid frequency).