Price of Neo Magnets

[James Bourgeois]

I recently erected my 8' hugh piggot design wind turbine.I am happy with the performance of it but of course I want to build a larger one.The shocker was when I went to price the magnets I nearly fell off my chair,they tripled in price!From what I have been reading it all has to do with China exporting rare earth materials and our lack of mining these materials in Canada.

It will cost me just under $1000 to build the turbine now.

I think it is a good time to go solar to round out my system.

Any thoughts on the current situation and when the market on these magnets comes back down to earth?:(

[Chris Olson]

Probably not going to happen any time soon, if ever. Tightening environmental regulations on mining and whatnot is going to keep the price up.

I, not too long ago, built this generator for my 3.8m geared turbines that uses ferrite magnets. It is two phase, weighs 78.8 lbs (over twice as heavy as the neo generator), but makes as much power as the neo unit, and actually makes more power in higher wind speeds because it's not quite as "stiff" as the neo generator.

Total cost of the 40 magnets in it was $75.60
--
Chris