Earlier today, Molycorp announced that Dr. Stanley Trout will join the company as its Director of Magnet Manufacturing, effective October 1, 2010.
Stan has been a successful consultant in the magnet industry for the past ten years, under the banner of his Spontaneous Materials consulting business. He previously worked for a number of magnet companies in the USA and even for Molycorp itself in a prior incarnation. Stan is therefore very well-qualified for his new role.
In addition to restarting the production of separated rare earth products from its Mountain Pass mine in California, a critical component of Molycorp’s business strategy is the production of rare-earth-based permanent magnets and magnet alloys. To date there has not been a lot of detail on this aspect of their game plan, beyond proposals to work with an unnamed third party magnet materials manufacturer.
The addition of Stan to the Molycorp team is a smart move on their part, and perhaps today’s announcement is the first in a series that will clarify the approach that the company plans to take in order to execute its strategy.
Congratulations Stan!
January 31st, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Is there some way of giving Mars an artificial magnetic-field like Earth’s?
Can we set maybe set-up something like giant solenoids at both the Martian north & south poles, and getting these to some-how ‘interact’ with Mars’ percieved metallic core?
Can we maybe set up something that looks like a giant oil-well (or maybe something that looks the Effiel Tower/s) and send down a magnitised pipe/spike deep into the Martian mantel, to coax the core to interact with surface magnetic-field generators to give us a planetary wide magnetic-field? Something akin to placing bar-magnets end to end?
Thanks and Best regards,
A. B. Bell