Posted on 09/02/2009 9:21:28 PM PDT by Paul R.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods.
That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Ever play with neodymium magnets? They are unbelievably strong, cut or bruise your fingers if you get between them and some steel. Wow!
Whoa, you mean there are Unintended Consequences in the commie agenda?
Who DIDN’T see this coming? (aside from the enviroweenies themselves)
Unintended? Hardly..."Death to America" sound familiar? Or if you are old enough, remember "We will bury you?"...it's just that they realized they were going to have to do it with a million spoons instead of a shovel...
“One promising U.S. source is a rare earths mine slated to reopen in California by 2012.”
I pity anyone trying to open a mine in California. I won’t matter that we need the metal for enviro reasons.
The law of unintended consequences is a bitch.
The NYTimes today had an interesting article about the scarcity of some of the rare earth metals. China has about 85% of them, it’s a remarkable natural cornering of the market.
you do know about the U-2 lie?
Bono is running the continent with 40 trucks...
how green is that ?
The mine is located on I-15 at Mountain Pass about 20 miles from the Calif/Nev stateline. The mine has beem operating on and off since 1976 or there abouts (maybe earlier).
All color TV’s at that time had the rare earths in the tubes.
It just needs a small sip of oil...like the oil beneath the Bakken shale, or the new BP find in the Gulf...or natural gas...
Batteries are for laptops and vibrators.
Hello, attention...
The first thing you do is...
do not listen to the NY Times.
I have an idea! Why don’t we develop a prime-mover that runs on petroleum products? We can use the oil that is off the coast of the U.S. and in northern Alaska to fuel them.
No problem. If we ever need this rare earth alloy in a national emergency, we can junk all Prius hybrids for it.
So, in answer to your question, 1/4 of the world's vehicles could indeed have electric drive without using a single gram of neodymium.
Looks like one just can not win.
Toxic truth of secretive Siberian city
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6528853.stm
How do you prefer to store your energy?
In easy to transport, fast to load, high energy density hydrocarbon liquids?
Or in slow to load, low energy density, limited life and hard to dispose batteries made from rare earth elements?
Each electric Prius motor requires 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of neodymium, and each battery uses 10 to 15 kg (22-33 lb) of lanthanum. That number will nearly double under Toyota's plans to boost the car's fuel economy, he said.
This clown, Lifton, is a world-class idiot, but evidently an excellent self-promoter.
The elements in question are not "destroyed," nor are they fired into deep space after the useful life of the devices that contain them.
All these cars and wind turbines have a limited life-span.
One word: recycle.
It has never been more economical to mine the raw ore and refine the desired element than it is to simply recycle previously used material.
D'OH!
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