I just found this article on Bloomberg.
Rare Earths Leave Toxic Trail to Toyota Prius, Vestas Turbine - BusinessWeek
Bloomberg
Rare Earths Leave Toxic Trail to Toyota Prius, Vestas Turbine
January 05, 2011, 9:28 PM EST2By Stuart Biggs
Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Rare earth metals are key to global efforts to switch to cleaner energy -- from batteries in hybrid cars to magnets in wind turbines. Mining and processing the metals causes environmental damage that China, the biggest producer, is no longer willing to bear.
China’s rare earth industry each year produces more than five times the amount of waste gas, including deadly fluorine and sulfur dioxide, than the total flared annually by all miners and oil refiners in the U.S. Alongside that 13 billion cubic meters of gas is 25 million tons of wastewater laced with cancer-causing heavy metals such as cadmium, Xu Xu, chairman of the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals & Chemicals Importers & Exporters, said at a Beijing conference on Dec. 28.
“China supplied the world with very cheap and good-quality rare earths for more than a decade at the cost of depleting its resources and damaging its environment,” Wang Caifeng, who heads the government-affiliated China Association for Rare Earths, said at the conference. “The world should thank China.”
A four-story tailing dam containing radioactive waste 12 kilometers (7 miles) from Baotou has been “a serious problem” and polluted rivers, Chen Zhanheng, director of the academic department of the Chinese Society of Rare Earths, said in an interview.
Baotou Steel Group, which operates the Baiyun Ebo mine, has spent 500 million yuan ($75 million) with the local government to relocate five villages after seepage from the dam polluted agricultural land and drinking water, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported on Nov. 7.
Uranium Disposal
“All rare earth ores contain uranium and thorium, which could pose a danger if not disposed of responsibly,” said Dudley J Kingsnorth, who managed Australia’s Mount Weld rare earths project for Ashton Mining of Canada Inc. for 10 years. He’s now an independent consultant on the metals.
Rare earths require more chemicals to separate than base metals such as copper, zinc and lead, said Bernd Lottermoser, a professor of environmental earth sciences at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia.