Are Hybrids and EVs safe for the enviroment ?

[JasonG]

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.

[Ryland]

As far as I know computer hard drives are still the largest user of these rare earth metals, smaller motors use to a point them as well but larger motors become noisy if they use permanent magnets along with being less powerful for the size.

[SVOboy]

While rare earth metals do suck, there's been a lot of *real* research on the well-wheel impact of EVs and partials EVs compared to gasoline vehicles ever since someone published a pretty stupid article a few years ago claiming priuses are worse for the environment than Hummers. I am tempted to link, but I'm going to refrain from giving those heinous and hence disproved claims any more attention .

[Jim-Bob]

There are unintended consequences to every technology man has ever devised, and hybrid/electric cars are no exception. Thus, they are harmful to the environment. The question is, are they more harmful that current technologies and the answer to that is "maybe". That question remains to be answered though as the technology is not prevalent enough to have the full answer just yet. The bigger problem with them is that these materials are indeed rare and there may not be enough of them to go around. If we really want to have a future full of more efficient vehicles then the answer may lie in more responsibly applying these limited resources to smaller vehicles instead of greenwashed SUVs and large cars like the hybrid Tahoe and Camry. That way, they can have the maximum impact to do the most good for the most people.

As far as China's environmental damage from mining these metals, well I don't feel the least bit sorry for them. It was their choice to do so in an environmentally damaging way so that they could get hard currency. They could have done the moral thing and taken better care of their part of the planet but chose not to. China is a sovereign country after all-it could have opted not to.

So what was my vote? I voted No because the toxins are indeed deadly. That is an incontrovertible fact. Whether it is more damaging than fossil fuels though is an issue that is subject to debate and one that I do not know enough about to come to a good conclusion on just yet.

[Daox]

I vote yes. Almost everything in modern EVs is recyclable, so it doesn't have to be wasted. Yes, mining and making and refining the materials is harmful to the environment, but so are all the materials used to make conventional vehicles. The rare materials put into hybrids/evs are fairly small in volume.

Toyota has done an analysis (I know, not the best considering they're selling you something) of the 3rd gen Prius and its environmental impact to manufacture vs the environmental benefit of its reduced environmental impact of being used. Their conclusion was that the use is by far where more of the energy is used and therefore the upfront cost is easily worth it.




Here is the full video they put together on the analysis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKnNEVdtzi4

I completely realize that there are hybrids out there MUCH less environmentally friendly than the Prius as Jim-Bob has mentioned. This is just the info I have at hand.

[mnmarcus]

I agree with Doax,
I had always thought batteries were very bad for the environment but with some limited looking my opinion has changed, they are probably just kinda bad... But much better than what we are doing now.

I voted "pass the oil" although I don't think there is much hope of sustaining our transportation needs with biodiesel in the near future. A combination would be good.

EVERYONE (else) Should get themselves an EV!

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by JasonG

Mining and processing the metals causes environmental damage that China, the biggest producer, is no longer willing to bear.

This is simply male bovine-sourced organic fertilizer. It's perfectly possible to mine & refine rare earths without causing more environmental damage than is caused by any other materials - like for instance the steel, aluminium, copper & lead that go into a conventional car. The thing is, it's far cheaper to mine anything if you don't clean up after yourself, and China has chosen to allow this. That's how China was able to undercut the rest of the world's prices for rare earths, and cause the cleaner producers to be shut down. Though some are reopening now that China is trying to squeeze the market, for instance MolyCorp's Mountain Pass mine: Molycorp Minerals - The Rare Earths Company

China's environmental standards WRT rare earth mining are exactly the same as its environmental standards WRT anything else: nonexistent unless Party-connected firms want to squeeze out other players.

[NeilBlanchard]

The Leaf doesn't use any rare earths at all. Typical AC motors are all copper windings. Lithium batteries are generally not toxic at all (unlike lead acid), and the materials are very valuable, so like lead acid, there will be a very high rate of recycling.

EV's use no oil for engine lubrication, so no waste oil or waste filters, etc. Since electric motors will last much longer than ICE's -- like up to 1,000,000 miles, the lifespan of the car will be limited by the chassis, and not the motor.

[Frank Lee]

Heh heh... it's people that are unsafe for the environment.

[roflwaffle]

And people are part of the environment, so it's the environment that's unsafe for the environment. Serves us right, being unsafe for ourselves.