Lord, What Fools These Moralists Be
I’ve always heard that the energy drain necessary to make a hybrid car was greater than that to make a SUV or pickup—but now we know even more:
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.
Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tonnes annually in several years unless major new production sources are developed.
…
Jack Lifton, an independent commodities consultant and strategic metals expert, calls the Prius “the biggest user of rare earths of any object in the world.”
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.
If you haven’t keyed a Prius just for the superiority of their owners, now you have an ecological reason. Please don’t; I would never encourage anyone to break the law. But I’m sure there are some EarthFirsters out there who know without any help from me how to handle resource hogs like Prius owners.
Carol said,
August 31, 2009 @ 6:47 pm
According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), “These elements are in fact fairly abundant in nature, although rare as compared to the “common” earths such as lime or magnesia. Cerium is the 26th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, neodymium is more abundant than gold and even thulium (the least common naturally-occurring lanthanoid) is more abundant than iodine.”
So the problem isn’t that the “rare earths” are rare; the problem is where they are. Sino delenda est.
(That’s the best I could come up with for “China” in Latin.)
Joe O'Neill said,
August 31, 2009 @ 11:41 pm
What about the poor bastards working in the Lithium mines ?