Posted on 08/31/2009 8:58:12 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
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.
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. One promising U.S. source is a rare earths mine slated to reopen in California by 2012.
Among the rare earths that would be most affected in a shortage is neodymium, the key component of an alloy used to make the high-power, lightweight magnets for electric motors of hybrid cars, such as the Prius, Honda Insight and Ford Focus, as well as in generators for wind turbines.
Close cousins terbium and dysprosium are added in smaller amounts to the alloy to preserve neodymium's magnetic properties at high temperatures. Yet another rare earth metal, lanthanum, is a major ingredient for hybrid car batteries.
Production of both hybrids cars and wind turbines is expected to climb sharply amid the clamor for cleaner transportation and energy alternatives that reduce dependence on fossil fuels blamed for global climate change.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
That guy seems to have 6 fingers!
Hey, I have a GREAT idea! Let’s run cars off of giant batteries. Then we wouldn’t need to drill for oil or produce energy.
What do you think?
Something else should be built and used instead of a vehicle that totally relies upon another nation to keep running.
Myself I would go into CNG, its actually possible for me an individual to pump my own natural gas and compress it to use in my vehicle, and even if there are those that wish to control it there is many other ways to get around taxation.
Screw China and their vision of world economic domination, and screw the Prius.
Where did the other 4 fingers go?
Someone tell me again why we are building this JUNK?? When we have 300 years of Fuel in the ground.
Perhaps it is because they are all agents and supporters if Internationalism and the One World Society (where, of course, they get to be the elite and live like kings while 99% of the people on this planet live like commodities - visit a feed lot sometime...)
This is a more to-the-point article from a week ago:
The Chinese manipulate the prices of these rare earths to discourage development of alternate sources, but the fact is, they have huge reserves compared to the rest of the planet.
No, I mean 6 fingers on one hand!
Well, that, and the shortages of Electricity to come, and Crap & Tax, tripling the cost of electricity, shutting down 54% of our Electrical producers down. (Coal)
And don’t forget to cut off nose to spite face. Or, let the public in on that dirty little secret that not one vehicle will be produced without oil. You know, little items like plastics, lubrication, solvents, carpet, synthetic rubber, or coal for steel. Just add another 50% to the price tag and less than half of the population that can afford one without the government financing them. (Now, where have I heard that before?)
Maybe it will change after Americans all discover that Hussein earBama will erase 25% of their income buy letting the Bush tax cuts expire and shutting down our coal plants by making it unprofitable to produce electricity after crap and trade is enacted.
I hope that environmentalist becomes a curse word in the future. I want a clean environment, it’s just environmentalists are now more about micromanaging people’s liberty and freedoms away.
Prius (and other hybrid electrics) are an ecological disaster. Much better is a turbo diesel with about the same mileage.
Like where the electricity to power such extraction plants -- and electric cars, too! -- will come from. And then there's the problem of disposing of all those exotic batteries. We can't even figure out how to deal with disposing of the fluorescent light bulbs the government's mandated.
At least China has shown its hand.
It has told world users - we do NOT intend to be a long-term, low cost, fair, reliable supplier!
Russia/Former USSR has most of the rare earths, but they are hoarding them for their military.
“Extract the necessary elements from sea water. EVERY natural element that exists in the earth’s crust is dissolved as part of some ion in sea water, and all you have to do is go through several cubic miles of same, combing out all the desired compounds, and discarding the remainder back into the sea.”
Brilliant...smart guy. Never thought of that. We can get our oil too, that way.
...wait, tankers are now double-walled...no more leakage. Looks like we’ll have to wait until the whales show up in our internationally-recognized territorial waters if we want oil.
Foreign oil dependence might be reduced, but the same people will still have us by the short hairs.
As long as the car manufactures work in a free market we have nothing to worry about.
Of course there has to be some rules but what the EPA and the evniro Groups have done is cause more damage to this country than any Enemy could hope for, Note I left Zero out of the mix his chapter in our demise is not yet finished.
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