Hybrid Cars Use less Gas But Exploit Rare Metals
As the nation is turning in their oil drinking clunkers and leaving car dealerships with hybrid and electric vehicles. The batteries and motors on those new vehicles, are made of a rare earth metals. Autonews.com broke the story earlier today.
Our planet will be giving up more resources besides Oil.
Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tons 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………
- This begs a few questions that the public has to raise; where will we find this rare metal now? What will happen when there is a shortage. Will we have to end up paying even more for cars due to the high input cost? Why wasn’t this a factor before everyone started to make the shift? Why wait until 2012 to reopen the earths mine? What if the demand for these vehicles exceed the supply that is available? The list of questions can go on for miles but that doesn’t change anything.
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.
Toyota plans to sell 100,000 Prius cars in the United States alone for 2009, and 180,000 next year. The company forecasts sales of 1 million units per year starting in 2010.
- Doesn’t this seem wrong that all of a sudden after “clunkers binge” we are now learning that the Prius uses the largest amount of rare metals in the world to make. That doesn’t seem to add up we are cleaning up the air but robbing the environment of the rarest metals to create vehicles.
Reuters reported last year that Japanese firms are showing strong interest in a Canadian rare earth site under development at Thor Lake in the Northwest Territories.
A Toyota spokeswoman in Los Angeles said the automaker would not comment on its resource development plans. But media accounts and industry blogs have reported recently that Toyota has looked at rare earth possibilities in Canada and Vietnam
- So as we speak there are plans to unearth these metals within the next year, if sales are expected to reach 1 million units per year. They would need to ensure that enough metal to supply the automakers. This is the most troubling aspect of this entire finding; the automakers did not comment on the development plans. Lets just hope that we dont have to end up in a war to control the earths precious metals.
Tags: 2012, alloy metals, battery cars, canada, cash for clunkers, electric cars, electric motors, ford, ford focus, GM, Honda, honda insight, hybrid cars, los angeles, rare metals, toyota, used autos, vietnam
September 1st, 2009 at 11:48 pm
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