The Dirty Secret Inside Your Prius

[donnay]

The Dirty Secret Inside Your Prius

'Rare earth' mining can hurt the environment
By Neal Colgrass, Newser Staff
http://www.newser.com/story/133317/...tm_source=syn&utm_medium=wid&utm_campaign=240
Posted Nov 14, 2011 6:05 PM CST

(Newser) – So, you bought a Prius or know someone who has. Beautiful. But look under the hood and you'll find some neodymium, one of the "rare earth" minerals that help run all kinds of green technology—and other high-tech stuff like smartphones and flat-screen TVs. So far so good, but rare-earth mining can be environmentally destructive, reportedly causing cancer and leaking radioactive waste in some cases. What's more, the rare-earth mining business is booming, Mother Jones reports.

With China cutting its rare-earth exports, more mines are set to open in the US—including the world's biggest, in California's Mojave Desert. But producing 40,000 tons of the stuff every year means there will be waste, and the owner, Molycorp, has raised concerns with its history of spills. So what to do, if you're green-conscious? Pressure companies to stay clean, experts say. "We need this stuff," says a mining consultant. "It's just a matter of figuring out how to do it right, and unfortunately, the mining industry doesn't have a strong history of doing this." (On the lighter side, read about a bear who took a Prius on a joyride.)

 

[aGameOfThrones]

 

[Anti Federalist]

Get the everfucking EPA out of the way, and let us build and buy 70 mpg standard turbo diesel cars.

 

[Zippyjuan]

The other question for electric cars is how is the electricity being produced to charge the batteries with? That may come from burning coal or other fossil fuels.
Gold mining also produces tons of toxic wastes. Mercury is often used to separate it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/2859694...ent/t/mercury-gold-mining-poses-toxic-threat/

updated 1/10/2009 11:19:07 PM ET


KERENGPANGI, Indonesia — A gold miner stands waist-deep in a polluted pond, dumps a capful of mercury into a bucket of ore and mixes it in with his bare hands.

The darting liquid metal wraps itself around the gold to form a silver pellet the size of a marble.

The use of mercury in gold mining is illegal in Indonesia because it is toxic to both human health and the environment. But the price of gold has tripled since 2001, and mercury is the easiest way to extract it.

"Of course I'm worried," said miner Handoko, 23, a grim man in a baseball hat who goes by one name. "But this is the job."

Tens of thousands of remote mining sites have sprung up mostly in Asia, Latin America and Africa, using as much as 1,000 tons of mercury each year. The mercury ravages the nervous system of miners and their families. It also travels thousands of miles in the atmosphere, settling in oceans and river beds in Europe and North America and moving up the food chain into fish.

Small-scale gold mining is the second-worst source of mercury pollution in the world, after the burning of fossil fuels. And Indonesia ranks behind only China in the use of mercury in gold mining.

Mercury's impact is evident in mining regions like Central Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo. Acres of tropical forest are now virtual desert. Villagers say fish populations have dropped by 70 percent. The Galangan gold mining site stretches several miles, stripped of trees and dotted with mercury-laced ponds.

"This area is finished," said Fauzi Achmad, a gold shop owner, as he drove past the moonscape-like dunes and abandoned mine sites.

Or cyanide.

http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/1120.html

The use and disposal of cyanide solutions used to dissolve and extract gold is another environmental concern. Cyanide is a well known poison; hydrogen cyanide is acutely toxic to humans and, in its gaseous state, can be fatal at exposure levels of 100 to 300 parts per million (ppm). Cyanide is likewise harmful to wildlife such as mammals, birds, and fish which can have acute toxicity reactions to even low cyanide exposures. Cyanide does not, however, accumulate or biomagnify, so prolonged exposure to sub-toxic levels does not, in most cases, appear to pose health risks.

The most significant risk from use of cyanide solutions in gold mining is possible leaching into soil and groundwater. There exists the potential for catastrophic cyanide spills that could inundate an ecosystem with toxic levels of cyanide. In 2000, heavy rain, ice, and snow caused a breach in a tailings dam (tailings are the cyanide-treated ore wastes, from which gold has been removed) at a gold mine in Baia Mare, Romania resulting in the release of 100,000 cubic meters of cyanide-rich waste into the surrounding watershed. Drinking water supplies were cut off for 2.5 million people and nearly all of the fish in the surrounding waters were killed.

 

[dbill27]

Having a prius makes me feel better than other people. Nothing else matters to me.

 

[donnay]

Having a prius makes me feel better than other people. Nothing else matters to me.

Could be the leaking radioactive waste that makes you glow.

 

[Kludge]

The other question for electric cars is how is the electricity being produced to charge the batteries with? That may come from burning coal or other fossil fuels.

fwiw, generating the electricity in a car using fossil fuels is way less efficient than producing at power plants. Internal combustion engines (using gasoline) are right around 15% efficient at extracting electricity from gas, and the rest ends up as heat or simply pushed out the exhaust pipe. Coal plants are ~37-44% efficient at extracting electricity from coal, and natural gas plants are 33-35% efficient at extracting the energy as electricity. Electric car efficiency varies greatly depending on the make, but it's generally 75-90% efficient in converting electricity to movement. Even if we assume all the lowest figures, there's a 10% efficiency gain using an electric vehicle.

Rare earths are expensive, electric car technology has only recently begun seriously re-emerging, so it seems reasonable that improvements will minimize rare earth consumption while further increasing efficiency. NiMH car batteries, which are for whatever reason (probably price -- I have no idea how much such a large battery costs), still used in some US cars like the Prius, require an enormous amount of rare earths (Tesla cars, however, do use Li-Ion battery packs). Cobalt Li-Ion batteries which are most common now are more efficient, environmentally friendly, and have a significantly higher energy density compared to NiMH. In the next decade or so, I think we'll slowly see LiFePO4 batteries used in the US for cars, too (probably in Europe, where LiFePO4 is already commonly used), which'll further increase efficiency, and have a much longer cycle life than the typical cobalt Li-Ions. The environmental impact would be quite negligible compared to continuing use of gasoline simply because in a car's life, using LiFePO4, it'll only ever need one battery. At any rate, it's the lead-acid batteries which are, by far, most damaging for the environment, and is in virtually every internal-combustion car.

 

[Zippyjuan]

Thanks for the info!

 

[ZanZibar]

Did anyone else misread this thread title? LOL

 

[DamianTV]

 

[fisharmor]

Kludge, I'm sure you know this, but the neodymium they're mining is used in the production of the motors.
Nd magnets are the strongest magnets to date, and they're designing motors around having permanent Nd magnets in order to increase power to weight ratio.
The thing I'm not clear on is whether Tesla Motors is doing this. I know they use an induction motor and induction motors don't generally use permanent magnets.
I wish I could find out more specifics about the motor... I look periodically because I'm convinced a 248hp motor that's smaller than a watermelon is the way forward... people aren't going to buy electric cars, even after the battery problem is figured out, until they can haul 4 kids, groceries, and a boat.

 

[Elwar]

I have read that the creation of a Prius pollutes more than the lifetime pollution of older vehicles.

But I would still buy a plug in electric for the sake of going off-grid. No matter the political or polluting reasons.

 

[Becker]

I don't care. I never cared about the environment, I just care about not paying oil companies. I also like saving electricity.

 

[LirvA]

hideous fucking cars imo

 

[Kludge]

Kludge, I'm sure you know this, but the neodymium they're mining is used in the production of the motors.
Nd magnets are the strongest magnets to date, and they're designing motors around having permanent Nd magnets in order to increase power to weight ratio.
The thing I'm not clear on is whether Tesla Motors is doing this. I know they use an induction motor and induction motors don't generally use permanent magnets.
I wish I could find out more specifics about the motor... I look periodically because I'm convinced a 248hp motor that's smaller than a watermelon is the way forward... people aren't going to buy electric cars, even after the battery problem is figured out, until they can haul 4 kids, groceries, and a boat.

I'm happy enough to hang around RV homes and enjoy seeing the roads dominated by electric vehicles. .... And then some asshole drives around in a gas-powered golf cart. Err... Sorry, just woke up.

Anyway - found this on the Tesla Motors blog:

"...

With brushless machines, the rotor includes two or more permanent magnets that generate a DC magnetic field (as seen from the vantage point of the rotor). In turn, this magnetic field enters the stator core (a core made up of thin, stacked laminations) and interacts with currents flowing within the windings to produce a torque interaction between the rotor and stator. As the rotor rotates, it is necessary that the magnitude and polarity of the stator currents be continuously varied – and in just the right way - such that the torque remains constant and the conversion of electrical to mechanical energy is optimally efficient. The device that provides this current control is called an inverter. Without it, brushless motors are useless motors.

Let’s move on to induction motor drives. A forerunner of the 3-phase induction motor was invented by Nikola Tesla sometime before 1889. Curiously, the stators for the 3-phase induction motor and the DC brushless motor are virtually identical. Both have three sets of “distributed windings” that are inserted within the stator core. The essential difference between the two machines is with the rotor.

Unlike the DC brushless rotor, the induction rotor has no magnets – just stacked steel laminations with buried peripheral conductors that form a “shorted structure.” Currents flowing in the stator windings produce a rotating magnetic field that enters the rotor. In turn, the frequency of this magnetic field as “seen” by the rotor is equal to the difference between the applied electrical frequency and the rotational “frequency” of the rotor itself. Accordingly, an induced voltage exists across the shorted structure that is proportionate to this speed difference between the rotor and electrical frequency. In response to this voltage, currents are produced within the rotor conductors that are approximately proportionate to the voltage, hence the speed difference. Finally, these currents interact with the original magnetic field to produce forces – a component of which is the desired rotor torque.

...

Back in the 1990s all of the electric vehicles except one were powered by DC brushless drives. Today, all the hybrids are powered by DC brushless drives, with no exceptions. The only notable uses of induction drives have been the General Motors EV-1; the AC Propulsion vehicles, including the tzero; and the Tesla Roadster.

..."

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/induction-versus-dc-brushless-motors

 

[Becker]

until they can haul 4 kids, groceries, and a boat.

because obviously everybody in America has and can afford to have 4 kids, and a boat.

 

[Nate-ForLiberty]

I have read that the creation of a Prius pollutes more than the lifetime pollution of older vehicles.

But I would still buy a plug in electric for the sake of going off-grid. No matter the political or polluting reasons.

Better to go diesel and use used cooking oil or something. That way you don't have to worry about a super duper hard to find battery dying out on you. Keep it simple.

 

[squarepusher]

5 star and favorite

 

[CaptainAmerica]

The u.s. government mined plutonium and uranium from allover Arizona since the 1940s and has left many of the radioactive mines open and with leaking isotopes. Wonderful isnt it...the water table poisoned with radioactive minerals from decades ago..most arizonans are not even aware of the presence of thousands of open radioactive mines in az.

 

[Nate-ForLiberty]

The u.s. government mined plutonium and uranium from allover Arizona since the 1940s and has left many of the radioactive mines open and with leaking isotopes. Wonderful isnt it...the water table poisoned with radioactive minerals from decades ago..most arizonans are not even aware of the presence of thousands of open radioactive mines in az.

This year (just a few months ago) they found trace amounts of uranium in Houston's water supply.