DailyTech: Hybrids, EVs More Dangerous to U.S. Security Than Foreign Oil, Says Expert

There are huge deposits of "rare earths" in America, however it is too cheap to ship it to china and have them refine it, then ship it back to build our own refineries. This should become a priority asap. Sounds like something Toyota should put a few billion into and corner the market here on American soil.

 

Expert. Spare us. Obviously, there's higher cost sources for the same ores as the article mentioned that aren't currently being tapped (mined) - plus I would guess that there are (slightly) lower efficiency alternatives - unlike oil - if for some reason one of the 'rare' materials became unavailable.

 

So I would gather from that article only hybrids and EVs require such luxuries as a windshield, an LCD, various sensors, headlights, various motors (assuming power windows and things of that nature are what they are including), and catalytic converters.

Wow, these people are idiots... By the same token, they should stop buying computers, tv's, cell phones, basically anything electronic. It all has rare-earth materials in it.

 

About 2-3 years ago, I noticed the 'rare earths' investment noise machine cranking up. Usually found on web sites that claimed to be investor resources, it remains easy to disregard them because of their vested interest, commissions. Like the 'gold' merchants on FOX, they look like money changers . . . from mine to theirs.

We have a problem with policies hostile to manufacturing and mining. The recent coal disaster does not help. However, we've also converted our economic system from 'doing stuff' to 'passing money.' It is time to move the meter back a bit but not upon the blood of workers. Without trying to make this a political thread, like Nixon going to China, there may be a change blowing in the wind.

The essence of this article is selling 'fear' and though this is intellectually easy, it is also a great way to wind up with US military forces deployed in foreign lands. A better approach is to change policies that have made us into stock market gamblers. <grumble>

Bob Wilson

 

That article is complete nonsense. To make that false claim about "rare earth" metals in the first paragraph clearly show that this is simple scare mongering.


Here's some quotes about "rare earth metals" from wikipedia :

 

And even if some blumber-head believes this, why would it be bad? When you burn gas you are converting the hydrocarbons that took millenia to produce and wont reform for another millenia. When you make some piece out of a material, you can generally recycle most of it back if you wanted to (usually just cost prohibitive) whereas you cant trap your car's emmisions and compress it magically back into crude oil...

Just like all those people that smelt old computers and get the gold out.

 

I liked the part about the diesel fuel additive for the Prius.
Apparently, he was included in the Seminar to provide "balance" since he believes we should continue to use oil, natural gas and coal indefinitely, doesn't believe in AGW and thinks the US is tops in energy efficiency in the world (we use twice as much per person as the European Union).
How are rare earth minerals different from jeans, drywall, toys etc that come from China?
Oh, lanthanum is used in oil refineries too.

 

They are concern about 22 lbs of lanthanum that reduces 37,800 lbs of gasoline consumption and eliminate 120,000 lbs of CO2.

*Note: 50 MPG Prius compared with 25 MPG non-hybrid midsize for 150,000 miles. A gallon of gasoline weights 6.3 lbs and produces 20 lbs of CO2.

 

I looked into 'rare earth' metal investing a couple of years ago, and like Bob decided it was hooey. Eventually a recycling business may develop if cost is high enough.

 

I think there may be a web site somewhere that tells how a terrorist could melt down a Prius and make a portable nuclear weapon out of it. Now that's a real security threat.

 

You could have made quite a small (or large) fortune if you had been actively working commodities a few years back due to huge increases in demand (and price) before the economic recession. Some of that may have been a result of market manipulation, however.

More on topic, if prices become high enough, mining garbage dumps for these metals becomes a reasonable proposition. However the break-even is still pretty high.

There's gold in Japan's landfills - Times Online

 

The magnets in PM motors aren't consumed. Nor is the lithium in Li-Ion batteries.

That's a rather significant difference compared to oil.

In the meantime, there's entropy. We're all doomed in the end.

 

amen Bob and the exact point i was trying to make when discussing what GM's biggest mistake was. we did move from making products with value that we could trade for other products of value (or warehouse while waiting for a better price) to "funny money". iow, spending money on the promise of making more money which essentially over inflated both the stock and real estate markets to unsustainable levels.

problem is, the massive movement for slow steady savings to the "double your money in 3 years" attitude caused us to lose any savings we had which up till now is the reason the US was so powerful economically.

that is why we are in big big trouble now

 

who (what?) are these neo conservatives he speaks of? i'm afraid i might ressemble that remark.

 

Cigarette lighters.

"Mischmetal (from German: Mischmetall - "mixed metal") is an alloy of rare earth elements in various naturally-occurring proportions. It is also called cerium mischmetal, rare earth mischmetal or misch metal. A typical composition includes approximately 50% cerium and 25% lanthanum, with small amounts of neodymium and praseodymium. Its most common use is in the "flint" ignition device of many lighters and torches, although an alloy of only rare-earth elements would be too soft to give good sparks. For this purpose, it is blended with iron oxide and magnesium oxide to form a harder material known as ferrocerium."

from [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischmetal]Mischmetal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame].

According to http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/rare_earths/mcs-2010-raree.pdf, the US imported 125 tonnes of ferrocerium and exported nearly 4,500 tonnes in 2008.

We're probably throwing away more rare earth metals in spent lighters than go into hybrid car batteries.

 

Biased and ignorant is what I think. China is selling us their natural resources then lending us money. I don't like some of the lack of freedom in china, or in saudi arabia for that matter. Some of the oil money has direct funding for some of our enemies. I would much rather buy durable goods from China than continuously buying a consumed limited resource from saudi arabia or iran.

 

Bahhh !

I know for a fact there has been WAY too much rare earth now for over four decades.