Precious Earth Metals

i'm cancelling my pip. going for an escalade. wait, how does using up the precious metals destroy the earth?

 

I think you mean rare earth metals, not precious earth metals.

Anything that uses an electric motor and related components are using rare earth metals these days.

 

Many kinds of lamps, yes.

here is a list with common uses.

Rare earth element - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Why do we need to "think" when the facts are available. Every metal used in the Prius is used in every other major car built. This is a fact. So now you can ask your friend exactly what metal is being talked about. Hand them the periodic table and ask them to point out the elements being used up. They will be clueless.

The actual metals that triggered this question are mostly Neodymium, Dysprosium, and Samarium. These are what modern magnets use. I repeat----magnets. The Prius is not the only car with magnets inside. These elements are relatively common, but extracted from mines in China and the Chinese do this in the cheapest manner possible. So the issue should be directed to the chinese, not Prius owners.

 

As I understand it, these REEs never get as highly concentrated (by geological processes) as do other metals we mine and use. So after locating a good enough deposit, you need to do a lot of processing to extract commercial quantities of the purified metals.

It would certainly be an interesting project to see how to make REE extraction more efficient and with less byproducts. You can actually do that with gold and a particular species of bacteria.

I suppose that more than one group is quietly working on that already. But (and I suppose FL prius would agree), the breakthrough may not come from China.

Maybe last year, I read that Australia was opening up new REE mining projects. Mountain Pass in the US is supposed to come (back) online next year.

As I understand it, the REEs (different ones) used in catalytic converters are the only ones that are being recycled now to any extent. Electric motors (and their strong magnets) tend to have very long service lives.

Computer hard drives have shorter (sometimes much shorter!) service lives, but there's not much NdFeB in there.

 

This is true, but there is an additional complication: rare earth elements are all nearly identical from a chemical standpoint. This is why they are shown on the periodic table as a separate loop at the bottom. At one time people thought they were all the same element, but over time each was separated from the others. The original process of separation was very slow and laborious. We now have better commercial methods, but it is still a complex process.

Tom

 

China is having to work through the exact same issues the US and Australia did a few decades back. The problem is not the country, it's the intense incentive all mining corporations have to exploit and run. I'm not an expert on all the details but the following summary shows that the Chinese, like the USA from an earlier era, are starting down the necessary path of stopping pure exploitation for their own sustainability.


RARE EARTHS IN CHINA: SUPPLIES, MINING, EXPORT QUOTAS AND POLLUTION - China | Facts and Details

 

Thanks FL. A tangential topic (but I usually post them anyway).

CH also has a lot of coal-mining injuries and deaths. Generally when we hear of them on the local news, the mines involved are described as illegal observations. I'm sorry, but the concept of an illegal coal mine operating makes my head threaten to explode.

I mean that for a coal mine to make money, it needs an outflow of filled trucks or a train track with coal cars. These are not small objects. Takes time also. If these things are illegal, how can they go unnoticed?

 

in the u.s., i'd say they're legal, but probably operating under illegal safety conditions.

 

As a former gold miner, increasing technology can help with this. Modern gold mining can be profitable at 0.1 ounce per ton of ore, so it is worth while to reprocess old tailings, cleaning up 1920's and before era technology. As we develop new ways to process rare earths, former mines may become profitable to clean up, as has been true since about 1980 in gold mining.

My employer was VERY interested in the breakup of the USSR, as the soviets had never progressed past 1920's methods. We had hopes of getting permission to reclaim Russian gold mines.

Just wanted you to know we can get past exploit and run.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lYPYv6kEzok
This mine was abandoned when my ex-employer acquired it in 2006.

 

Here is an article about recycling Hybrid NiMH batteries for rare earth metals. I assume Hoboken is NJ. Also discusses hybrid battery uses about 2-Kg rare earth metals. "Rare earth" metals are not as rare as the name would suggest. Can you imagine if a Prius battery contained 2-Kg of gold? Now that's a precious (rare) metal and would cost about $100,000 - did I calc correctly Jimbo?.

Rare earth metals extracted from rechargeable batteries | E-waste and Batteries - Belgium / France - Recycling News | Recycling International - recycling magazine for professionals by professionals |

Most people/scientists seem to feel Prius is a very good balance of resource conservation, due to relatively modest size hybrid battery.

 

2 kg = 64.3 troy ounces
The most recent 'fix' I know for gold is $1,706.56 per troy ounce.
so $109,731.80 for 2 kg of gold, yes

Gold is rare, but lumps of gold are found in nature. The rare earths are way less rare, but they resemble each other and and are not naturally concentrated. Cerium is about as common as copper, but it was not recognized as a separate element until 1803, (the sample was only 45% cerium) and not successfully purified until 1830.

 

"Rare Earth" is an unfortunate name. It gives people the wrong impression, not understanding the use of "rare" in this context. "Imaginary Numbers" suffer in a similar way, even though they are every bit as real as "real" numbers.

Tom

 

Thank goodness it's the darn Chinese who are at fault.

And since that country is so far away from ours, there's no chance anything they do could possibly have an effect on the environment over here!

I feel better already.

_________

Just as drug addicts create a market for drug dealers, so too do car owners create a market for cheap and dirty extraction of rare earth metals (not to mention petroleum products and a million other things).

 

what is this

 

Industrial production uses resources. All forms of consumption (eating, driving, home heating, buying stuff) use resources. There is nothing "special" about rare earth elements. The OP's question has a two-part answer:

1. The overall impact of the production of a Prius is less than the overall impact of the production of most other cars, and especially of SUVs because of the lower total input of materials and energy due to high-tech production methods. Rare earth elements are a red herring. They do not have a significantly greater impact than the other materials that go into building a car.

2. Over the lifetime of the car, a Prius uses far less fuel than the average car, and perhaps less than half as much as an SUV. This has implications for carbon emissions and global climate change, resource depletion, balance of trade, and the economics of terrorism, which is principally financed by oil revenues.

Thus the argument about rare earth elements is FUD, promoted by people who like to drive large vehicles, or who imagine that the so-called American car companies are somehow more American than the Japanese car companies. All the big car companies are transnational, with no loyalty to any nation, and no special benefits for their "home" nation.

 

As far as I know, the only way for the Chinese to improve their mining practices is for their government to establish and enforce regulations. Were you thinking that my original post was meant to insult?

 

So you're for big government and regulation of private industry? For some reason I thought you felt otherwise...?