Just had an eco warrior have a go at me telling me she is enviromentally friendly because she drives a fecking prius. Errrrrrrrr Not Likely! Batteries are an essential component of hybrids. Regenerative braking lets hybrids generate and store their own energy to power the vehicle at low speeds and while idling. Unfortunately, both nickel-hydride batteries and the newer lithium-ion batteries rely on the mining of nickel, copper and so-called rare earth metals. The production of lithium-ion batteries account for 2 to 5 percent of total lifetime hybrid emissions and nickel-hydride batteries are responsible for higher sulfur oxide emissions, roughly 10 kilograms per hybrid compared with about 1 kilogram for a conventional vehicle. There are additional environmental concerns related to those rare earth metals, like those used in the magnets of hybrid batteries. In recent years, rare earth metals like lithium have been imported almost exclusively from China, which was able to lower its prices enough to monopolize the industry. One of the reasons China could sell lithium so cheaply was because it widely ignored environmental safeguards during the mining process. In the Bayan Obo region of China, for example, miners removed topsoil and extracted the gold-flecked metals using acids that entered the groundwater, destroying nearby agricultural land. Even the normally tight-lipped Chinese government admitted that rare earth mining has been abused in some places. But ultimately it is the crap taken to make the damn things. All the parts are shipped from all over the planet to be constructed. Basically - If you calculate all of the pollution created from the manufacturing (just building it) of a prius it works out the same as the construction of a Range Rover and running it for 5 years. Environmentally friendly my ass!
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 22:06:13 +0000
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