As hybrid cars gobble rare metals, shortage looms...

[Y2HH]

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57U02B20090831

 

Way to trade on finite resource in for another.

 

Since I really love irony, I really love this.

[iamshack]

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57U02B20090831

 

Way to trade on finite resource in for another.

 

Since I really love irony, I really love this.

 

It's just another reason why more R & D is required; these things need to be thought out and planned for more than this.

[NorthSideSox72]

This sort of thing makes me laugh, because it really exposes the lack of understanding of many on both sides of the issue.

 

On the one hand, you have "environmentalists" (many who, in my view, really don't understand what that means), who think that by buying a hybrid, that means the improvement in lowering emissions and fuel usage is pure "profit" in terms of lowering environmental impact. This is delusional. Any new technology of this sort will always result in some number of unintended (or even intended) negative consequence (cost), in exchange for the payoff. The need for the batteries in these things to have certain metals in them means more mining of those substances, higher demand, and rising prices in them. Just the natural consequence.

 

But on the other hand, you have the people who seem adamantly against any sort of progress towards improving the environment, that they enjoy pointing gleefully at any sort of downfall in the attempts. So, they see this consequence, and say "see, it doesn't work!!!" Which of course is absurd. Of course it works, but there is an offset. Heck, even solar energy will probably be shown later to have some sort of negative consequence. What the eeyores fail to acknowledge though, is the same thing the enviro-whackos fail to acknowledge - that there are two sides to the equation. There are gains, but the gains have costs. And its not a liner function either, its curved - things will get better as the technology matures, and even if you just "break even" in terms of environmental consequence, you are making good ground towards doing better. Its taking a short term bad for the larger long term good.

 

Also throw into this an X factor in properly evaluating the impact - that increased mining and metal costs, when compared to lowering emissions and fuel usage, is not a true apples-to-apples comparison. So, there will always be subjectivity. To me, the increased mining for certain metals is a very small price to pay for the lowering of oil use and emissions, because the overall impact of the positives on the lives of most Americans is far greater than slightly more expensive nickel and a couple extra holes in the ground. That, however, is an opinion.

 

So go wild, all you wing nuts - here is your ammo for lobbing nonsense across the aisle. Sure would be nice if we could see the other side from there.

 

[StrangeSox]

This sort of thing makes me laugh, because it really exposes the lack of understanding of many on both sides of the issue.

 

On the one hand, you have "environmentalists" (many who, in my view, really don't understand what that means), who think that by buying a hybrid, that means the improvement in lowering emissions and fuel usage is pure "profit" in terms of lowering environmental impact. This is delusional. Any new technology of this sort will always result in some number of unintended (or even intended) negative consequence (cost), in exchange for the payoff. The need for the batteries in these things to have certain metals in them means more mining of those substances, higher demand, and rising prices in them. Just the natural consequence.

But on the other hand, you have the people who seem adamantly against any sort of progress towards improving the environment, that they enjoy pointing gleefully at any sort of downfall in the attempts. So, they see this consequence, and say "see, it doesn't work!!!" Which of course is absurd. Of course it works, but there is an offset. Heck, even solar energy will probably be shown later to have some sort of negative consequence. What the eeyores fail to acknowledge though, is the same thing the enviro-whackos fail to acknowledge - that there are two sides to the equation. There are gains, but the gains have costs. And its not a liner function either, its curved - things will get better as the technology matures, and even if you just "break even" in terms of environmental consequence, you are making good ground towards doing better. Its taking a short term bad for the larger long term good.

 

Also throw into this an X factor in properly evaluating the impact - that increased mining and metal costs, when compared to lowering emissions and fuel usage, is not a true apples-to-apples comparison. So, there will always be subjectivity. To me, the increased mining for certain metals is a very small price to pay for the lowering of oil use and emissions, because the overall impact of the positives on the lives of most Americans is far greater than slightly more expensive nickel and a couple extra holes in the ground. That, however, is an opinion.

 

So go wild, all you wing nuts - here is your ammo for lobbing nonsense across the aisle. Sure would be nice if we could see the other side from there.

 

Many environmentalists are anti-science, anti-intelligence, and anti-knowingwhatthehellthey'retalkingabout.

 

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/08/more-anti-scien.html

 

I know Greenpeace has talked about an "American Chernobyl", completely ignoring the technological differences between Soviet and American nuclear reactors.

 

For the second bolded part, I've read people make the argument that, because they tried electric cars in the early 20th century and internal combustion engines won out, electric cars will never succeed. Oh, and battery technology is virtually unchanged for the last century. :facepalm:

Edited September 1, 2009 by StrangeSox

[southsider2k5]

This sort of thing makes me laugh, because it really exposes the lack of understanding of many on both sides of the issue.

 

On the one hand, you have "environmentalists" (many who, in my view, really don't understand what that means), who think that by buying a hybrid, that means the improvement in lowering emissions and fuel usage is pure "profit" in terms of lowering environmental impact. This is delusional. Any new technology of this sort will always result in some number of unintended (or even intended) negative consequence (cost), in exchange for the payoff. The need for the batteries in these things to have certain metals in them means more mining of those substances, higher demand, and rising prices in them. Just the natural consequence.

 

But on the other hand, you have the people who seem adamantly against any sort of progress towards improving the environment, that they enjoy pointing gleefully at any sort of downfall in the attempts. So, they see this consequence, and say "see, it doesn't work!!!" Which of course is absurd. Of course it works, but there is an offset. Heck, even solar energy will probably be shown later to have some sort of negative consequence. What the eeyores fail to acknowledge though, is the same thing the enviro-whackos fail to acknowledge - that there are two sides to the equation. There are gains, but the gains have costs. And its not a liner function either, its curved - things will get better as the technology matures, and even if you just "break even" in terms of environmental consequence, you are making good ground towards doing better. Its taking a short term bad for the larger long term good.

 

Also throw into this an X factor in properly evaluating the impact - that increased mining and metal costs, when compared to lowering emissions and fuel usage, is not a true apples-to-apples comparison. So, there will always be subjectivity. To me, the increased mining for certain metals is a very small price to pay for the lowering of oil use and emissions, because the overall impact of the positives on the lives of most Americans is far greater than slightly more expensive nickel and a couple extra holes in the ground. That, however, is an opinion.

 

So go wild, all you wing nuts - here is your ammo for lobbing nonsense across the aisle. Sure would be nice if we could see the other side from there.

 

It probably has something to do with constantly being told that what you believe in somehow makes you less of a person. Plus it isn't like we don't always here the screaming stories about depletion and extinctions being generated. Heck I could even mention all of similiar times people take one story about one, or even a few, religious people who do something wrong, and that is used to indict entire faiths and dogmas. In other words it happens here all of the time.

[Texsox]

I remember sitting in on a golf course committee which was discussing the new fleet of golf carts being purchased. Somene mentioned they were happy we were going to "non polluting" electric carts. I had to mention there was still pollution happening, it was just shifted from the course to wherever the electricity was being generated. A couple people actually believed that electricity just spontaneously appears at each outlet. They had no concept of generating electricity and using fuels to do it.

[NorthSideSox72]

I remember sitting in on a golf course committee which was discussing the new fleet of golf carts being purchased. Somene mentioned they were happy we were going to "non polluting" electric carts. I had to mention there was still pollution happening, it was just shifted from the course to wherever the electricity was being generated. A couple people actually believed that electricity just spontaneously appears at each outlet. They had no concept of generating electricity and using fuels to do it.

And that is yet another example of the two sided issue. Pollution doesn't stop - it shifts - but to a much more efficient generation method. so there is improvement, but not absolute improvement.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

It probably has something to do with constantly being told that what you believe in somehow makes you less of a person. Plus it isn't like we don't always here the screaming stories about depletion and extinctions being generated. Heck I could even mention all of similiar times people take one story about one, or even a few, religious people who do something wrong, and that is used to indict entire faiths and dogmas. In other words it happens here all of the time.

That was more or less the point I was making (taking out the actual issue at hand).

 

[Balta1701]

There are plenty of rare metals on earth.

 

The problem is...like a lot of things...there aren't always a lot of cheap rare metals on earth. Getting to them and concentrating them will take energy. If energy is coming from fossil fuels, and thus is non-renewable and gets more expensive the more you need...then you have a metals shortage.

 

If you can generate energy renewably...then using up that energy to do difficult things like concentrating metals from low grade ore deposits isn't such a big deal.

 

It all comes back to energy.