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Chinese pay toxic price for a green world
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05-01-2011 11:04pm#1times article hereJust outside the heavily polluted industrial city of Baotou, Inner Mongolia, surrounded by smokestacks, lies a lake with no name.
At this time of year the lake bed freezes into waves of solid mud. In summer, locals say, it oozes a viscous, red liquid. It is a “tailing lake”, where toxic rare earth elements from a mine 100 miles away are stored for further processing.
Seepage from the lake has poisoned the surrounding farmland. “The crops stopped growing after being watered in these fields,” said Wang Cun Gang, a farmer. The local council paid villagers compensation for loss of income. “They tested our water and concluded that neither people nor animals should drink it, nor is it usable for irrigation.”
This is the price Chinese peasants are paying for the low carbon future. Rare earths, a class of metallic elements that are highly reactive, are essential for the next generation of “green” technologies. The battery in a Toyota Prius car contains more than 22lb of lanthanum. Low-energy lightbulbs need terbium. The permanent magnets used in a 3 megawatt wind turbine use 2 tons of neodymium and other rare earths.
In small workshops near Baotou, workers wearing no protective clothing watch over huge vats of acid and other chemicals, steam rising from rusty pipes, as they stir and bag toxic liquids and powders, turning the rare earth elements into compounds and oxides for further processing into batteries and magnets. Wearing no masks, they breathe air heavy with fumes and dust and handle chemicals without gloves.
A thousand miles to the southeast, in Jiangxi province, the extraction process is more damaging. Green hills are studded with makeshift plants which pump acid into the earth. Last September villagers in Pitou county blocked lorries carrying chemicals and picketed the council, angry that their fields had been ruined.
“We farm rice but cannot harvest anything any more,” said a woman, who was afraid to give her name because her husband is still in prison for protesting. “Fruit trees don’t bear fruit any more. Fish die in the river. We used to wash in the river and lots of fish would come to us, but there are none left. Even the weeds died.”
Officially the polluting plants have been closed down, but villagers say they still operate at night, under armed guard, with the collusion of local Communist party leaders who help mafia bosses keep the lucrative trade going.
Yep here we have it, a darker shade of green :rolleyes:
Those shiny turbines we are buying from the Chinese, now the largest manufacturer of them and also country which controls 95% of rare earth production.
Result in huge environmental damage, one needs to dig huge amounts of ore to extract small amounts of rare earth (hence the name rare), an energy intensive process which uses mostly dirty coal generate energy.
We are effectively exporting our pollution to China, I wonder what do the environmentalists here have to say about this darker side of "green" technologies ...
another article here
and another from same city
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Have you seen what an open cast coal mine looks like?
Rare earth mines are even bigger and more damaging, the concentration of the rare earths in ores is very small (hence the name rare) in some cases even smaller than gold in gold ore
Thats one of the reason's China has 95% or more of the worlds supplies, they are simply too dirty to operate anywhere else, there are rare ores in places like australia,us and canada but the more stringent laws means much higher cost and not being able to compete with China
Higher costs of these metals would mean even higher costs of turbines, as outlined in the article typical 3MW turbine has 2tons of the rare earths
And thats before we get to cars and their electric cells, lookup lithium mining in Andes
The Chinese are building a new coal plant every week, refining and mining for rare earths takes huge amounts of energy mostly derived from dirty coalHave you seen what an open cast coal mine looks like?
As I said not so Green, people on this forum seem to get carried away and talk as if Wind turbines grow from the ground and electric cars are delivered by Santa
, I think its important that these issues are highlighted and brought to discussion. Theres no such thing as free lunch, in case of China its a toxic lunch. 0 -
Rare earth mines are even bigger and more damaging, the concentration of the rare earths in ores is very small (hence the name rare) in some cases even smaller than gold in gold ore
Thats one of the reason's China has 95% or more of the worlds supplies, they are simply too dirty to operate anywhere else, there are rare ores in places like australia,us and canada but the more stringent laws means much higher cost and not being able to compete with China
Higher costs of these metals would mean even higher costs of turbines, as outlined in the article typical 3MW turbine has 2tons of the rare earths
And thats before we get to cars and their electric cells, lookup lithium mining in Andes
The Chinese are building a new coal plant every week, refining and mining for rare earths takes huge amounts of energy mostly derived from dirty coal
Again, all action should be viewed in consideration of the altneratives.
True but please keep the comments about "people on this forum" out of the discussion.As I said not so Green, people on this forum seem to get carried away and talk as if Wind turbines grow from the ground and electric cars are delivered by Santa, I think its important that these issues are highlighted and brought to discussion. Theres no such thing as free lunch, in case of China its a toxic lunch.0 -
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No, I wouldn't consider gas greener because with wind, 90% of the cost and 99% of the environmental damage is in the turbine manufacture and installation. With gas, the environmental damage is in the extraction, plant construction and throughout the running of the plant.
When all these are taken into consideration (and not just ghg emissions at that), I would consider wind and other renewables to have a smaller environmental impact.
Having said that, I would have to look around for some studies. I saw some a while ago...could dig them out.
Edit: Also, gas and renewables work very well together so I see, in the near future anyway, gas and renewables plus some nuclear being the most likely path for Europe.
Actually we are doing the planet a favour by burning all that methane (natural gas) since its 40x more potent than CO2.
You wouldn't want all this methane to find its way into atmosphere, as its doing already on its own in places like Russian tundra.
Anyways considering this country has more cattle than people farting and pooping away methane in the fields this country aint exactly green. 0 -
Tell me you're joking.Actually we are doing the planet a favour by burning all that methane (natural gas) since its 40x more potent than CO2.
You wouldn't want all this methane to find its way into atmosphere, as its doing already on its own in places like Russian tundra.
Anyways considering this country has more cattle than people farting and pooping away methane in the fields this country aint exactly green.0 -
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