Could REM kill the hybrid?
Rare earth metals that isToyota is facing a potential shortage of rare metals that could limit production of hybrid cars according many news stories recently. As it turns it out, China is hording natural resources, rare earth metals in this instance, it deems important to long term viability. Likewise, there are hints that exports could be severely limited into the future, even the very near future.
Currently, China accounts for 97 percent of the world's supply of rare earth metals.
Fortunately, however, there are companies and mines in the US capable of a significant uptick in rare earth metal mining. Unfortunately, there aren't any rare earth metal refineries or processors in the entire United States according to CNBC reporting. So there is some cause for pause.
Ultimately, REM's probably won't kill the hybrid, but if efficiency is the driver of the new US economy, there is a lot of work to be done.
Labels: Hybrid Vehicles
posted by Dahcredyns at
1:11 PM
13 Comments:
could Hybrids go away except as some sort of an exotic and this country still make substantial progress on reducing gasoline consumption?
I don't see Hybrids as a must-have critical technology on that basis alone...
what do ya'll think?
If you look at the Tata cars:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Motors
the Nano gets 55 mpg...
and while these cars have a ways to go in safety, convenience and reliability (and emissions)... if they work at it like Toyota and Hyundai did from their humble beginnings, we might well see a solid sub 10K car that gets better than 50 mpg without using rare earth metals but instead a downsized engine..
If I were Toyota and Hyundai, I'd be looking over my shoulder at the Tata and if GM had any sense they would too...
If we think the American automakers had trouble competing with the Toyotas of the world.. the news with the Tata may be even worse.
In a Tata world, Prius might become an oddwad rather than mainstream.
No Dach, the lack of rare Earth metals will not kill the hybrid or the electrification of ground transportation. There are plenty of profit hungry companies, let alone countries, that will be glad to mine and supply them.
Next topic please
"electrification of ground transportation".
it an interesting concept - that has some profound implications.
For instance....
suppose we were going to replace as much of our oil as possible with electricity.
...." At speeds over 35mph the Compressed Air Vehicle uses small amounts of fuel–either gasoline, propane, ethanol or bio fuels–to heat air inside a heating chamber as it enters the engine. This process produces emissions of only 0.141lbs of CO2 per mile. That is ...two times less than the cleanest vehicle available today. (Toyota Prius 07 Emissions: 0.34 lbs of CO2 per mile."
but.. where would would we get the electricity generation from and how much "fuel" such as coal or NG or nukes" would it take
... to replace oil?
someone here must already know this...
here part of it:
".. The conversion of electricity into oil terms is straightforward: one barrel of oil contains the energy equivalent of 1.64 megawatt-hours of electricity. "
http://www.groovygreen.com/groove/?p=3780
here's another:
" It takes one ton of coal to generate an average of 2500 KWH of electricity"
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_coal_does_it_require_to_generate_1000_KWH_of_electricity
so by my math.. it would take 400 tons of coal to generate a megawatt...
so right now.. we burn about a billion tons a year
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/07/25/mine.why.coal/index.html
how many millions of barrels of oil do we import?
about 12 million
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/crudeoil_faqs.asp#foreign_oil
so at 1.5 megawatts per barrel
we need about 18 megawatts of additional power
18,000,000 x 400 tons of coal
= 720,000,000 ... per day
x 365 = about 2.6 billion?
so.. I'm in the ballpark.. (and I may not be ...) but if I am.. it would take 3 times as much coal as we burn right now to "electrify ground transportation".
someone else go through the numbers or if someone else has already research this, I'd be grateful if you would re-post it.
For the sake of argument.. let's assume that we could switch from oil to coal by burning 3 times as much.
Is this a viable/sustainable ...longer term strategy?
would doing this be an 'even trade" with respect to GHG?
I don't honestly know but I think going through the numbers is one way to get a better appreciation for what we might be comptemplating....
so what say you folks?
Larry,
Did not check all of your math, but you are on the right track. Some other simple, but critical factors everyone needs to consider when you weigh the pros and cons of the electrification of ground transportation are:
The first is that even if we only stayed with coal, it is far easier to regulate and improve the emissions from a much much smaller number of power plants as compared to vehicles on the road (orders of magnitude less).
And more importantly, we already produce electricity in this country by no less than 5 different industrial-scale methods - coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and geothermal. If the government just works to ensure that these very different industries are not allowed to consolidate, a free market will ensure that competition will only serve to drive down energy cost, and increase the greening of the electrical grid as solar and wind grow by leaps and bounds over the next two decades.
actually you make a very excellent point about trying to regulate emissions at the tailpipe instead of at the factory.
Think of the urbanized areas that are operating under non-attainment rules.. those rules go away in an electrified ground transport world.
but I still am skeptical that we can get there with coal...
we need to be looking at nukes as a bridge to a future with solar/wind/tides.... and get out of the coal business.
On way to start:
Pass a law that says when a strip mine closes - instead of having a rule that says it must be restored - make that rule say it has to be covered with solar panels and hooked up to the grid.
Then allow those companies to pass that cost on to all of us so that as we exhaust mines, we convert more and more to solar or wind.
EI-
Toyota might hit a bottleneck in supplies as early as next year.
If so many green industries are going to grow by "leaps in bounds" in the next few decades, we need rare metal refining capacity in this country, and we need it as quickly as possible.
I've scanned a number of rare earth metal sites and they agree - as I stated - that rare earth metal shortages won't kill these technologies, but they could slow them down, at least outside of China.
likewise, i've followed the supply chains of toyota regarding its hybrid cars and it's very interesting and alarming.
for instance, toyota thinks years ahead in terms of its procurement of resources for hybrids, which is one of the reasons Ford has had a hard time increasing NiMH hybrid production.
is the us green revolution doing the same? again this isn't just about hybrid and electric cars.
windmills, water treatment, numerous defense technologies, etc., etc. - essentially the entire green revolution - is dependent on supply chains completely controlled by China.
according to MolyCorp, probably the sole US player, much new research and development is needed to bring our supplies and refining capabilities up to speed.
thus, even though REMs won't kill these technologies, they could hamper bringing these technologies to market in terms of quantity, giving Chinese companies a competitive advantage.
i think it silly not to take that risk seriously, especially since american automakers have for decades been plagued by quarterly, short term thinking.
larry-
that tata car, i don't believe, achieves 55 mpg on the EPA's city cycle. so if congestion is the future, then such a vehicle will be lacking.
still, could much lighter vehicles, for instance, significantly reduce gas consumption without hybrid technology? if we didn't have such heavy vehicles on the road, i'd bet we could completely rethink the automobile.
likewise, breakthroughs in enzymes, cellulosic ethanol, hydrogen, etc could theoretically reduce the need for hybrid technology.
i do worry that america is stuck in its automotive box. cheap, very unconventional vehicles might one day emerge in china, india or some other emerging market. and, while those vehicles might not make sense in america, they might make perfect sense in china, india and the future of automotive demand.
The topic of Rare Earth Metals is an albatross. Its human rights issues that are the problem though. Modern slavery models are used in Africa and China to get many of these metals needed for batteries and circuitry. Its the potential Achilles heel to hybrids threatening to undermine much of the support of left-thinking social reformers that would seem to be the bread-and-butter of the hybrid driving stereotype.
Very good thread here. Some of it worth copying and keeping for future reference.
kp-
are you suggesting that if rare earth metals are mined and refined in the US that the costs of these metals would significantly increase? making it much harder to achieve cost-effectiveness?
versus the other side, which is using slave labor to go green?
I'm saying how corporations go about getting the magic ingredients for technology can become a hot-seat for boycotts. I think the whole "rare" part means you mine it wear you can find it. Its not the luxury of deciding whose backyard you mess up with the mining, but rather who's mercy are you at to get it and do you have any leverage over the ethics of their practices. A bit like Nike's black eye over Vietnamese sweat shops.
but a little black eye every now and then typically heals just fine. most consumers forget most of the time.
what they don't forget about is costs.
i wonder if the US-based costs of mining and refining would add significant cost to these commodities?
This move is pure genius by China. It will make BYD an unstoppable juggernaut - not only in its core battery business, but also in its plug-in hybrid auto business.
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