In an Oct. 30, 2020, article for The RAM Review, I wrote about my concern that the quest for electric vehicles will threaten the global environment more than maintaining a majority of fossil-fueled vehicles would (see link below). My concerns have only heightened since then, as major (and niche) automakers race to introduce new lines of electric-platform vehicles, which, in turn, points to an ever-increasing dependency on a variety of rare-earth minerals.
In my previous discussion, I noted the enormous “indirect pollution” resulting from mining and processing of materials for fleets of electric-based vehicles. Their battery packs, electric motors and other high-tech components require aluminum, copper, steel, lithium, glass fibers, carbon fibers, polymers, cobalt, copper, iron, silicon-steel, manganese, graphite, lithium, and a variety of rare-earth minerals, including dysprosium, neodymium, niobium, terbium, and praseodymium.
There are 17 rare-earth minerals, all metals. And one or more of them are used in almost everything we own, including, among other things: advanced ceramics, computers, DVD players, wind turbines, catalysts in cars and oil refineries, monitors, televisions, lighting, lasers, fiber optics, super conductors, glass polishing, and portable electronic devices such as cell phones, readers, portable computers, and cameras. Some rare-earth minerals are essential in military equipment, including jet engines, missile-guidance systems, antimissile-defense systems, satellites, night-vision devices, and lasers.
Rare-earth minerals really aren’t that rare. But they are extremely difficult and expensive to extract in ways that do not harm the environment. Moreover, massive amounts of them are needed. Consider that several pounds of rare earth metal alloys are used in batteries and electric-motor magnets powering every electric vehicle that rolls off a production line.
Mining of rare-earth minerals isn’t new in the United States. The Mountain Pass mine, in California’s Mojave Desert, opened in 1952, and, until 1990, was the world’s major source of such minerals. By 2002, however, those Mountain Pass operations had shut down due to increasingly stringent U.S. environmental regulations. China then began filling the void.
Today, China is the leading supplier of rare-earth minerals (mining and processing). It quickly became the world’s largest source of these minerals due, primarily, to the out-of-sight, out-of-mind, less-expensive extraction and processing methods it employs. The toxic aftermath of that global rare-earth domination and uncontrolled mining, though, has been environmentally devastating in some rural regions of China.
As a side note, since achieving global dominance in the rare-earth arena, China has held access to those mineral exports as a sword over the necks of political rivals and antagonistic nations. In 2010, for example, when it cut Japan off from rare-earth exports as part of a dispute in the South China Sea, the U.S. and Japan took the case to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Although it was forced to resume exports to Japan back then, these days, China continues to hoard and threaten to cut off rare-earth exports as trade tensions heat up.
I mention all of this to emphasize a point I made in October 2020. It’s one that many environmentally conscious consumers who haven’t worked in mineral mining, extraction, and processing operations will surely miss: Unless we achieve a balance of responsible uses of fossil and non-fossil fueled technologies, we may be contributing to growing and more far-reaching global pollution than we are attempting to mitigate.TRR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bob Williamson is a long-time contributor to the people-side of the world-class-maintenance and manufacturing body of knowledge across dozens of industry types. His background in maintenance, machine and tool design, and teaching has positioned his work with over 500 companies and plants, facilities, and equipment-oriented organizations. Contact him directly at 512-800-6031 or [email protected].
Tags: reliability, availability, maintenance, RAM, rare-earth minerals, electric vehicles, sustainability
