More from Robert Bryce's book "Power Hungry" --Chapter 13.
In this chapter, I learned that all hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius are manufactured with rare earth materials called lanthanides. In fact, these rare materials are used heavily in solar panels and wind turbines too. And without these materials, there can be no hybrids, wind turbines, or solar panels. Guess who has a de facto monopoly on lanthanides? China. And guess who also has a lot of the lithium for those high tech batteries in hybrid vehicles? China. (Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia also have lithium.) So, while we hear from environmentalists about the evils of imported oil from countries that hate us, depending on “green” technology will have us dependent on rare earth materials from at least some countries that don’t like us—China and Bolivia. We would be back in the same boat. Incidentally, the above is another reason why solar panels and wind mills are manufactured in China. They have the raw materials and the cheap labor. So when Obama spoke about “green” collar jobs making solar panels and wind mills…well, those jobs would actually be created in China.
2 comments:
Got the book the other day and plan to dig into it soon. Thanks for these tantalizing bits to motivate me to make that sooner than later.
You're welcome! I hope you like the book:)
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