China Rare Earths Leave Toxic Trail to Toyota, Vestas

Rare earth metals are key to global efforts to switch to cleaner energy -- from batteries in hybrid cars to magnets in wind turbines. Mining and processing the metals causes environmental damage that China, the biggest producer, is no longer willing to bear. China’s rare earth industry each year produces more than five times the amount of waste gas, including deadly fluorine and sulfur dioxide, than the total flared annually by all miners and oil refiners in the U.S. Alongside that 13 billion cubic meters of gas is 25 million tons of wastewater laced with cancer-causing heavy metals such as cadmium...more

As Jim Scarantino says:

Groovy Greens in Santa Fe and Hollywood feel good about their enviro ethics. But the hard price for their self-satisfaction and sense of environmental superiority is paid by poor people in China and Mongolia.