Lid Lifted on the Filthy Manufacturing Secrets Behind the ‘Clean’ Green Power Revolution

 The dirty manufacturing secrets behind the ‘clean’ green power revolution continue to pile up. As do the piles of filthy toxic waste growing across a China seemingly keen to supplant traditional energy and auto industries around the world at almost any price. 

The rare earth elements neodymium and praseodymium provide the best magnets for wind turbines and EVs, but they can arise from the ground at a fearful environmental cost.

A modern wind turbine can contain up to 600 kilos of neodymium that is used to make powerful permanent magnets (NdFeB – neodymium-ion-boron magnets). But the metal, along with the praseodymium also added in the magnets, is found in very low quantities in ore, and substantial extraction and refining is necessary using toxic acids, solvents and leaching ponds. 

To produce one tonne of the material, it is estimated that up to 12,000 m³ of waste gas is produced along with a tonne of chronic radioactive residue. Up to 2,000 tonnes of toxic waste including slurry tailings mixtures that can leak into ground water supplies are produced.....<<<Read More>>>....