Mining and processing rare earth elements is producing a toxic lake in China

A recent exchange on wind turbines makes this post and discussion well worth it. I objected to the point made by one of our distinguished contributors about toxins in turbines, but there is a story there.

Mining and processing rare earth elements is producing a toxic lake in China, reported by Simon Parry.

The 3rd world effects of green energy projects is a special interest of Simon Parry of the UK Daily Mail.

This essay has some dramatic pics that i assume accurately portray the effect of rare earth processing in China.

We might be reminded of Kuznet’s curves, the effect of progress and prosperity on the society and also the environment, that has resulted in more positive effects here in the USA, more impact in fact than the EPA would admit.

http://www.ask.com/wiki/Kuznets_curve?o=2800&qsrc=999

However, in socialist countries environmental issues are less important than economics and production, imagine that, becasue the economies of socialist countries suffer from lack of energy and oppressive government controls and nonsense. (George Gilder writes very eloquently about the negative effect of bureaucracies on inventionan and creativity).

Recall, for example that the design of the Chernobyl Reactor produced a disaster waiting to happen because the Soviet’s made nuclear reactors had high risk designs compared to the Water reactor Western way. Even 3 mile Island didn’t produce a damage except in the minds of neurotics.

Socialist Eastern Europe and Russia were much less concerned about environmental issues and still put them at the bottom of the list.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html