How Tesla Motors Inc’s electric car batteries are adding to China’s pollution woes

[GliderGuider]

How Tesla Motors Inc’s electric car batteries are adding to China’s pollution woes

As more environmentally conscious Americans do their bit to help clear the air by paying up for an eco-friendly Prius or a sporty Tesla, a damaging form of polluted rain is falling in China.

The link is graphite, a vital component in batteries used in Tesla’s Model S, Toyota’s plug-in Prius and other electric cars, as well as in electronic gadgets including iPhones. It’s mostly mined and processed in China where graphite pollution has fouled air and water, damaged crops and raised health concerns. Now, in response, Chinese authorities are closing dozens of graphite mines and processors in a bid for cleaner air even as global demand for the commodity is surging.

“There’s little question that the Chinese are between a rock and a hard place environmentally,” said Josh Landess, an advanced transportation analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “There’s an obvious irony that the disruption it’s causing is within the clean vehicle and transportation industry.”

The graphite outcry is the latest among environmental flashpoints in China that have ranged from lead poisoning to acid spills and “unbearable smog” in big cities. And while the clampdown may help improve the quality of China’s environment, it could also affect as much as a third of worldwide production.

Oops!

[phantom power]

1. they're pollution-free while they operate, and that's what counts, amirite?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e3pePogR_L8/Ujz6NOsLkdI/AAAAAAAABGA/iYGfOCzaBiU/s1600/are+you.png

[GliderGuider]

2. Arglebargle!!!

Of course you're right!

[kristopher]

3. Another pathetic attack on the renewable economy by DU's faux "environmentalists"

Graphs courtesy of

in honor of our Canadian contributor

[GliderGuider]

4. Just calling it like I see it, preacher-man. nt

[phantom power]

6. Now I have ear-worm

[NickB79]

5. Damn that faux environmentalist Joshua Landress!

He was, after all, the man quoted in the OP's article.

http://www.nexindex.com/landess.php

Josh Landess is a Co-Manager of the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index. (The "Hill" of "WilderHill" brand name derives from his family). Josh is also one of the two originators of the WilderHill Clean Energy Index (ECO); he is a long-time analyst of clean energy issues and a former Contributing Editor at EVWorld.com. He holds a degree in Economics from University of Illinois at Chicago. His concrete dome home in Arizona is a demonstration of several clean energy technologies.

I mean, look at that resume of fake environmental concern!

[kristopher]

7. IF he does say so himself? ROFL

When the truth doesn't support the story, it's hard to make the case that the story is right because the author claims to be green.

Maybe he is shorting Tesla. There seems to be a wave of negative stories lately in the financial papers - like the one in the OP. And there is at least one poster who admits selling them short who is running around DU using every opportunity to talk the stock down.

Look at the freaking distribution of the resource and compare that to numberless, unsubstantiated claims made in the OP.

The only people who buy into that kind of crap are people with a preexisting bias against the move to a renewable energy system: the likes of Roger Ailes, the Koch brothers, the coal industry and the nuclear industry serve as exemplars of that group.