stockholmer (188 posts) Sat Feb-05-11 01:37 PM
Original message
In China, the true cost of UK's clean, green wind power experiment: Pollution on a disastrous scale
"On the outskirts of one of China’s most polluted cities, an old farmer stares despairingly out across an immense lake of bubbling toxic waste covered in black dust. He remembers it as fields of wheat and corn.
Yan Man Jia Hong is a dedicated Communist. At 74, he still believes in his revolutionary heroes, but he despises the young local officials and entrepreneurs who have let this happen.
‘Chairman Mao was a hero and saved us,’ he says. ‘But these people only care about money. They have destroyed our lives.’
"Vast fortunes are being amassed here in Inner Mongolia; the region has more than 90 per cent of the world’s legal reserves of rare earth metals, and specifically neodymium, the element needed to make the magnets in the most striking of green energy producers, wind turbines.
Live has uncovered the distinctly dirty truth about the process used to extract neodymium: it has an appalling environmental impact that raises serious questions over the credibility of so-called green technology.
The reality is that, as Britain flaunts its environmental credentials by speckling its coastlines and unspoiled moors and mountains with thousands of wind turbines, it is contributing to a vast man-made lake of poison in northern China. This is the deadly and sinister side of the massively profitable rare-earths industry that the ‘green’ companies profiting from the demand for wind turbines would prefer you knew nothing about.
Hidden out of sight behind smoke-shrouded factory complexes in the city of Baotou, and patrolled by platoons of security guards, lies a five-mile wide ‘tailing’ lake. It has killed farmland for miles around, made thousands of people ill and put one of China’s key waterways in jeopardy.
This vast, hissing cauldron of chemicals is the dumping ground for seven million tons a year of mined rare earth after it has been doused in acid and chemicals and processed through red-hot furnaces to extract its components..................."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811...
China now controls 98% off all rare earths, either internally, or by contract. A professor friend here in Stockholm is one of those leading the wind turbine technology drive here, and he is appalled at what he saw on his latest trip to China. This is rapidly becoming a large political issue here, with calls already being heard for a ban on Chinese neodymium.
Nasty pics at the DUmp.Newest Reality (1000+ posts) Sat Feb-05-11 01:55 PM
Response to Original message
1. Our technologies are two-edged swords
and we should be more careful how we swing them. Profit ideology puts those swords in the hands of the petulant infants who comprise a large part of the corporate takeover as they steer us towards oblivion.
Profit has nothing to do with this you idiot. The simple fact is that wind power requires nasty pollution of the environment. But it's okay with you DUmmies since it's those little Asian people suffering.
jpak (1000+ posts) Sat Feb-05-11 01:57 PM
Response to Original message
2. It's China - they put melamine in baby food and lead in toys and spray pesticides on "organic" crops
Edited on Sat Feb-05-11 01:57 PM by jpak
for Chirst sake
Show us ANY Chinese energy or other industrial enterprise that's clean and green - they **** them all up
yup
Yup, their producing them and selling to Obama's cronies in the "green energy" scam. How many billions of dollars from the stimulus went to China for their wind turbines?
Vinnie From Indy (1000+ posts) Sat Feb-05-11 02:02 PM
Response to Original message
3. The OP is misdirection at its finest
The OP states:
"The reality is that, as Britain flaunts its environmental credentials by speckling its coastlines and unspoiled moors and mountains with thousands of wind turbines, it is contributing to a vast man-made lake of poison in northern China. This is the deadly and sinister side of the massively profitable rare-earths industry that the ‘green’ companies profiting from the demand for wind turbines would prefer you knew nothing about."
Notice the language first of all. This passage was clearly designed to villify and demonize the green power industry. In addition, the OP provides zero evidence that "green" companies are trying to keep anything secret nor does the OP appear to direct any blame toward the government in China for allowing the alleged pollution.
This OP is a bit of propaganda aimed squarely at green energy alternatives and it was probably cooked up in some Koch Bros. funded, right-wing think tank. I am not buying it!
Kill the messenger, deny the message.
stockholmer (188 posts) Sat Feb-05-11 02:15 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. nice smear, avoid the facts, attack the motivations, so typical
jpak (1000+ posts) Sat Feb-05-11 02:23 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. Typical what? Global warmer denier, renewable energy hater?
The poster put the finger on it
yup
How much pollution is created to produce those turbines? Oh wait, it's in someone else's country, so it's all good.
jpak (1000+ posts) Sat Feb-05-11 02:55 PM
Response to Reply #10
16. Your disdain of America is palpable
There is nothing the US or EU can do about China's environmental problems
and where does the Nd for Swedish wind turbines originate?
and when did Sweden ban all products made with Chinese Nd?
or any Chinese product that has bad environmental record?
pot meet kettle
yup
You DUmmies espouse boycotting products made by slave labor, yet these turbines are produced in that same manner, and contribute greatly to environmental pollution, but you don't care because it doesn't fit in your agenda.
