Peak Prius

As most all of us are well aware, the world's Peak Petroleum event most likely occurred sometime between 2006-2010. While there are still arguments as to the specific year (and some still believe some future date - though those voices are suggesting the near future) the far more important concern is what we are going to do about an ever growing demand for petroleum products with an ever diminishing supply.

In response to the backside of Peak Petroleum (I love this animation), some of you elected to drive a more efficient vehicle - the most popular Eco car being the Prius. We salute your good world-citizen efforts and you are making a difference by slowing down the consumption rate of the world's petroleum supply while reducing emissions for better air quality and therefore the general health of those around you.

The Prius has a material science selection history that surpasses a NASA spaceship project. Seriously, Toyota established new performance highs with their use of exotic alloys, rare earth and heavy metals in their designs. From 1997 to 2011, the materials were continuously improved upon where better performance solidly reflected the better science. Then in 2012, China changed their policy on the sale of rare earth metals (China mines, mills and refines about 97% of the world's rare earth metals). That is when Prius engineers looked for alternatives and that my friends is when we hit the Peak Prius event.

Toyota replaced much of the neodymium contained in the electric motors with iron based electro-magnetic solutions per supply chain volume limits and ultimately economic reasons. The resulting Prius vehicles' performance efficiency dropped by a few percentage points - thus the Peak Prius.

For perspective - this is not a 5% issue, but rather an order of magnitude (10x factor) issue in weight vs. efficiency for material science aspects of this vehicle's electric motor engineering. These electro-magnets are not only 10x heavier than rare earth magnets (neodymium), but they also require a great deal of electricity to operate which reduces the range of the Plug-in Prius before switching over to the internal combustion engine. The Prius is a relatively small vehicle so other larger hybrids and EV's that are faced with the same challenge will require even larger electro-magnets and there will be an even larger energy demand from the batteries.

As of 2013, the Prius as a single market product is still the largest user of rare earths in the world today. Neodymium, dysprosium, lanthanum, gallium, selenium, terbium, cerium, ...


The USGS rare earth guru, Jim Hedrick, does not believe there is any large scale production future for any product that requires large volumes of rare earths and heavy metals. Therefore, the Prius engineers must continue their efforts to replace their advanced materials specifications with substitutes. Is it possible to find substitutes that provide the same performance specifications? The experts say - not likely. This means the performance of the Prius will continue to degrade as future designs use less rare earth and heavy metals (gold, silver, copper, nickel and platinum group metals).

Expand the concept of Peak Oil and start thinking about Peak Everything. We have to be smart in how we allocate the remaining resources of this planet. Please consider that only 67% of petroleum is used for the transportation industry. The balance is used for an incredibly wide array of applications including plastics, polymers, clothing, pharmaceuticals, packaging, ... While many products can be made from bio-oils, in some cases, the quality and characteristics of the products made from petroleum are far superior to similar products made from bio-oils as the result of the more complex carbon chains within the chemistry of petroleum. We must reserve some amount of petroleum for these special uses for future generations.

In a 2nd Q, 2010 report, Lord Ron Oxburgh, a former chairman of Shell, wrote that "It is pretty clear that there is not much chance of finding any significant quantity of new cheap oil. Any new or unconventional oil is going to be expensive." He went on to quote King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia commenting on a minor new oil find: "Leave it in the ground...our children need it." The same wisdom should be applied to a list of critical minerals. We have reviewed reports that suggest that mass production with the target of replacing the vast majority of liquid fueled vehicles with EV's and hybrids, will deplete a list of the earth's minerals within 50 years.

If people care that their children, grandchildren, great-grand children, ..., will be able to enjoy a lifestyle that includes the minerals from which we have benefited during our lifetime, then we have some decisions to make now. Our transportation future must be kept as simple and as close to 100% recyclable as possible. And that my friends, is not hybrids or EV's.

It can be argued that EV's and hybrids are to some degree, "burning" the minerals themselves as 100% recyclable batteries and mineral and metal intense subsystems are not achievable targets.

We have research statistics to estimate the average number of minutes a US citizen spends in a car per day and 31 minutes/day was a common conclusion. The concept that people would consciously make the decision to deplete the supply of critical minerals needed for wind turbine manufacturing and other renewable technologies for a vehicle that they only drive for 31 minutes per day for a 7 year life cycle does not seem like a responsible trade-off. Such a turbine, in a good wind resource, with the same amount of minerals is likely to generate Green Energy for 10-14 hours per day for 30 years.

I urge you to consider joining the U.S. Migration - Welcome to ETCGreen! U.S. Migration

 

I really do not understand your comment - if you sincerely believe your comment, a gas-guzzling super-car would seem to be the better choice for you.

 

Actually, this is not the case. We are an engineering team and this is what we do for a living. Starting in 2012, various systems on the Prius became less efficient. This trend will continue until it is obvious that hybrids and vehicles that require large volumes of rare earth minerals and heavy metals are no longer viable.

 

Thank you for your comment and you are correct, supply and demand would seem a reasonable model to support the industry. However, this is simply not the case. We have spent 8 years researching rare earth minerals and heavy metals - we even started a Mining Division with 57 mining claims and now operate 3 fully licensed and permitted mills. Speaking as an industry expert, supporting a large scale migration to EV's and hybrids is impossible. That volume of minerals is staggering compared to the historic mining and refining volumes. This is simply a show stopper.

Please ponder that the number of miners who died in the U.S. in 2012 was 14. In China, the official count was 2,850 though Human Rights activists are claiming over 8,000. About 1/3 of these deaths were in the production of rare earths. As the Toyota Prius uses an incredible volume of rare earths compared to other vehicles, we can calculate the number of human deaths to produce the raw materials needed to build a Prius. This is decidedly not the car an environmentalist would choose to drive.

We have contacted Toyota executives and have urged them to embrace a more environmentally conscious vehicle. The most recent correspondence has been more supportive. I believe you will see a diesel powered Prius within the next 2 years and this is the future of transportation - B100 from 2nd generation feedstock. Join the U.S. Migration.

BioFuels - Emerging Technology Corporation, Green Division

 

I find it amazing that serious engineers who sincerely care about the environment and the future of our planet are edited out of existence because the reality we are presenting is not in-line with the desired beliefs of those in control of the blogs.

I responded to the Tesla forum on our website in a reasonable, responsible way. While I respect the passion those people have in the support of their EV, they should dig down and understand the reality of the future they are embracing.

Blogging on the Tesla Forum - Emerging Technology Corporation, Green Division

My comments are not "spam", they communicate a high level of knowledge and experience in the various disciplines necessary to develop a realistic perspective on critical challenges of humankind. Please take the time to speak with other experts in the related industries, supply chains, etc. We are not alone in our understanding of our global situation.

 

Good question - what are we selling?

The continuation of the American way of life without killing off Chinese miners and raping the earth of minerals long before necessary. Did you watch the video on rare earth mining and refining in China on our site? (down in the middle of the page)...

EV Tech - Postmortem - Emerging Technology Corporation, Green Division

Want an instant understanding of our reality? Speak with 2 groups of people; manufactures of various technologies such as Toyota suppliers who make the rare earth laden sub-systems and engineers and scientists who are challenged with the responsibility of recycling these minerals. Rare earths and heavy metals used in motors and batteries suffer a form of metal fatigue as the result of being energized - this is a leading cause of battery and electronic device failure. Rejuvenating these metals is possible, but the energy level to do so by today's technologies is absurd.

Simply do the math for the production of a few hundred billion vehicles world-wide over the next 200 years based on even 50% of the necessary metals used today - I will grant you an over-all 80% recycling potential. Even if the world population drops by 50% by 2100 as is now projected, the use of private vehicles could be reduced radically (90%) and there still would not be enough minerals on our planet to support 100 years of manufacturing.

We receive literally hundreds of messages per month from all over the world suggesting that we are backing 2nd generation feedstock sourced biodiesel because we produce and sell the product. Sincerely, we produce and sell 2nd generation feedstock sourced biodiesel simply because it is the only scalable, environmentally friendly, economically viable and truly sustainable replacement for petroleum available today.

 

"There is no technical reason an electric car can't be MUCH simpler in design than an ICE".

It would be a matter of unit of measure as to what is simpler. A modern electric motor is incredibly complex in its manufacture and control. I will challenge you to disassemble one and rebuild and have it work. We do this on a regular basis, but we have engineers and tech staff with decades of experience in-house.

"As these designs are perfected, I see no reason motors, batteries, and computers cannot be designed without reliance on rare minerals"

They certainly can be, but their efficiency drops - a common knowledge parallel would be the migration from copper to aluminum for wiring. Capacities and longevity are vastly reduced with the lessor metal. All a trade-off. I will humbly suggest you research the technologies - esp. the winding of a 1950's 3 phase motor (50Hp or larger) compared to a 50hp electric motor today. Go talk with someone who rebuilds them.

"Since electric motors are in use pretty much everywhere in modern civilization; it's a necessity that is much broader than just transportation. Or should we give up elevators and air conditioners as well?"

I honestly expect a significant percentage of the U.S. population will virtually give up A/C both in vehicles and structures over the coming decades due to ever higher energy bills. This will motivate the population to move to more temperate climates. While it does not directly apply, there is related info in this blog response.

Blogging on renewableenergyworld.com - Emerging Technology Corporation, Green Division

We see it commonly that we are operating at a very different level. When we met with Dr. Chu and his people, they were not prepared for the level of research and planning we had been involved with for years. One of the reasons Dr. Chu is no longer our Secretary of Energy is his belief in EV's. After talking with thousands of people in the supply chains, it became obvious that we needed to move in a different direction. That direction is the same as the rest of the industrialized nations - U.S. Migration.

U.S. Migration - Emerging Technology Corporation, Green Division

Read more: http://priuschat.com/threads/peak-prius.125279/#ixzz2R7TeOCmP​

 

Jimbo,

Thank you for your efforts. Having worked our mines for the past 3 years - down in the pits, running the mills, operating the heavy equipment myself, I understand the life and sacrifices miners make to provide a better life for everyone else. The others on this blog should all work a mine for a week (in 2 degrees - 120 degrees F) to appreciate what is required so we can all live the American Dream.

http://www.etcgreen.com/images/stories/percapita-4.pdf

 

Since this is Prius Chat, I'd like to address your suggestion that modern Prius are lower efficiency than older ones.

The new models of Prius are less efficient - it is a matter of engineering specifications due to the selection of alternatives to the preferred rare earth minerals - a Peak Prius.

My 2013 Prius has been averaging 175MPG with the remainder of its energy generated by solar panels.
Sanity check: Sir, you have become engrossed in an effort to promote a vehicle that offers a safety rating that is below the industry average, a passenger comfort level that is below the industry average and a performance level that is below the industry average with the motivation of getting higher MPG from a finite fuel source that may no longer be sold in the US within the next 10 years.

We love the Prius design - we are waiting with anticipation for the day they replace all the hybrid hardware with a B100 compatible advanced diesel engine that will achieve 75mpbg (Miles Per Biodiesel Gallon) off the assembly line offering considerably better safety, performance and lower emissions - powered with a totally sustainable, environmentally friendly, zero carbon life cycle fuel.

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