Resource guzzling hybrid cars

TPS friend Pavel Yakovlev sends along this article about the emerging underbelly of the hybrid car market:

The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods.

I guess it's not all roses and clean cars. The consequence of needing to mine more rare earth metals to save oil pushes us further down the path towards the best-case scenario: Environmentalists arguing with other environmentalists over what to do, in this case the anti-oil consumption folk with the anti-mining folk. Here's to hoping that this debate can become everything it could be.