China paying the environmental price for the world’s green power

Physics Today : Rare-earth metals are key to global efforts to switch to cleaner energy—from batteries in hybrid cars to magnets in wind turbines. Ironically, mining and processing the metals causes environmental damage that China, the biggest producer, is no longer willing to bear, writes Stuart Biggs for Bloomberg . In a related story, two writers for the Daily Mail , Simon Parry and Ed Douglas, describe the environmental devastation in China resulting from rare-earth processing.