Christopher Gleadle
In contrast to drill, baby, drill, the ‘Green Energy Transition’ requires mine, baby, mine.
Renewable energy is a conversion process: natural processes such as wind or sun to electricity. Electric generators have magnets that have rare earths to generate electricity. The electricity flows through a grid made of copper to charge the electric vehicles governments encourage us to buy, which can have over 60 kilograms of lithium, cobalt, and manganese. Our smart phones need 30Kg of ore extracted from the earth’s crust and processed for its production and consumption. There is nickel and cobalt in the battery and rare earths in the touchscreen.
Our hi-tech, electro-digital future depends on mining. We have been mining for eons. It is one of our oldest and dirtiest industry’s. Then it all needs processing, with waste streams that can poison the air, earth, lakes, rivers, and the sea. Nickel needs smelters that have seen forests ripped down. Copper mines using vast amounts of water. Mining generates 7 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, which conveniently for the west, typically happens far away from the the bulk of consumption and use. Environmental, social, and geopolitical consequences are significant. For example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, cobalt mining sees widespread forced labour and violence. Nickel mining in Russia funds its war with Ukraine. And the concentration of production and refining of the vital metals in China gives it a powerful hold over the global economy.
Not content with tearing up the planet, now, there are plans to mine and rip-up the ocean floor attacking the marine eco-systems upon which we also rely. Research suggests that by 2050, the annual demand for copper will be greater than the total amount used between 1900 and 2021. As we race toward the ‘green energy transition’ demand for metals is off the planet!
For balance – research shows that the volume of metals for the ‘green energy transition’ are orders of magnitude smaller than the volume of fossil fuels extracted. The point surely should be to do much better rather than not as bad. Real-Zero, rather than Net-Zero a variable and apt to be gamed.
It follows, to do much better we need, for example, to reform our connections and relationships with energy. To make connections between resources we currently are not doing. Avoid knee jerking our way to just recycling since that too is both energy-intensive and dirty, thus it is not a whole answer. It is a part of the system. The Circular Economy is partial, a part of the system, not the whole.
We need to see far more effective methods for reuse and use differently. Much of the technology and processes for a fair ‘green energy transition’ already exist but kept apart by fragmented areas of study. We need to start thinking differently and making connections not currently seen. As a result, more effective reuse will aid the right to repair: a past fair and successful system destroyed by obsolescence designed into manufactured goods. And durability will support buying less…Just because you have changed all the lights to LEDs does not mean you can now leave them switched on all the time. Just because a car is electric does not mean the best decision is to buy the heaviest.
From an electricity production perspective, in contrast to current renewable solutions such as wind or solar that cannot produce for much of the time, are high impact, high cost with a life span of about 25 years, imagine a renewable energy that can deliver 24 hours a day, 7 days week. Is low cost, low impact with a lifespan of 80 years. Such is an example of use less, use better, use longer.