Posted on May 11, 2021
We Need 6 Times More Minerals to Meet Our Clean Energy Goals
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https://earther.gizmodo.com/we-need-6-times-more-minerals-to-meet-our-clean-energy [login to see] ?utm_medium=email&utm_source=rasa_io&PostID=29815450&MessageRunDetailID= [login to see]
This is very humorous, clean energy requires more mining! On the news one evening I saw a lithium mining operation that was appalling. To the untrained I’m sure it would seem alright, but to someone trained to evaluate the environment it was disastrous. When is our population going to learn there’s no such thing as a free lunch?
If the world is going to decarbonize, we’re gonna need a bigger supply of minerals, a new report says.
Climate scientists have made it clear that we need to phase out greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, at the absolute latest, to stave off catastrophic levels of global warming. That transition will require us to not only end our use of gas and diesel-powered cars but also to rapidly increase our deployment of carbon-free alternatives. Minerals like nickel, cobalt, lithium, copper, and rare earth elements are all critical components of clean energy technologies including wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage.
The analysis, published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Wednesday, says that globally, keeping pace with that 2050 goal could increase demand for critical minerals overall by as much as six-fold by 2040. And for some minerals, the gap between current supply and projected future demand is even larger. Demand for graphite, for instance, is expected to grow by 25 times in under two decades, while demand for lithium is projected to grow by 70 times.
“Today, the data shows a looming mismatch between the world’s strengthened climate ambitions and the availability of critical minerals that are essential to realising those ambitions,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said in a statement.
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Increasing demand for batteries to power electric vehicles and store clean power, the report says, will be the biggest factor driving the shortage in mineral supply. An electric vehicle requires six times more minerals than a traditional, fossil fuel-powered car.
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Quickening the deployment of renewable energy will also be a huge factor. For instance, each offshore wind plant requires 13 times more mineral resources than a similarly sized natural gas power plant. And growth in low-carbon power generation overall is estimated to triple mineral demand by 2040.
To further complicate things, the production of minerals like lithium, cobalt, and rare earths is highly concentrated. Just three countries account for more than 75% of all those mined today. Currently, 70% of cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 60% of rare earth minerals come from China. The mineral-processing industry is even more concentrated than that, with China refining 90% of rare earth elements.
This tight clustering means these crucial supply chains are already very vulnerable to disruption. With more pressure as demand increases, that could become even more of a problem. If one country sees major issues with its mineral output—for instance, due to extreme weather disasters or changing trade restrictions—that could put the whole world’s clean energy production in peril.
The report lays out potential strategies for governments to enact, which could help take on these issues. One strategy includes diversifying supply chains by mining different parts of the world, which could increase and stabilize production. Another strategy is developing new technologies that don’t require as much of these products to produce.
A third possibility is to scale up recycling of used-up clean energy technologies and batteries. If the world does so, the report says, “by 2040, recycled quantities of copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt from spent batteries could reduce combined primary supply requirements for these minerals by around 10%.”
Of course, increased demand for minerals could create a host of other problems, too. Without careful attention paid to where mines are sited, they can become a serious threat to biodiversity. For instance, mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo can harm the region’s lush jungles full of apes and elephants, while mines slated to be opened in Madagascar could threaten the endangered Mittermeier’s sportive lemur. Some nations also have fledgling plans to mine the deep sea for rare earth minerals, which could be an environmental disaster.
These mines can also be a threat to human lives. In Chile, lithium mining is raising concerns because it’s depleting the local water supply and threatening Indigenous people’s homes. There’s also the question of labor abuses. Tech giants including Apple, Google, and Tesla, for instance, have been sued over cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—plaintiffs say their children were killed or maimed while mining.
Though challenges abound, the report says that they don’t put our clean energy targets out of reach. But overcoming them—and protect the planet and people as we do so—will take careful planning.
“The challenges are not insurmountable,” Birol said. “But governments must give clear signals about how they plan to turn their climate pledges into action.”
This is very humorous, clean energy requires more mining! On the news one evening I saw a lithium mining operation that was appalling. To the untrained I’m sure it would seem alright, but to someone trained to evaluate the environment it was disastrous. When is our population going to learn there’s no such thing as a free lunch?
If the world is going to decarbonize, we’re gonna need a bigger supply of minerals, a new report says.
Climate scientists have made it clear that we need to phase out greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, at the absolute latest, to stave off catastrophic levels of global warming. That transition will require us to not only end our use of gas and diesel-powered cars but also to rapidly increase our deployment of carbon-free alternatives. Minerals like nickel, cobalt, lithium, copper, and rare earth elements are all critical components of clean energy technologies including wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage.
The analysis, published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Wednesday, says that globally, keeping pace with that 2050 goal could increase demand for critical minerals overall by as much as six-fold by 2040. And for some minerals, the gap between current supply and projected future demand is even larger. Demand for graphite, for instance, is expected to grow by 25 times in under two decades, while demand for lithium is projected to grow by 70 times.
“Today, the data shows a looming mismatch between the world’s strengthened climate ambitions and the availability of critical minerals that are essential to realising those ambitions,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said in a statement.
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Increasing demand for batteries to power electric vehicles and store clean power, the report says, will be the biggest factor driving the shortage in mineral supply. An electric vehicle requires six times more minerals than a traditional, fossil fuel-powered car.
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Quickening the deployment of renewable energy will also be a huge factor. For instance, each offshore wind plant requires 13 times more mineral resources than a similarly sized natural gas power plant. And growth in low-carbon power generation overall is estimated to triple mineral demand by 2040.
To further complicate things, the production of minerals like lithium, cobalt, and rare earths is highly concentrated. Just three countries account for more than 75% of all those mined today. Currently, 70% of cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 60% of rare earth minerals come from China. The mineral-processing industry is even more concentrated than that, with China refining 90% of rare earth elements.
This tight clustering means these crucial supply chains are already very vulnerable to disruption. With more pressure as demand increases, that could become even more of a problem. If one country sees major issues with its mineral output—for instance, due to extreme weather disasters or changing trade restrictions—that could put the whole world’s clean energy production in peril.
The report lays out potential strategies for governments to enact, which could help take on these issues. One strategy includes diversifying supply chains by mining different parts of the world, which could increase and stabilize production. Another strategy is developing new technologies that don’t require as much of these products to produce.
A third possibility is to scale up recycling of used-up clean energy technologies and batteries. If the world does so, the report says, “by 2040, recycled quantities of copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt from spent batteries could reduce combined primary supply requirements for these minerals by around 10%.”
Of course, increased demand for minerals could create a host of other problems, too. Without careful attention paid to where mines are sited, they can become a serious threat to biodiversity. For instance, mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo can harm the region’s lush jungles full of apes and elephants, while mines slated to be opened in Madagascar could threaten the endangered Mittermeier’s sportive lemur. Some nations also have fledgling plans to mine the deep sea for rare earth minerals, which could be an environmental disaster.
These mines can also be a threat to human lives. In Chile, lithium mining is raising concerns because it’s depleting the local water supply and threatening Indigenous people’s homes. There’s also the question of labor abuses. Tech giants including Apple, Google, and Tesla, for instance, have been sued over cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—plaintiffs say their children were killed or maimed while mining.
Though challenges abound, the report says that they don’t put our clean energy targets out of reach. But overcoming them—and protect the planet and people as we do so—will take careful planning.
“The challenges are not insurmountable,” Birol said. “But governments must give clear signals about how they plan to turn their climate pledges into action.”
We Need 6 Times More Minerals to Meet Our Clean Energy Goals
Posted from earther.gizmodo.com
Energy
Renewables and Environment
Mining and Metals
Policy
Tesla Motors
Posted 3 y ago
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Clean energy is not so clean when you look at what it takes to build these panels, batteries etc. Just google lithium mining and see what the environmental catastrophies are happening in some of these countries. People forget not every country has an EPA.
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SFC (Join to see)
But these same people want to put their country at a disadvantage in competition with Chinese business, and Chinese s business means their communist government,
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SSG (Join to see)
SFC (Join to see) - Most of these so called climate changers like AOC don't have a clue
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SFC (Join to see)
SSG (Join to see) - They are empty vessels who only know how to speak platitudes, and are interested only in wealth and/or power for themselves.
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This also includes the problem of rare earth minerals, which are largely controlled by China. Check this out:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17335/china-rare-earth-materials
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17335/china-rare-earth-materials
The Effect of Communist China on America's Clean Energy Plan
"[I]t is as if the Middle East not only sat on most of the world's oil but also, almost exclusively, refined it and then made products out of it," wrote The Economist in 2019. It is not that rare earth materials do not exist outside of China, although it
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SFC (Join to see)
You are correct sir. What most of the politically correct intermittent (renewable) energy advocates don’t admit is that most of the money spent on this stuff is going right to China, not just for the minerals, but for the required electronic components. I would like to know how much of the current budget proposal is going to go right into China’s pocket.
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MAJ Hugh Blanchard
Dear SFC Walko, I think we would all be shocked by the amount of money we are inadvertently or knowingly putting into Chinese pockets. We are literally paying them for the rope they will use to hang us. I don't want to die any sooner than I must, but ultimately I'm glad that I will, by virtue of my age, not live to see some of the problems we are creating for ourselves. I worry for our grandchildren.
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I have been saying this for at least a year. Elon Musk has stated we do not have enough electricity to power electrical cars. The article stated , as have articles I linked that China controls the majority of rare earth metal production. I haven’t looked recently but China did control and May still control America’s largest rare earth mine. It takes, from my reading, a number of years to bring rare earth mines into production.
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