As this paper shows, expanding mining on the scale needed to meet the renewable energy requirements contained in the Green New Deal and other proposed renewable energy mandates would cause unimaginable harm to the environment, wildlife, and humans.
Executive Summary
The Green New Deal (GND)—promoted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and several other prominent elected officials—aims to replace all fossil fuels and nuclear energy with so-called “renewable” energy sources, primarily wind and solar.
The justification for this extreme policy proposal is based primarily on the fear that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from oil, natural gas, and coal will cause catastrophic global warming, as well as concerns about the alleged dangers of nuclear power sources.
The scientific case that manmade global warming poses an “existential threat” to humanity is highly questionable, according to many scientists, and the safety record for nuclear power in this country thoroughly belies the claims against it.
However, what is beyond dispute is that eliminating fossil fuels and nuclear power would require literally millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels, and several billion batteries like the half-ton power sources used in Tesla vehicles. This, in turn, would require a massive worldwide increase in mining for lithium, cobalt, copper, iron, aluminum, and numerous other raw materials.
Current mining operations to supply materials for today’s comparatively small amount of renewable power technology—plus batteries for laptop computers, smartphones, and electric cars—are already causing supply difficulties and serious problems for the environment. These mining operations are also imposing substantial harm on the men, women, and children who work in battery- and renewable energy-related mines, processing plants and factories in other countries.
As this paper shows, expanding mining on the scale needed to meet the renewable energy requirements contained in the Green New Deal and other proposed renewable energy mandates would cause unimaginable harm to the environment, wildlife, and humans.
Paul Driessen is a senior policy advisor with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.
Read this as a PDF here: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/publications/PBdriessenmining2Apr20.pdf
ÑPaul, I am in general agreement with your report, however, mining does not need to pollute and contaminate. An advanced culture has rules about the entire mining sequence, including establishing transparency committees. Some of the comments your report registered are from environmental hit jobs, for example, the lithium triangle of Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia. I have worked a lot around the “Salar de Hombre Muerto” and the comments about contaminating the local streams are fabricated nonsense. Salar de HOmbre Muerto is a salar, an internal salt-pan which is the collection point of local “streams” (they only run when there is a significant rain event). There are no streams existing the Salar de Hombre Muerto, it is the terminal point of local drainage. Same for the other salars in the lithium triangle. By the way if you drive across one of these salars you start hoping your vehicle does not have any trouble and strand you, because the stench is gagging. Go Nuclear! Paul, I think your report is good, but contaminated with fake news from some other groups, but keep up the good work. Stay sane and safe.
Every so many months, I get a useful idiot at my doorstep wishing me to sign a petition against a mine somewhere in the state. I usually ask if they are into “green” energy. Of course, they always are. So then I have to ask where all of the stuff that makes “green” energy is going to come from. They don’t know. Then I’ll ask if they are into “locally sourced food”. They are usually most enthusiastic about that.
So then I ask, “Why aren’t you into ‘locally sourced’ minerals?”.
Silence.
I always ask some of my green ‘friends’ if they think that moving to an electrical operated world, then they must be really big supporters of mining, since it will require a lot of new mining ventures to fill that current void, including probably nuclear power of some sort for the electricity supply, since we we know renewables can’t even keep up with new normal growth. Usually I just get a blank stare back, having realized that they also don’t support mining, or generally anything else like logging, where they get their toilet paper from.
I think mining can be done responsibly, if it planned that way from the beginning. It might cost a little bit more to do it better, such as dry stacked tailings but once these metals are produced, the most of them will be recyclable with a bit of energy input for ever. But I always love the look on their face when they realize after having opined about moving toward a much more electrical future, how much they must support the mining sector. Some must just believe that these metals will just magically appear out of thin air.
Yes, metals all just appear as if by magic.
This is the modern political alchemy.
Mining coal = bad.
Mining rare earths = good.
Destroying pristine wilderness = bad.
Hydroelectric = good.
Every POLITICIAN that is worth anything at all, learns that to have BIG OVERSIZED and total-vision-is-goal planks upon which to legitimize their polity, is the № 1 way to keep getting reëlected, especially by a young, imtemperate, illiberal voter base. Idealism must have ideals!
The Green New Deal is just one example of an easily peddled vision of unmatched hyperbole. These visions come and go, and as is the case, the mix of conservatıve and progressive forces in turn compromise the vision-of-perfection into ssomething more workable within the vexingly chaotic confines of the REAL WORLD, with all its regional bumps, warts, shortcomings, abundances, religious and philosophically minded peoples inhabiting the dirt therein.
The GND in its absolute-is-optimal position, figures that somehow the whole world can work from anything-but-fossil-fuel, and while ‘they’re at it’, anything that carries even a modest stigma of not being Good for the Earth. So, no nuclear. I’m kind of surprised that geothermal isn’t on the verboten list, actually.
________________________________________
But the foregoing isn’t the whole point, is it? The point is that there will be compromise from the GND to the round-earth situation, from now until the foreseeable future ebbs.
The greenies might want us to deprecate our fossil-fueled cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships. Its fomenters might want to wish-away the demand for energy that this modern world’s form of reasonable living standards affords. Tho’ they have an unusually high number of people who revel in building their 25 m² cabins, solar powered, off-grid, wood-fired and all organic, non-GMO, self-raised foodstuffs, it is equally surprising how many of the off-gridders have cell phones, laptops, internet connections. It is even more surprising how many comport themselves without horses, camels, donkeys or sled-dogs … using motorized vehicular transport.
Thing is, that the GND is a RELIGIOUS PAPER at its root. It calls upon all progressives, mostly the young, the easily impressioned, the idealists, the naïve … to demand rights that they have not EARNED. It denies the greater civilization, the one that needs to mine ores, smelt them (an immensely dirty process), to work them into tools, tools into machines, machines into manufacturing devices, and they producing the gazillions of parts, parts, interlocking parts which actually makes ALL the invisible devices of civilization work.
There are positively excellent past-copyright-expiry YouTube videos made from 1950s and 1960s films, which explain in rather jaw-dropping detail the likes of iron smelting, of forging, machining, of building our civilization’s most notable edifices. Skyscrapers, cranes, humungous viaducts, machines to dig ’em. Mining mahcines, enormous presses, hydraulics systems, electrical control systems and devices.
Sobering.
Sobering to realize that ALL THIS STUFF requires a whole world-wide infraxtructure of raw-materials refining, processing, designing, joining and packaging. Just to have scapels, pliers, spray bottles, pens, pressure cookers, olive oil, glass windows, fresh eggs, linoleum, ceramics, utensils, carpets, refrigerators, bags, boxes, books, ups, facemasks, and all the rest. IT IS AMAZING how much stuff we make, which requires machines, and ‘parts’ made by mahines, etc. Amazing.
WE CAN EASILY accomodate the same level of GND dynamics and forces in our civilization, as we are accomodating the non-GMO-ists, the organic food snobs, the ten dollar über-burger devotées, the Amish with their mules, the Never Trumpers with their slogans and signage, the AntiFa dopes who have been duped into believing they have rights … that they just don’t merit.
LET EM BUILD WINDMILLS, solar farms, geothermal fields. Let ’em repurpose spent salt mines, to pump full of high pressure air, to store energy. Let ’em reestablish CAFE standards for fuel’d cars, to drive fleet mileage back up to 40+ miles a gallon; let ’em close the loopholes that relieved the makers of SUVs from having to meet CAFE standards. Its ok, fellow WUWT goers. What they’re doing is no different than the environmentalists in the 1960s, 1970s who worked long and hard to curb forest-soil destroying logging practices, that worked to build watersheds, that worked to competently repurpose strip mines once ‘done’. These are NOT BAD THINGS, you know.
And let us be smug in our resolution to listen to the totalitarian hyper-positions, and nod our heads sagely. Because we’ve seen a lot of bbb-bb-b-bûllsnot … marked at gold … to know that all things gold hued … are not gold.
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
I find it humorous the number of people who speak about mining without having a clue what is involved in mining or the horrendous practices followed in most countries where it is carried out. Mining is difficult, and can be extremely dangerous and polluting when carried out in places where controls and oversight are either non-existent or subject to corruption (paying off the local warlord or party lead).
While Mr. Long states “mining does not need to pollute and contaminate”, this can be true in the G7 countries, but sadly that is not what happens in most of the world. Take rare earth materials, which are mostly mined in 3rd world countries and processed by ChiCom controlled companies. If you mine cobalt in Ontario, its responsible government, subject to oversight by environmental advocates, lawyers and its regulators, will mine the stuff in a manner that greatly limits negative aspects of the process (nothing is absolute, so there will be some trade-offs). But these Ontario mines can’t get the funds to operate because they must compete with the rest of the world where lax oversight and controls are the rule.
This is also true of oil and gas. What is more polluting? Oil from Alberta’s oil sands, with advanced techniques for controlling the pollutants and reclaiming the land after use, or what goes on in some South American or African countries? If you guessed Alberta you would be right, even down to control of the pollutant dejure, carbon dioxide. But Alberta can be attached because Canada is a free country…try challenging other states where there is no rule of law.
I have seen close hand what mines can be and what they are (I worked in mine wrecking for many years, as well as with a manufacturer of sluice gates), and the practices of some companies are responsible, while others are not, and the responsibility can slip in the 3rd world for the same company. The best are usually in G7 countries, though there can be some stinkers when they off-shore the mining. I compare what I have seen between Northern Ontario/Quebec, with what I have also seen in West Africa, and know that the need to have inexpensive materials favors facilities that should not operate, as their oversight stinks or is just downright corrupt
I used to be leery of nuclear power, even though I worked with many engineers that built the Candu fleet (my principal was one), my biggest concern not over these going critical, but with the lack of storage for the spent rods and their transport for treatment. But I am over that leeriness now, having seen the alternatives of industrial wind and solar facilities, with their unnecessary consumption of land and destruction of animal habitat.
We need to reduce pollution (and I don’t mean CO2) when we produce electricity, and gas turbines, though fascinating from an engineering perspective, can only be a useful solution in the near term. Wind turbines and solar panels are not a viable alternative for an advanced society. Better nuclear should be viable.
Simple answer. Require everything to be made of hemp and bamboo….
Take a look at the outrageous reality in Baotou caused by rare earth metal mining for industrial wind turbines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_UdqZdFr-w
How can environmentalists condone this?
How many millions of square miles of forrest or other ecosystem will need to be cleared/destroyed to install wind and solar at that scale?
Sooner or later, given the lack of a real education that includes facts about economics, the US population will vote for socialism (the real intent of the whole climate excuse exercise)—and then suffer the consequences.
We no longer seem able to learn from the mistakes of others. so each generation is doomed to repeat failure. The best we can do is to plan to ride the tide and adapt, as we resist with rational argument.
Lithium? It’s more poisonous than the lead used in conventional batteries. Lithium salts are used in the treatment of bipolar affective disorders & the therapeutic window is quite small.
The post reads, “…promoted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and several other prominent elected officials…”
AOC isn’t a prominent elected official. She simply a loud-mouthed congressperson with a large social-media following. To the rest of the world, she’s an I-don’t-care-what-she-has-to-say former bartender.
[UPDATE] AOC’s the congressional equivalent of a Kardashian.
Stay safe and healthy, all,
Bob
My colleagues in a mineral exploration/mining company discovered a dozen new mines in Australia, some world class. In decades with them, I saw a fascinating technology change from manual mining to mining without people in the mine. Computing staff who see that the automatic machines are performing to requirement are not even needed nearby and can control the operation from a continent away.
In the early days we had an occasional death. This had such an impact that it drove automation, together with better economics.
In every case familiar to me, those who work in or close to actual mining are not rapacious cruel beasts intent on profit, but normal people, often ordinary family folk. It might be different in some other countries.
Those who react hysterically against mining do not seem to have witnessed it. In Australia, we are proud of our contributions to new wealth creation. Geoff S
Those supporting craptacular Green New Deals and other similar evidence of raging oligophrenia pandemics are persuaded that all comes from Amazon’s app search function.
Dig up the country – thats green. In Germany, entire forests are razed to make space for wind farms. Thats green. China covers hellscapes with glistening panels. Thats green. The Green religion is the biggest destroyer of nature we have ever seen. Yes, it’s worse than the industrial revolution. European counties have added forested surface for more than 100 years. Now it’s cutting down again. Courtesy of our Green wizards.
Thought Experiment.
Suppose we ban mining.
Just look around you.
How many things came out of a mine?
How many things could be made without using tools made from materials that came out of a mine?
Where are you going to get the copper wire from for your solar panels and windmills?
Where are you going to get the insulation for the copper wires?
Reminds me of a joke.
A teacher asks a little girl. “Where does milk come from”?
The little girl replies “Safeway”
The ONLY good thing to ever come out of California’s legal system is the car crusher.
In your gut you know they’re nuts when they fold in wealth redistribution and overlook the low cost leaders even within renewables. Obama was a textbook case of rewarding the losers and only vaguely acknowledging the winners by using averages to cover up the deceit and corruption in subsidy programs like the case of Solyndra.