Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The comedic spectacle of activist politicians choking off the supply of raw materials required for their precious green revolution, then wondering at the lack of progress.
‘Greenflation’ threatens to derail climate change action
Fossil fuels will be needed in the green transition but vital supplies are being squeezed
The writer, Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s chief global strategist, is author of ‘The Ten Rules of Successful Nations’
The world faces a growing paradox in the campaign to contain climate change. The harder it pushes the transition to a greener economy, the more expensive the campaign becomes, and the less likely it is to achieve the aim of limiting the worst effects of global warming.
New government-directed spending is driving up demand for materials needed to build a cleaner economy. At the same time, tightening regulation is limiting supply by discouraging investment in mines, smelters, or any source that belches carbon. The unintended result is “greenflation”: rising prices for metals and minerals such as copper, aluminium and lithium that are essential to solar and wind power, electric cars and other renewable technologies.
In the past, the transition to a new energy source provided a big boost to the old one. The advent of steam power inspired the makers of sailing ships to innovate more in 50 years than they had in the previous 300. Electricity had a similar impact on gas lighting. Now, building green economies will consume more oil in the transition period, but producers are not responding the same way because political and regulatory resistance has darkened the future of fossil fuels.
…
Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/49c19d8f-c3c3-4450-b869-50c7126076ee
I know some of our dear leaders are a little math challenged, but how can there not be anyone in their circle who can do a few sums?
Even without red tape insanity, decades worth of production of high value minerals would be required to seriously attempt net zero, over and above the current level production which services the needs of society. Only an enormous expansion of fossil fuel powered mining and industry would have any hope of delivering and processing such a quantity of raw material in any kind of reasonable timeframe.
Demands for more green energy in conjunction with a global effort to shut down any activity which causes pollution simply does not make sense.
I couldn’t resist:
Now I’ll go read the article(-:
I notice they are all wearing pants designed to hide the engorged incontinence undergarments. Glad this photo didn’t come with smell-o-vision.
Have to laugh at this! Years back my wife helped me make a gag silk screen of the same 3-Stooges pose, using my friend’s faces instead of Larry, Curly and Moe. Thanks for the memories…and the correct depiction of the “climate messiahs”…
I am not criticizing, but I noted that picture had Shemp instead of Curly. I always liked Curly better, I enjoyed it when he would lie on the floor sideways and run in circles…
IIRC, the original golf short was indeed done w/Curly. He chopped down a tree to get one of his balls.
Which one is Naomi Oreskes?
Thanks for the suggestion, a face only a mother could love.
She is the one destroying capitalism, if only she had access to more wealth, she would get the job done in no time…….
You sir have won the Internet
Here is more
How unfortunate – such a completely unforseen consequence. Whoever would have thunk it. sarc (no, really).
Here’s some math that maybe some of the usual crowd has figured in,
but it’s doesn’t seem to be the rule by any stretch:
Those giant batteries to meet demand when the wind doesn’t blow and
the sun doesn’t shine need to be charged when it does. Soooooo, the
windmills and solar panels have to have twice the capacity if they are
to provide useable power and charge up the batteries at the same time.
Since wind and solar are only available well less than half the time on average, they are going to need a lot more than twice the capacity to have enough left over to charge the batteries.
I did a quick back of envelope calculation for Alberta, including electrifying heating and transport, battery charging when wind blows etc, i came up with over 30,000 3MW wind turbines, for piddly little alberta of 4.5 million people.
And i’m sure i cut a few corners.
Extrapolate that to the world
Pat
Combine that with
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/08/02/green-deal-fear-of-yellow-vests-rebellion-spreads-across-europe/
and maybe it becomes
“Extra-polite that to the world”
I am quite enjoying the 13-ton Tesla battery currently burning in Australia. It has apparently also ignited battery banks nearby. It was supposed to be the largest battery in the world but it seems more intent on getting smaller instead. They have to let it burn as cooling it seems to make it mad.
Any recent pictures?
JoNova blog
it didn’t even last a week before it needs a major revamp
this is now the forth after Belgium, UK and the US that I know of
and what’s worse is they are not major hazard facilities
The amount of generation is a function of the cost of storage and the amount of dispatchable plant available.
The optimum capacity factor for my solar panels with lithium battery storage is 7% at current battery costs. The unconstrained capacity factor of my solar panels that are grid connected is 16%. Optimum capacity factor rises to maybe 10% for wind at grid scale but that is highly dependent on the wind pattern over years. The generation side of it is relatively low cost so the optimum for the system is derived by adding more generating capacity in order to reduce storage capacity, which is still very expensive. Optimum is minimum overall cost of energy delivered.
There are liquid metal batteries in early commercialisation that might bring the cost of grid storage down such that the optimum generating capacity factor gets closer to the unconstrained value.
All grid solar and wind in Australia is now forced to curtail output as the grid becomes oversupplied. That means that capacity factors are reducing over time as the weather dependent generators are increasingly constrained as more intermittent plant is added. The Australian grid is close to saturation with WDGs until there is a large increase in storage.
Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never jam today.
Apologies to Lewis Carrol.
‘What happens’?
That one’s easy: John Galt.
Sorry did not phrase it as a question.
No points awarded.
Let me try: Who is John Galt?
“Now, building green economies will consume more oil in the transition period, but producers are not responding the same way because political and regulatory resistance has darkened the future of fossil fuels.”
Jeez. This guy (with an Indian name) writes for the Financial Times, and he has never heard of a country called China?
Weather dependent generators, using current technology, will ultimately consume all economic output. Humans will live and work to support electricity generation. These devices require more energy to make them than they can ever recover.
Countries like the UK that have reduced their internal CO2 emissions have simply outsourced their emissions plus some to countries like China that supplies the wind turbines, solar panels and transmission infrastructure. None of which can produce more energy in their lifetime than it took to make them. Already Germany and USA are faced with aged wind generators that are no longer economic to operate and need to be replaced or abandoned. Without subsidies, there is no economic case for replacement.
Exactly. And this guy, writing for the premier Financial newspaper in the UK (and probably much of the rest of the world) appears clueless.
I’m not an economist, but I learned at school, around age 13, that excessive costs or taxation will often drive the industry/problem somewhere else, possibly making it worse.
China will only stop when they have accumulated everything there is to accumulate, or when their own pollution gets so bad that there is another revolution.
Comedy is the right word, Eric. A comedy of errors – to be enjoyed as a drama only by future generations.
But actually, I personally cannot help enjoying it right now! It is just so funny.
But actually, I personally cannot help enjoying it right now! It is just so funny.
Harold Camping was a Doom & Gloomer predicting the end of the world and he had his followers. His schtick was funny or tragic depending on your mood but you know what? You didn’t have to be one of his followers!
Not the case with the Climate Crusaders. When they get done with you, you won’t be laughing. Living in a 650 square foot cold water flat eating tofu and riding the bus to your re-education camp and showing up at the community euthanization center on your 65th birthday is no laughing matter.
I don’t quite have enough perspective to find it very funny at the moment – still in the darkly tragic phase here in the UK. I’m sure things will get lighter as soon as the bumbling morons stop holding a metaphorical knife to our collective throats.
Replying to both you and Steve Case : Of course I know where you are coming from – and, in a way, agree with you : it isn’t really funny. But remember we are only facing the idiotic plans of the “bumbling morons” . Long before any such plans are put into action sober political thinking will stop them in their tracks – simply because they are physically impossible. That is why I find it a bit amusing. We need not panic. Leave the panicking to the bumbling morons.
But yes, this nonsense will cost us – and of all the countries in the world the UK population will likely suffer the most.
This of course is the real goal of many pushing the global warming scam. They want to stop society in its tracks and depopulate the globe (with the exception of themselves and their few favoured followers). Only in that light does any of this make sense. Relieve the Earth of the burden of humanity so that the few (self) chosen ones can enjoy the splendor of creation unhindered by competition and moral restriction.
“…and moral restriction”
Bingo!
Yes, a self-moderating behaviolal protocol based on principles of dignity, agency, value, and reconciliation, threaten to harsh one’s mellow. Throw another baby on the barbie and savor the secular lucre.
A recent estimate of the cost of an entirely green energy economy in California alone was at trillions per year. So, this only works if there is almost nobody in CA, thus decreasing the energy demand to daytime electricity to use your microwave and charge your phone. Refrigeration and A/C would be gone and who needs lighting at night and heating in the winter? What pansies— light a candle and put on more clothes.
no candles allowed in the war on fire
Ya nailed it, Andy.
And what happens when one of these pushers gets a lump where they would not show their mother?
Every so many months in my western university town, I get a useful idiot at my door wanting me to sign another petition against mining in the state. After they finish their spiel, I’ll ask, “Do you believe in ‘locally sourced’ produce?”. They’ll usually enthusiastically respond in the affirmative. Very often, there will have at least one piercing on their body, and I’ll ask, “What is that made of and where did it come from?”. Of course, it’s usually silver and they have no idea where it came from. After the deer-in-the-headlights look somewhat subsides, I’ll ask “Then why wouldn’t you want ‘locally sourced minerals’?” Not knowing how to respond, usually the conversation ends there. But if it doesn’t I’ll go on about all the rare earths from China and other places that have absolutely no regard for the environment and how they’ll have to amp up their carving of the earth to satisfy our green fantasies about saving the planet.
Pushing mining into unregulated cultures not only increases pollution, it leads to indentured servitude, you know, slave labor.
Leftists have never really been concerned about slavery, with the exception of how lies about slavery can be used to enhance their power.
Slavery in third world countries can’t be portrayed as the fault of Trump or Republicans, so it doesn’t exist.
My response to those doorknockers…I’m in the natural resource business, specifically mining. So, do you like your lifestyle? If they say yes, then I say you should thank me.
I never get troubled by doorknockers. I always used to engage in conversation with them, asking the usual simple questions that require very simple answers. They seem to find simple questions difficult to answer?
Even the local Jehovah Witness team have stopped coming round.
Life can be very peaceful if you ask the right questions. 🙂
I find being a mile down a private dirt road (that looks like something out of a horror movie) takes care of doorknockers quite well.
If the conversation lasts long enough, I’ll explain to them how mineral extraction combined with accessible & inexpensive energy has exclusively provided them the opportunity to have the spare time to go door-to-door to tell people how awful mineral extraction and accessible & inexpensive energy is. If they’re hanging around after that, I’ll point out that they probably would not have survived the world that my grandparents were born into.
Stop using their slanted language!
“materials needed to build a cleaner economy” (my underline)
There is nothing “unclean” about CO2.
You may argue that CO2 may impact future temperatures but don’t let them conflate CO2 emissions with particulate matter and noxious fumes.
Thank you for that, you “Get It!”
Typical for leftists, everything they try ends up having the opposite of the desired effect. Hilarious.
Well, it would be hilarious if the rest of us didn’t have to chip in for it.
I wonder, has Josh (or anyone else) done the cartoon yet that has an idiot at the gas station with all the “climate deluded” bumper stickers on it (“Ban Fracking” “Keep it In the Ground” “There is No Planet #2” etc.) complaining to the station attendant “What do you mean you’re out of gas!”
That one needs to be done. If you aren’t artistic, rip off some images and cut&paste it together. Slap it up in Pookies Toons comment section. I’ll watch for it to appear. Pookie often runs stuff from amateurs.
Yes! LOL
Or “Why is the price so %*$#! high?”
“We have to destroy the village in order to save it.”
There are numerous examples of the alarmists and their apologists being math challenged. Most notably, the rare use of uncertainty ranges in their graphs and forecasts, and the common claim that non-stationary time-series can have the variance and precision improved by averaging a large number of readings over time, ignoring the requirements for improving precision.
I can’t help but wonder if they support climate alarmism because they are math challenged.
Climate studies in all its guises at colleges and universities does appear to be a dumbed down course for the maths challenged. If they were any good at maths they’d be doing a proper course rather than a Mickey mouse one (no offence intended to Disney).
No need to apology, Disney deserves all the offence you can give them.
As I have said for years: if you can build these “green” renewable energy machines/schemes, the very building of them is proof that you do NOT need them, because if you really needed them you would not be able to build them. they are a waste.
Can anyone point out any historic mass delusions equivalent to the “climate crisis” that allegedly besets humanity today?
If so, how did they end?
(I ask because if I disregard religions, I can’t think of anything)
The Tulip Craze in Holland, 1600’s massive loss by speculators.
Millenial doom criers around 1,000 AD, mostly just sunk into historical oblivion.
The Dot.Com bubble in the US.
I’m sure others can add to the list.
Thanks D.J.
I thought about events cited in Mackay’s “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”, but I was alluding to more about delusions that physically threatened humanity with extinction, rather than ones where only $$$$s were at risk.
The millenial doom criers you cited would qualify among the genre I was thinking about – “we’re all doomed“, based on zero substantial evidence (as per CAGW).
What? No ‘Monday Mirth’ today .. so I thought I’ll post this, most of my WUWT comments are written in the same style.
That is pretty amazing.
A bit of a non-sequitur, but somewhat related. I have asserted that wind turbines and solar panels cannot generate enough energy to power the machinery required to reproduce themselves. A couple of weeks ago, an article was posted here at WUWT containing the following statement “For example, the Caterpillar 797F dump truck is powered by a 4,000 horsepower turbocharged diesel engine. At full power it will require 2.98 megawatts of energy. Assume the truck runs at 50 per cent of maximum power for an eight-hour shift. It would consume around 12 megawatt-hours of electricity. It would need 120 of Tesla’s latest automotive batteries to power it. The batteries would weigh 64 tonnes”. So, if this dump truck is used in the mining operation, it would require a single 1.5 MW wind turbine running at full capacity to keep batteries charged for an 8 hour shift, if I understand things correctly (which I may not!). If a Cat 785D were used instead, it’s HP rating is a little more than one third the power of the 797F, so a 1.5 MW wind turbine operating at roughtly 30% capacity might (emphasize might) do the trick. That’s just the dump truck, not the mining equipment itself, the machinery required to separate the overburden, transport, manufacture, site prep, maintenance, decommissioning, and disposal. Did I miss anything and am I figuring this correctly? Does this make any sense?
“… wind turbines and solar panels cannot generate enough energy to power the machinery required to reproduce themselves. …”
Good one, it’s going in the file.
Thanks! It seems obvious, but I frankly don’t know enough about the entire process to say that my assertion is totally accurate. However, just looking at the type of equipment used in a mining operation alone would likely require a lot of wind turbines and/or solar panels to power the operation. Here is a link to the type of equipment used: https://www.cashmanequipment.com/about/the-dirt-blog/common-types-of-mining-equipment-used. And a link re: materials required which I am going to guess you’ve already read. https://www.manhattan-institute.org/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-reality-check
There are economic applications for weather dependent generators where they provide value. The two cases that are reasonably obvious are to conserved perched water in a hydropower dominated grid and as a diesel fuel replacement in remote locations that pay for an expensive fuel on a long supply chain.
Beyond those applications, WDGs cannot provide economic value at the present state of technology. They cannot produce enough energy over their lifespan to enable the power supply system to be maintained. The system includes energy storage and transmission as well as all the processes required in their formation and maintenance – mining, mineral processing, manufacturing, transport and nurturing the current and next generation to keep the treadmill going.
WDGs of the present technology will consume all human endeavour before they meet human energy needs. Look at how many people are now employed on this resource sapping fantasy.
Barnes & Rick:
Overall I agree. Wind & solar are mostly parasites on the energy grid.
In select locations/circumstances they might make sense.
In Vaclav Smil’s 2017 book “Energy and Civilization” he has the following
concerning EROI -energy returned on (energy) invested: [higher is better]
Coal: 10-80 [quality & ease of extraction]
Oil/gas: 10 to > 100 [ ” ” ” ]
Wind: usually < 10 [could be as high as 20]
Solar: < 2
Biofuels: <1.5 [but often ~1]
So, yes, renewables can not ‘reproduce’ themselves.
And here in central Arizona we are having another beautiful day that is completely consistent with “climate change”. [since ALL weather is consistent…]
One manufacturer has converted diesel to turbocharged H2 fuel for these heavy equipment machines….H2 costs more than diesel but it should pass the green test.
Good you tube on JCB H2 engine under development and the reasons for it can be found here:
https://youtu.be/19Q7nAYjAJY
Haven’t you been following events. There is a legislative tendency to cut the maximum power usage of appliances. The resulting dysfunction of devices is not a consideration for the faithful.
Here in the EU vacuum cleaners are capped at 750 W. Nothing higher in shops. We still have our 20 year old 1500W Panasonic, going strong …
Modern freight trains in the US are pulled by three to nine diesel-electric locomotives each producing 4000+ HP. This is the most energy-efficient form of land transportation on the planet.
The most energy-efficient form of land transport is a person on a bicycle
The most efficient form of transportation is a NAKED person walking. No manufactured products necessary.
Bicycles require energy to manufacture.
How many leading politicians have an engineering background? The issue is they don’t understand and if anyone tries to educate them they are simply ignored. Politicians are not interested in facts or reality.
I don’t know about “leading”, but the US Congress has 17 engineers, 15 in the House and 2 in the Senate. The majority are Democrats.
Social engineers, D.J.?
Well, for Demonrats that sorta goes without saying. But these were hard core, mechanical, electrical, chemical, civil, etc. There were a couple of industrial engineers in there, but I let that slide in the count.
But when they got elected, a great big hand came down from the sky, opened up their head and scooped out any intelligence that they may have had.
Having read a little bit of what some of them have to say about
renewableunreliable energy, I can’t say you are wrong.“It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.” -Thomas Sowell.
For the UK’s parliament see here
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7483/CBP-7483.pdf
pages 15 and 17
I don’t think that’s true. I think net zero can be achieved immediately.
“Net zero” is a bullshit term meaning “we’re still emitting CO2, but we are planting a tree”
Your day to water it is Thursday.
It is just a repeat of Soviet agriculture, where ideologues pit themselves against reality. The first Soviet strategy was to seize peasant grain, then peasants responded by planting less, not out of spite, but because who in their right mind would plant grain only to have it seized? So, finally they allowed the peasants to own land and sell produce, which set up two economies: one was collective in the cities and the other capitalist in the countryside. Finally, this began to undermine the ideology, as peasants (kulaks) in the countryside did quite well for themselves compared to the factory workers in the city. So, the response then was to collectivize everything and get rid of the kulaks by deporting them to the gulags. The result of that was starvation and famine (the Holodomor which resulted in millions of deaths). And collectivization finally failed because no one had any incentive to exceed the minimum grain quotas.
Once the “idée fixe” set in Soviet leadership (who were incredibly schooled in Marxist ideology), there was nothing for the “little people” to do but watch the system spiral out of control and collapse. (sigh)
Well, Mao had a different approach….he wanted to produce steel to match his Soviet friend Stalin so he forced farmers off the land to the factories….starved about 38 million. Stalin and Mao were responsible for about 100 million deaths….just a statistic, eh?
OT: I was among the first to quantify the GLF death toll some 40 years ago. 45 MM is closer to the mark. Mao and his merry CCP band over the past 100 years have been responsible for well north of 100MM deaths within China’s borders.
Stalin in comparison was a choir boy, estimates varying 35-40MM.
A (green) new jobs program. Put enough people in immediate supervisory roles, with adequate authority (bull whips and stun rods) to keep the peasants working at full steam.
“Even without red tape insanity, decades worth of production of high value minerals would be required to seriously attempt net zero”
No, it is technically impossible as green energy is too unreliable and, thus, we need to build and entire, full-size backup energy supply. And, with the short-halves of wind and solar devices, the world suddenly will find itself replacing these devices rather than having more.
YOU CANNOT BUILD A RELIABLE ENERGY SUPPLY FROM UNRELIABLE ENERGY SOURCES.
Secondly, even with unfettered mining, this green-energy world cannot be had just due to overall resource abundance of key elements and minerals.
This is ignoring the fact that the only way this could work is to reduce the world population by 95% and then limit their energy use. Oh, wait, that’s Agenda 21! Comsumerism is not a problem when you pretty much eliminate the consumers and limit it to a few elite. They need to keep a few million of us to manage their elitist support systems, that’s all, maybe 500 million. Can you say, “Hunger Games”? Those districts are exactly what they have in mind.
536 AD……the worst year in history….a volcano caused a “nuclear” winter….it could happen again or a huge asteroid could be the disaster. Food will have to be grown in caves and warehouses using electricity…the only way is thorium MSR’s ….we better start producing them now.
I’m pretty sure the elites will keep the wrong 500 million people, Charles.
As complex and interdependent as our civilization is, the elites are bound to be missing key people here and there. It will be like a broom handle through bicycle spokes when key people are eliminated.
We will all wind up as 3rd World people. But they have an advantage. Subsistence living day-to-day is all the 3rd World has ever known. They are pros. The elites are pikers.
Charles & HR:
IIRC You would find interesting the plot for Tom Clancy’s
book ” Rainbow Six”.
[spoiler alert! ecoterrorists try to depopulate the world]
[double spoiler alert!! erily close to the covid-19 crisis
with respect to vaccines!]
[triple alert!!! the ending is poetic justice]
And all to ‘solve’ a fictitious ‘problem’. There is no climate crisis. There is no need for net-zero at all.
The fictitious problem is the excuse for, not the reason for.
They hamstrung nuclear power and then began attacking oil.
The bottom line is that “greenies” do not want the power replaced, they want the humans using power reduced to an absurdly small number.
”The unintended result is “greenflation”: rising prices for metals and minerals such as copper, aluminium and lithium that are essential to solar and wind power,…”
Iron ore should be added to the list, for the zillions of tons of steel needed for wind farms. Oh, I forgot about the carbon fibre blades…
Just like Marxism/Socialism needs Capitalism to fund their transitions to poverty the “all renewable energy” crowd needs fossil fuels to pave the way to energy starvation.
+++++++++++++++👍
Who needs math when we’ve got subsidies?
I think at this point it’s time to start an annual tally of foregone development and production of base and specialty metals in Canada and the U.S. in support of our ‘modern’ consumption levels. The cumulative impact of EPA and Sierra Club tactics of investment blockade needs to be tabulated in the course of making the U.S. look like top-heavy, former empires like Spain, Portugal, and Rome. Footnotes on the tactics used against each project, both legal and illegal, need to be added to the timeline.
The Harris Admin will surely step up and help the mining companies by stomping on their left-wing supporters in the enviro-activist groups to get this green dream done.
Wrong! And don’t call them Shirley!!
Perhaps you might differentiate between what they say and how they invest, or what they do and who makes campaign contributions and kickbacks.
This is going to be fun to watch.
The world accelerates toward the green hole omnishambles past the sanity horizon of no return – Yay 😃 !
Political leaders do not do maths. They leave that activity to their underlings and then are loath to listen to them when the results are not positive. Political leaders live completely in a World where words mean whatever the politician deem them to and the results of maths can always be rephrased to suit the agenda.
There is another issue which I have heard only rarely discussed.
We are supposed to be moving away from fossil fuels. Thermal coal is sourced predominantly from surface mines, which typically produce ore from 15 to 20% of the total volume of material moved. Coal mines create a hole in the ground, then “move” that hole through the deposit, filling the previous void location with waste. The final area impacted by mining is relatively small.
Mines producing materials for the green revolution operate at far lower percentages of valuable material compared to the waste moved, sometimes as low as 1%, and often less than 3%. The mines generating this material create a hole and dump all material on the surface nearby. Underground mines have less impact, but still generate significant waste materials which can only be dumped on the surface.
This green revolution is going to result in significantly larger areas being impacted by mining. My friends who are fervent warmistas firmly believe that mining will be a thing of the past. They talk about recycling material endlessly as the source of metals and materials we need.
Yes, the circle [jerk] economy…
Dean
Point your friends in the direction of ‘Mining our green future’ by Richard Herrington in Nature Reviews. Professor Herrington is Head of Earth Sciences at the UK Natural History Museum. The paper is at
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-021-00325-9 Quote below
“Green technology requires non-renewable raw materials sourced from primary geological resources(mines) or secondary supply (Reuse or recycling). The ambition is a fully circular economy, in which demand can be met by reuse and recycling; however we are not yet at that point. Stocks of secondary supplies and recycling rates are inadequate to meet demand. Even for metals, such as aluminium and cobalt, for which end-of-life recycling is up to 70%, secondary supply still only accounts for 30% of their growing demand; and in the case of lithium, recycling only accounts for 1% of present demand…………………….As a result of these sourcing challenges, mining remains necessary to deliver validated technical solutions needed for the rapid decarbonization demanded”
If the Greenies really want to force the world to switch to idiotic renewables, the resulting new mining for the minerals required will lead to tracts of land the size of Texas being chewed up and destroyed.