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.
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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.
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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.