Sustainable Minerals Institute UQ
Speaker: Professor Simon Michaux, Associate Professor of Geometallurgy, Geological Survey of Finland
Abstract: The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels, is much larger than first thought. Current mining production of these metals is not even close to meeting demand. Current reported mineral reserves are also not enough in size. Most concerning is copper as one of the flagged shortfalls. Exploration for more at required volumes will be difficult, with this seminar addressing these issues.
Bio: Simon Michaux is an Associate Professor of geometallurgy at the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) in KTR, the Circular Economy Solutions Unit. He holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Physics and Geology and a PhD in Mining Engineering from the University of Queensland’s JKMRC. Simon has over 18 years experience in the Australian mining industry in research and development, 12 months at Ausenco in the private sector, and 3 years in Belgium at the University of Liege researching Circular Economy and industrial recycling. Work experience in Finland has been at GTK has been in the Minerals Intelligence in the MTR unit, before joining the KTR. Simon’s long term objectives include the development and transformation of the Circular Economy into a more practical system for the industrial ecosystem to navigate the twin challenges of the scarcity of technology minerals and the transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Available on our Videos page.
HT/Dean S
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Intriguing talk. What I didn’t hear(maybe I missed it) was any accounting of improving fuel efficiency and the continuing improving of products using less electricity for the same performance.
Have you heard of the concept of the point of diminishing returns? Most of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked.
I’ve heard that before. We were supposed to run out of food and oil by 2000. Human ingenuity is a very powerful tool.
Totally irrelevant to the point.
1) The guys claiming we were about to run out of food and oil were total nut jobs.
2) Do you honestly believe that because we made improvements in the past, therefore we can continue to make similar improvements ad infinitum?
Have you not noticed that the aim of present governments throughout the World, is to utterly destroy that ingenuity through their ‘control’ actions? If those actions continue, unstopped, Human “ingenuity” will be focussing on how to feed one’s family, with no hours to fund other pursuits.
We were discussing the efficiency of engines and light bulbs. Usually, what has to be done is to invent a new type of engine or light source rather than continuing to improve the old technology.
Ive been telling climate alarmists for years that you will have to literally dig up the earth to save it from big scary CO2. What could possibly go wrong? Hope I’m still around, just to see the look on the climate alarmists faces when they realise, what have we done. Enjoy kids.
If CO2 is really an evIl gas, then why do green zealots propose tge largest expansion of fossil fueled mining and manufacturing in world history, called Nut Zero?
An excellent talk based on what appear to be careful measurements of the current energy and materials mix, then extrapolated out to the pipe dream of replacing fossil fuels. Just not going to happen in the next decade or century from the way it looks to me. Someone better phone AOC and give her the bad news.
This Labor Day, we are reminded that should the AGW Cult have their way, the working class & middle class will be reduced.
This article expresses one facet of how expensive electric cars are for the working class and a large slice of the middle class…
They WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BUY & DRIVE A CAR.
These cultists don’t realize (some do) how much this one fact will effect “prosperity” for regular Americans.
America without a robust car culture (individual & family) is a diminished America.
And a collapsed economy.
For the the “brain trust” of AGW the above is a feature, not a bug.
The solution is simple.
We just mine a few asteroids for the raw materials!
Maybe we’ll need to build some dilithium crystal chambers first. And develop Warp Drive.
But that should be easy after we develop and build a few cold fusion reactors.
In the meantime, ban fossil fuels, nuclear and the cheap, reliable energy they produce.
We won’t need them …. then!
You don’t need warp drive to get out to the asteroid belt. Impulse drives would be sufficient.
There are already far too many impulsive drivers, thank you.
It really doesn’t matter how much lithium you have, if there is no electricity.
Blackouts possible as California power grid declares emergency as usage, conservation climb (msn.com)
what a surprise
any numpty could work out that copper is a major problem for an EV world
25Kg in an Electric car <5kg in an ICE car
then you need the generators, transmission lines recharging stations etc
Finally electrical components life is only about 10 years – look at your fan aircon etc – they all only last about 10 years
So I reiterate what a surprise
finally look at california – dont charge your EVs no power here
or the UK – I cant afford the power to charge my EV here
I hope we awake from our dream world while we still can make it back
There is always a zig zag pattern of supply in meeting long-run price and demand expectations, especially in the case of lack of coordinated supply response. But this time the scale of demand increase on an ill-conceived agenda politics timeline will create continuous shortage and price escalation. That will create a lot of losers including the middle classes of developed countries and “have not” nations demanding impact payments through the UN much like Pakistan is doing today with flood payments and debt relief soon to follow.
At least they will have reasonably priced food and electricity to get along. /sarc
And to think that had not a few crook scientists and Al Gore not come along we would be doing very well thank you. There is a lot of coal so electrification of the railways should have een a priority for places like Australia. There is no need for cross country road haulage, it could all be on rail. Why do business people have to fly anywhere just for a conference when Zoom and similar are available? Hybrid cars are far better than pure electric so why electric only? The bottom line is that we could reduce oil consumption with a few reasonable steps. A concerted effort to disprove the CO2 hypothesis would do away with the need to cut emissions and all the net zero rubbish. There is absolutely no need for 3 million windmills and acres of solar. Maybe there needs to be a cost benefit analysis of Net Zero versus just making power generation more efficient. We could then keep all those mineral resources for the future.