The Post-Petroleum Resource Race and What to Make of It
By
TomDispatch
Thanks to its very name — renewable energy — we can picture a time in the not-too-distant future when our need for non-renewable fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal will vanish. Indeed, the Biden administration has announced a breakthrough target of 2035 for fully eliminating U.S. reliance on those non-renewable fuels for the generation of electricity. That would be accomplished by “deploying carbon-pollution-free electricity-generating resources,” primarily the everlasting power of the wind and sun.
With other nations moving in a similar direction, it’s tempting to conclude that the days when competition over finite supplies of energy was a recurring source of conflict will soon draw to a close. Unfortunately, think again: while the sun and wind are indeed infinitely renewable, the materials needed to convert those resources into electricity — minerals like cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, and the rare-earth elements, or REEs — are anything but. Some of them, in fact, are far scarcer than petroleum, suggesting that global strife over vital resources may not, in fact, disappear in the Age of Renewables.
To appreciate this unexpected paradox, it’s necessary to explore how wind and solar power are converted into usable forms of electricity and propulsion. Solar power is largely collected by photovoltaic cells, often deployed in vast arrays, while the wind is harvested by giant turbines, typically deployed in extensive wind farms. To use electricity in transportation, cars and trucks must be equipped with advanced batteries capable of holding a charge over long distances. Each one of these devices uses substantial amounts of copper for electrical transmission, as well as a variety of other non-renewable minerals. Those wind turbines, for instance, require manganese, molybdenum, nickel, zinc, and rare-earth elements for their electrical generators, while electric vehicles (EVs) need cobalt, graphite, lithium, manganese, and rare earths for their engines and batteries.
At present, with wind and solar power accounting for only about 7% of global electricity generation and electric vehicles making up less than 1% of the cars on the road, the production of those minerals is roughly adequate to meet global demand. If, however, the U.S. and other countries really do move toward a green-energy future of the kind envisioned by President Biden, the demand for them will skyrocket and global output will fall far short of anticipated needs.
According to a recent study by the International Energy Agency (IEA), “The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions,” the demand for lithium in 2040 could be 50 times greater than today and for cobalt and graphite 30 times greater if the world moves swiftly to replace oil-driven vehicles with EVs. Such rising demand will, of course, incentivize industry to develop new supplies of such minerals, but potential sources of them are limited and the process of bringing them online will be costly and complicated. In other words, the world could face significant shortages of critical materials. (“As clean energy transitions accelerate globally,” the IEA report noted ominously, “and solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars are deployed on a growing scale, these rapidly growing markets for key minerals could be subject to price volatility, geopolitical influence, and even disruptions to supply.”)
And here’s a further complication: for a number of the most critical materials, including lithium, cobalt, and those rare-earth elements, production is highly concentrated in just a few countries, a reality that could lead to the sort of geopolitical struggles that accompanied the world’s dependence on a few major sources of oil. According to the IEA, just one country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), currently supplies more than 80% of the world’s cobalt, and another — China — 70% of its rare-earth elements. Similarly, lithium production is largely in two countries, Argentina and Chile, which jointly account for nearly 80% of world supply, while four countries — Argentina, Chile, the DRC, and Peru — provide most of our copper. In other words, such future supplies are far more concentrated in far fewer lands than petroleum and natural gas, leading IEA analysts to worry about future struggles over the world’s access to them.
Via https://tomdispatch.com/lithium-cobalt-and-rare-earths/
The Most Revolutionary Act 
“It’s possible, of course, to imagine a future in which nations begin fighting over the world’s supplies of critical minerals, just as they once fought over oil. At the same time, it’s perfectly possible to conceive of a world in which countries like ours simply abandoned their plans for a green-energy future for lack of adequate raw materials and reverted to the oil wars of the past. On an already overheating planet, however, that would lead to a civilizational fate worse than death.
In truth, there’s little choice but for Washington and Beijing to collaborate with each other and so many other countries in accelerating the green energy transition by establishing new mines and processing facilities for critical minerals, developing substitutes for materials in short supply, improving mining techniques to reduce environmental hazards, and dramatically increasing the recycling of vital minerals from discarded batteries and other products. Any alternative is guaranteed to prove a disaster of the first order — or beyond.”
Copyright 2021 Michael T. Klare
LikeLike
Reblog on lawrencemorra.com
Sorry for this duplicate but this is accurate; the reblog had too many typos!
Green Energy is a misnomer and fallacy. There is nothing GREEN or even clean about it except the scam artists who will make tons of (Green Backs) cash! The materials needed to construct solar panels are not renewable and are quite finite, rare and even scarce as well as being in only a few counties; which will set in motion a geopolitical war like you wouldn’t believe breaking economies and partnerships.
First the wind is not constant enough in any one location and would have to be roaring everywhere to turn enough turbines to produce the NEEDED amount of energy that would replace that which is derived from fossil fuels and windmills which actually are an old device or form of propulsion like the old Farmer’s Windmill or the what the Dutch used did some good in small scale uses like those in the past which made sense and was reasonable; which this malarkey isn’t.
Does anyone that’s so Green Minded stop to think how many turbines would have to be distributed across the planet and how devastating they would be to topographical features and wildlife getting mashed in them. We would need millions if not billions of these all around the planet to generate the kind of electrical energy needed to maintain all existing energy demands. When we get into rare earth materials dependent batteries and solar panel needs; it’s a horror story! Putting up solar farms large enough to make a petroleum based fuel dependent system to be no longer needed, would require tearing down forested areas of trees that produce oxygen from guess what folks, CO2 and other hydrocarbon absorption! So we are going to take away all those trees like they did in my own area, and basically let’s not take away CO2 naturally as God intended in this ecosystem, while in turn not have the trees produce oxygen to breath; all so that we can put up ugly solar panels all over the place and use up RARE earth minerals to make them; while using much of those minerals in batteries that eventually must be disposed of and are highly toxic to the environment and life!
The way I see it’s the brainwashed or demented liberals of the world along with the evil people like Bill Gates, George Bush, George Soros, Al Gore and multitudes of extremely wealthy, politically powerful fear mongers who are manipulating the masses with nonsense to gain complete control of not just what we use only, but; to eventually control all of us as to what we can and can’t do or think; as they redistribute the wealth of the planet among themselves! All the while they will be jetting around and driving huge gas guzzling vehicles just like the hypocrite John Kerry has been doing as he attends climate award ceremonies and the like around the globe! This is all a fool’s errand for us; the masses!
Has anyone wondered how heavy equipment like bulldozers and other earth moving equipment or how semis and freight trains that haul enormous amounts of weight; along with the millions of aircraft flights taking place around the globe will all run on batteries, which is impossible. None of these could run on Batteries or Windmills! We could just shut the modern world off and go back to the stone age; if that will make the liberals happy that they got their way, while all the fat cats got way fatter!
This is all so imbecilic that it makes me feel like I should hate being a member of the human race with such idiotic people or despots manipulating politics and society for personal gain or even glorification due to their insanity or craving for more power! AKA Bill Gates should be in jail and more likely executed with Soros and so many other hideous diabolical evil humans!
I’ll tell you what this big problem is! This is what happens when the human race becomes a secular, pagan and distorted group of Banshees! Live like heathens and destroy like heathens!
As far as Global Warming and Climate Change these efforts have no major short term or long term effect on the ever changing dynamics of the earth’s atmosphere which is a naturally occurring system primarily driven by solar radiation or the electromagnetic spectrum; along with geothermal forces and energies within the earth’s core.
Maybe next we should start to plan for future continental drift so we won’t have cities near oceans or atop high elevations!
Take the time to review my previous short blog posts touching on this matter and watch the video interview of Marc Morano; you’ll be glad you did!
God bless and may you all see the light of TRUTH!
Lawrence Morra III
https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2018/april/climate-change-denier-marc-morano-pushes-back-on-global-warming-hysteria
LikeLike
Chris Mathison @ Peak Prosperity quoted some very interesting mining rate stats. To fulfill the move to “sustainable green energy” it would take 5.9 years to mine sufficient silicon (Yaaaay!!!), & to mine sufficient Germanium, 29,000 years. the rest of the required elements forecast mining time occupy the space between the two.
the table is presented around 4mins44:
(Source: BGR 2021, USGS, Friedrichs 2022)
…other than the prohibitive time frame for this ludicrous green-washed goal, there’s also the matter of how much energy is required, AND additional pollution created by extracting the elements from their respective ore’s & salts…
LikeLike
Great link, Bob. Personally I am extremely encouraged by the assertion of the current Cop28 president that there’s “no science” behind the demands for the phase out of fossil fuels: https://stuartbramhall.wordpress.com/2023/12/03/cop28-president-says-there-is-no-science-behind-demands-for-phase-out-of-fossil-fuels/
LikeLike