Today, the “green” movement is exacerbating the unsustainable extraction of the earth’s resources of minerals and metals just to support the generation of electricity. Without replenishment of those resources, there is a growing need to seek a method to generate electricity that utilizes the least amount of those resources.
With advances in technology motivated by the increasing cost of those resources, we may find other ways to locate and extract more, like the “fracking” technology being used to extract more oil, BUT Planet Earth’s fossil fuel resources are limited!
However, some countries’ economies remain heavily dependent on oil reservoirs. What will happen when their reservoirs become depleted and the wells run dry?
Even if technological advancements allow further extraction of fossil fuels and other resources, the “end” date will only be delayed for another 100, 500, or more years. Finally, there will be nothing left to support the demand for fuels, products, and electricity generation.
Further, all electrical generation methods, including hydro, coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, and solar, are built with oil-based products, components, and equipment. Crude oil is not used to generate electricity. Still, the oil derivatives resulting from refining crude oil are necessary to make all the parts and components for every method of generating electricity.
The “green” alternative to the use of coal, natural gas, and oil is the use of relatively scarce and little-explored minerals and metals to make wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries for EVs and other “green” infrastructure. In general, those minerals and metals are considered critical minerals exactly because they are relatively poorly distributed in the world, and because their production would need to be scaled up tremendously to meet the expected demand from new energy technologies. The projected extraction rates for the minerals and metals required for going “green” are astoundingly high in relation to current production, known reserves, and even in relation to their estimated resource base.
Most of the critical minerals and metals needed to support the much-touted “energy transition” to EVs, wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries come from unreliable, unstable, or poorer developing countries such as China, some African nations, and others. Those countries have minimal labor laws and poor environmental controls, so their production of the critical minerals and metals needed for going “green” results in severe environmental degradation, dire social consequences, and human rights abuses to their population, predominantly made up of people with yellow, brown, and black skin. All this, just to support “clean” electricity in wealthier countries.
Do you believe it is ethical and moral for wealthy countries to continue subsidies to go “green” when they encourage China and African countries to CONTINUE exploiting many who work under miserable conditions, and when such subsidies entrench financial incentives for environmental degradation, just to support producing EV batteries, wind turbines and solar panels, mostly for wealthier countries”?
The extraction rates and R/P (reserves to production) ratio for many of the critical minerals and metals needed for going “green” are alarming, and most of these natural resources are NOT being replenished. This suggests a worrisome possibility of an unsustainable approach to the current policies of subsidies for “green” energies. Furthermore, even countries with the largest reserve base face important challenges to increasing production growth to meet projected future demand.
- LITHIUM: In 2024, the world mined about 240,000 tons of lithium, almost three times the amount mined in 2020. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that demand for lithium will increase to 450,000 tons per year by 2030. Despite a significant world resource base, production of those resources remains a major challenge.
- COBALT: In 2024, the world produced an estimated 280,000 metric tons of cobalt, the highest amount ever recorded. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was the world’s leading producer, accounting for 74% of the global total, while the country is known for the major problems with child labor and poor working conditions of its mineral sector.
Today, a typical EV battery for a Tesla sedan weighs 1,000 pounds and includes these minerals and metals:
- 26 pounds of lithium
- 10 pounds of cobalt
- 110 pounds of nickel
- 9 pounds of manganese
- 55 pounds of copper
- 44 pounds of aluminum
- 154 pounds of graphite
- Plus, steel, plastic, and other metals for the battery casing.
It should concern everyone that all those “blood minerals,” mostly from developing countries, come from mining at locations in the world that are never inspected or seen by policymakers and EV buyers.
For instance, to manufacture each EV auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for cobalt, 6,000 pounds of ore for nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, just one Tesla EV battery requires the processing of more than 500,000 pounds of materials somewhere on the planet.
The current rates of extraction of natural resources, such as coal, gas, lithium, cobalt, etc., to support the generation of electricity, are clearly unsustainable. Humanity is unable to replace those natural resources on Planet Earth, and obviously, the production sources will eventually run out.
At current rates of extraction of natural resources, the technically and economically available world resource base may be sucked dry in a few centuries, but our 4-billion-year-old Planet Earth will continue to exist in the solar system, with or without humans.
Before policymakers in the few wealthy countries disrupted the delivery of electricity with overly strict regulations, preferential subsidies, and cancellation of proven baseload sources like coal, nuclear, and even natural gas, they should have solidified other sources to ensure that the availability of affordable electricity would not be disrupted for consumers.
Those policymakers seem to be oblivious to the fact that at least 80 percent of humanity, or more than six billion in this world, are living on less than $10 a day, and billions living with little to no access to electricity. Today, politicians in the few wealthy countries are pursuing energy policies that promote the most expensive, intermittent and inefficient electricity generation.
A very strong incentive driving the current “nuclear renaissance” around the world is that nuclear generation provides continuous, uninterruptible, and emissions-free electricity and uses the LEAST amount of earth’s resources to generate affordable electricity. With breeder reactors and recycling of nuclear waste, nuclear generation could become a viable solution to provide electricity for much of the world’s population of eight billion people, far into the future.
The so-called “nuclear waste” is in fact only slightly used nuclear fuel (SUNF), since only about 3% of its energy potential is consumed before it is classified as “waste”. Thus, we are burying or otherwise disposing of fuel which still has 97% of its potential for generating electricity, which represents a game-changing opportunity for providing the world with new, clean and affordable base electricity generation.
Today, the world has amassed approximately 90,000 tons (a volume that can fit in a large Walmart store-sized building) of SUNF. However, no “burial” solution is yet realistically proposed by the Federal Government.
- Storage: there is enough SUNF in storage to power the entire USA for centuries to come, and enough depleted uranium in storage to last for several thousand years, at today’s US electricity production rate.
- Production: more SUNF is produced per year from existing light water nuclear power plants (that power only about 20% of the US demand) than would be needed to power the entire US with electricity from fast breeder reactors utilizing that same SUNF. The US urgently needs to convert its nuclear power system to fast breeder reactors and eventually decommission existing nuclear power plants.
Obviously, the unsustainable extraction of the earth’s most accessible and inexpensive fossil fuels, which are used to produce more than 6,000 essential products and transportation fuels, as well as the minerals and metals necessary to go “green,” will deplete the “bank.” Thus, there is a need to seek a sustainable, long-term energy source to generate electricity, utilizing the earth’s energy resources in the most efficient way and using the LEAST amount of the earth’s energy resources.
In this context, it is easy to understand the current nuclear renaissance. Nuclear generation of electricity is an imperative, in order to ensure that the world uses its energy resources in the most responsible, efficient and beneficial way. SUNF and fast breeder reactors are the best chance for the world to provide the planet’s population with continuous, clean, inexpensive and emissions-free electricity.
First published at America Out Loud News.
