Minerals Needed for ‘Green Energy’ Could Run Out Within 10 Years
Critical minerals needed to build ‘green energy’ technology such as solar panels, nuclear power stations, electric cars and wind turbines could run out within 10 years, researchers have warned. The Times has the story.
Researchers at the Beijing Institute of Technology found that if the world attempted to build enough clean technology to limit climate change to 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures, it would exhaust known reserves of several minerals within decades.
Reserves of tin, which is used in wind turbines and solar panels, could be exhausted by 2085, while cadmium, used in control rods of nuclear reactors, could run out by 2060. Indium, a crucial ingredient in specialist thin-film solar panels, could be used up by 2035.
The researchers said that their results showed the need to look for new reserves, particularly in under-explored regions such as Africa and central Asia, as well as scaling-up recycling, and substituting more common minerals for scarce ones.
Worries about the scarcity of cobalt, 70% of which is sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo, have already led carmakers to use less of it in electric vehicle batteries. Bloomberg New Energy Finance has estimated that almost half of EV batteries manufactured this year would instead be made from lithium iron phosphate.
Another reason to think that the world may overcome these resource constraints is that in the past, known reserves have grown quickly once companies are incentivised to look for them. The researchers estimated that if known reserves of critical minerals grow as quickly as those of petroleum have since 1980, then shortages of many minerals would be avoided.
Yet with critical minerals distributed unevenly around the world, the researchers stressed the need for countries to trade openly together to prevent the clean energy transition being held back by resource constraints.
Worth reading in full.
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Tim Worstall has been making the argument for many years that increased demand for these materials will lead to increased supplies, especially if a market mechanism is allowed to operate (not necessarily the case in these green boondoggles).
The point is can they be mined at a rate and scale enough to meet the demand within the next 20 years? And at what cost?
Market dynamics work organically, incrementally not to timescales. Net Grifto is de facto central economic planning and control. It always fails.
Copper ore is the limiting factor, never mind the exotic stuff. Copper is in everything electric, and of course elsewhere.
To achieve an all-electric energy supply by 2050, the rate and scale at which copper ore mining would have to be increased to achieve is impossible – not even by 2150.
It is reported that 56 000 miles/82 000km of transmission cables would be required by 2050. These vary, but largely use high grade aluminium and aluminium-silicon-magnesium alloys. Where will these materials come from, particularly since aluminium production is very energy intensive?
Scarcity: as demand increases, prices go up. It is impossible for supply to be increased in the timescale, so prices will limit what can be done.
Estimates of the cost of Net Grifto imagine stable, plentiful supply which can be costed at today’s prices + inflation. They are gross under-estimates.
There are huge known sources of copper.
Besides, the US does or did use aluminium instead of
How much copper ore there is is not the issue, it’s the practicality and resources available to mine them at the required rate, and profitably. The United States Geological Survey estimates that about 700 million metric tons of copper have been produced historically, – the cumulative copper mined over thousands of years, primarily from deposits on land. Projections for copper demand to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 vary. The International Energy Forum (IEF) states that to meet business-as-usual needs (without net-zero goals), 260 million metric tons of new copper would be required by 2050. For a net-zero scenario, electrifying the global vehicle fleet could require an additional 55% more copper, pushing demand significantly higher. Another source projects that 427 million metric tons of copper will be needed by 2050 for the global electric grid alone to meet an 86% increase in electricity demand. BHP estimates global copper demand could grow by 70% to 50 million metric tons annually by 2050, implying a cumulative demand far exceeding current production levels. A University of Michigan study suggests that 1,100 million metric tons of copper would be needed by 2050 for business-as-usual growth, with additional amounts for green energy scenarios. So there you… Read more »
Whatever the reason, if politicians and the zealots restrict or stop commercial development we will continue to sink into the mire. But there is light at the end of the tunnel but not for us, the rest of the world is waking up to the realities of western folly and are reorganising, For instance Africa has is now in the process of moving politically and economically to BRICS and is in the process of setting up a tariff free trading system. Here’s an article:- https://rareearthexchanges.com/news/china-and-africas-new-tariff-free-trade-pact-what-who-when-and-why-it-matters/ I think, and I may be wrong, but the Russians are on board with the Chinese for the long haul, most of the developing world are moving away from western influence and for many reasons nobody trusts the west, especially when the see that their money can be confiscated at the political will of countries controlled by a bunch of control freaks in the wef. Stasi included. So the Capitalists and Commies in the west are all singing from the same hymn book for now but it’s all falling apart and for the political regressive west it does not look very good at all. Over time it may reverse immigration flows but not for many… Read more »
“There are huge known sources of copper.”
Tell the miners. They would love to know, but there needs to be power, water, roads and local labour, for a minimum, to be available.
And can you expedite the planning applications?
Let’s not fall for the same specious narrative that has been pushed for oil for the last 50 years.
The problem with windmills and batteries and solar panels is that they are not a solution (actually a problem) and that the problem they are supposed to be “solving” is a problem which does not even exist.
Everybody knows that oil and gas drilled out of the earth comes from the remains of plants and animals trapped underground millions of years ago. This received wisdom so dominates our thinking that it is enshrined in the very language we use–fossil fuels. They took eons to form, and we are using them up far faster than they can be replenished.
What if the whole theory is wrong?
https://www.forbes.com/2008/11/13/abiotic-oil-supply-energenius08-biz-cz_rl_1113abiotic.html
Are We on the Brink of a ‘New Little Ice Age’?
https://www.whoi.edu/ocean-learning-hub/ocean-topics/climate-weather/abrupt-climate-change/are-we-on-the-brink-of-a-new-little-ice-age/
The young age of today’s oceans is absolute proof that the Earth has been growing and expanding for the past 250 million years. Today, these young oceans now cover approximately 71% of Earth’s surface and have added about 40% to its size. That fact, alone, is proof that Kant’s nebular hypothesis is false, and that the Earth has been increasing in size and mass for the past 250 million years. Growth and expansion of the Earth can no longer be refuted. Ocean sediments cored from basaltic basement floors by the Deep Sea Drilling Program (DSDP) and its successors confirm that all of today’s oceans are relatively young and could not have been present when the planet was first created, as postulated by Kant’s nebular hypothesis (1755), modified by Laplace in 1796, which holds that the Earth and other planets were created approximately 4.6 billion years ago with their present sizes and chemical composition. The nebular hypothesis has no evidence to support it and is easily disproved. This discovery has immense consequences for current scientific beliefs, primarily the concepts of plate tectonics and subduction to maintain a static Earth diameter. Plate tectonics philosophy is basically correct, but its mechanism of subduction… Read more »
The deeper your look the more lies you see that we have been fed to own and control us.
Never mind abiotic oil formation, even if the fossil fuel version of the story is correct, then presumably that would be cited as one of the principle reasons for cutting our use of fossil fuels. It isn’t. The only justification ever cited by activists, politicians and zealots is imagined increases in extreme weather, and imagined environmental degradation caused by CO2. So if we were at risk of running out of fossil-based oil on the seabed any time soon wouldn’t the Net Zero loons be waxing lyrical about that to get more people on board?
“… them up far faster than they can be replenished.”
And yet… we have much more available fossil fuels today than we had a hundred years ago, despite exponential increase in their use. How do you explain that?
Nobody knows the amount of oil, coal and gas there is beneath the surface, so how do you know we are using them up faster than they can be replenished?
“Everybody knows that oil and gas drilled out of the earth comes from the remains of plants and animals trapped underground millions of years ago.”
We don’t know that. Some, or a lot, could be generated within the Earth. There are Oil fields that keep producing, and it’s difficult to determine why.
There’s a heck of a lot of Methane on the Gas Giants, and I don’t think many believe it’s from sea creatures.
Great! How about the environmental damage, pollution and human cost of all this mining? Green, my arse!
That, for me is a key point.
It can be done, but the activists don’t help anyone.
Well a bit good news then as long as this does not mean a shortage of these minerals for proper uses such as cobalt for steel.
To go ‘nerzero’ by 2050 man will need to mine as much copper as it has mined up till now in human history.
Good luck with that.
Yup, I read something similar a couple of years ago, and copper is getting more expensive too.
Swathes of the planet will be transformed into toxic wastelands, like in China now. Save the planet my r’s.
Where’s Dr Manhattan when you need him.
This is a ‘no 5h1t Sherlock?’ article.