“The future is batteries”, they said. “We’re going to store the wind in ginormous batteries the size of Pluto“.
Mining remains a deeply divisive industry, as manifested by the explosion of popular rage that’s paralyzed Panama in recent weeks.
After spending the best part of a decade and more than $10 billion building one of the world’s biggest copper mines, First Quantum Minerals Ltd. now finds the project hanging in the balance.
The country’s president this weekend caved to pressure and agreed to hold a referendum on its future, sending the Canadian company’s stock plunging the most on record.
While Panama’s electoral court has since offered a lifeline, saying such a vote can’t proceed without congress first passing legislation, prospects for development look deeply uncertain.
The drama in Panama highlights a growing global trend. Many people don’t want new mines built, judging the environmental impact to be too great despite the boost to jobs and local coffers.
Yet mining has never been more important. It’s impossible for economies to decarbonize without hundreds of millions more tons of metals such as copper, nickel and lithium being pulled from the earth.
In the past decade, the industry has transformed the way it engages with those on the receiving end of massive mining upheaval. Aware of the need to have a social license to operate, companies have gone to great lengths to win over community leaders and politicians.
But they still often fail to garner wider public support. Some of the world’s most crucial new mines are currently stuck in limbo in the face of local opposition.
The development of Europe’s biggest lithium deposit was brought to a sudden halt last year after thousands of protesters took to the streets of Belgrade, Serbia. In the US, what would be the country’s largest copper mine has been stalled for years.
Give the people more stuff. Ban all the things.
And that is what will shut down this green de-carboning idiocy – themselves.
Better stock up on what you think you’ll need for the rest of your life. Ha.
When are they going to get it? .. most people .. apparently … want to move back into caves.
However, unlike prehistoric times, there aren’t enough to go around.
Enter, population reduction.
Once everyone has their own cave we shall have equity.
Yes, this is the logical conclusion of our collective insanity.
“Aware of the need to have a social license to operate, companies have gone to great lengths to win over community leaders and politicians.”
That’s a long awkward way to say “bribes”
Hammer meets nail… well stated, JD.
If they were serious about mining lithium in the long term (which I don’t think is the plan), an effort should be made to increase the efficiency of mining it through seawater evaporation. When you evaporate seawater, it forms a brine which contains lithium. Currently, it’s not an efficient or very profitable enterprise. But, tweaking the technique and developing equipment to expedite the process would likely suffice.
If lithium is a commodity the current way it is mined is the most efficient.
And that is just one reason why the only “transitions” possible are either back to preindustrial squalor, depopulation, and serfdom or perhaps after a quick dose of energy poverty, Natural Gas to Nuclear. In the developing world fossil fuels will dominate longer than in the decadent and woke west. Materials and land requirements for wind and solar are 20 to 30 times greater per KWH than for Gas and Nuclear.
“It’s impossible for economies to decarbonize without hundreds of millions more tons of metals such as copper, nickel and lithium being pulled from the earth.”
They simply don’t get it, do they? They must think the elements that go into batteries just extract themselves and magically transform themselves into their final product without any other intensive ” carbon” extraction inputs. In their fantasy world, those don’t count in the final analysis.
It’s only about feelings and good intentions, to hell with logic.
Why, this won’t have any affect whatsoever on inflation, will it?
Supply, demand, price…its just a capitalist conspiracy I’ve heard.
As we shut down or prevent existing mines in western countries from opening, we increase the demand for metals in other countries like Indonesia, Philippines, China and Russia. Rumor has it that these countries have different rules for air and water pollution, worker safety and financial benefits to locals. So yah, let’s make things worse while we make ourselves feel better.
Yesterday I was driving the Buffalo Trail (Hwy 41 in eastern Alberta). Near the village of Acadia Valley I swung west on the gravel to scope out a project I could see from the highway. I was shocked to find a solar farm under construction. It is on prime farmland. Not a tree in sight and it has been levelled out. It looks to be 2 miles square.
What are we doing to ourselves? The area is already riddled with wind turbines.
You are able to stream Idiocracy for free on Tubi.
See, there was a movie. We didn’t have to go through the liberal lunacy.
And … we’ll all become serfs and peasants serving communist China who kept building and producing while we were … “shutting it all dowwwwn ma’aaaan”
Slightly OT, but related:
https://www.flightradar24.com/GA6C/32a75768
Gulfstream G600 took off from Churchill, Manitoba, looks headed to NYC…another hypocritical rich guy with big toys telling us how to live, an flying around in a private plane?
The tipping point will come sooner than later for many.
Living in a cold climate makes it a much more serious prospect.
Every single thing humans use for everything is either mined or grown. We couldn’t even return to the stone age without mining because you’d need to mine the stones.