![]() ( wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars) are packed with rare metals to produce decarbonized energy that travels through high-performance electricity grids to enable power savings. So less pollution, and at the same time a lot more energy. On average a kilogram of rock has 120 milligrams of vanadium, 66.5 milligrams of cerium, 19m milligrams of gallioum, & 0.8 of luteciumĪ minute dose of these metals emits a magnetic field that makes it possible to generate more energy than the same quantity of coal or oil. Together, these rare metals form a coherent subset of some thirty raw materials with a shared characteristic: they are often associated with nature’s most abundant metals.Įight and a half tonnes of rock need to be purified to produce a kilogram of vanadium sixteen tonnes for a kilogram of cerium fifty tonnes for the equivalent in gallium and a staggering 1,200 tonnes for one miserable kilogram of the rarest of the rare metals: lutecium. Some of the members of this large family sport the most exotic names: rare earths, vanadium, germanium, platinoids, tungsten, antimony, beryllium, fluorine, rhenium, tantalum, niobium, to name but a few. Thus, information and communication technologies actually produce 50% more greenhouse gases than air transport!įrom the 1970s, we turned our sights to the superb magnetic, catalytic, and optical properties of a cluster of lesser-known rare metals found in terrestrial rocks in infinitesimal amounts. We are therefore faced with the paradox that the latest and greatest technology (and supposedly the greenest to halt the ecological countdown) relies mostly on ‘dirty’ metals. Enter the next predicament: mining these rare minerals is anything but clean! Says Pitron, ‘Green energies and resources harbor a dark secret.’ And he’s quite right: extracting and refining rare metals is highly polluting, and recycling them has proved a disappointment. ![]() The solution seems obvious: reopen rare metal production in the United States, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, and even in the ‘dormant mining giant’ of France. The Rare Metals War: The Dark Side of Clean Energy and Digital Technologies. Podcasts: Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, KunstlerCast 253, KunstlerCast278, Peak Prosperity Michaux (2021) The mining of Minerals and the Limits to growth videoĪlice Friedemann Women in ecology author of 2021 Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy best price here 2015 When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “ Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Antonio Turiel (2021) Some inconvenient questions: An open letter.Theo Henckens: do we need mining quotas to prevent mineral depletion?Īnd there simply aren’t enough minerals on earth to make a transition to “renewables”:.The race to adapt, a book review of Klare’s “The Race for what’s left”.China controls over 90% of rare earth mineral production.Ugo Bardi’s The universal mining machine.Minerals and War from Ugo Bardi’s “Extracted”.Minerals & Energy from Ugo Bardi’s “Extracted”.Getting 100% renewable power means a lot of dirty mining. ![]()
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