Posted on 09/17/2019 8:22:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The recent threats by Beijing to cut off American access to critical mineral imports has many Americans wondering why our politicians have allowed the United States to become so overly dependent on China for these valued resources in the first place.
Today, the United States is 90% dependent on China and Russia for many vital "rare earth minerals."
The main reason for our overreliance on nations like China for these minerals is not that we are running out of these resources here at home. The U.S. Mining Association estimates that we have at least $5 trillion of recoverable mineral resources.
The U.S. Geological Survey reports that we still have up to 86% or more of key mineral resources like copper and zinc remaining in the ground, waiting to be mined. These resources aren't on environmentally sensitive lands, like national parks, but on the millions of acres of federal, state and private lands.
The mining isn't happening because of extremely prohibitive environmental rules and a permitting process that can take five to 10 years to open a new mine. Green groups simply resist almost all new drilling.
What they may not realize is that the de facto mining prohibitions jeopardize the "green energy revolution" that liberals are so desperately seeking.
How's this for rich irony?: Making renewable energy at all technologically plausible will require massive increases in the supply of rare earth and critical minerals. Without these valuable metals, there will not be more efficient 21st-century batteries for electric cars or modern solar panels. Kiss the Green New Deal and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders' utopian vision of 100% renewable energy goodbye.
Yet, for decades now, environmentalists have erected every possible barrier to mining here in America for critical minerals -- which we have in great abundance.
Search far and wide through the grandiose Green New Deal plans and you will not find any call for additional domestic mining for battery-operated electric vehicles and electrified mass transportation systems, nor the underlying energy infrastructure.
Thanks to the extreme environmentalists, we import from unfriendly and repressive governments the critical minerals needed to produce rechargeable batteries (lithium and cobalt), wind turbine motors (dysprosium), thin films for solar power (tellurium) and miniature sensors that manage the performance of electric vehicles (yttrium).
Another irony in the left's anti-mining crusade is that these same groups have long boasted that by eliminating our need for fossil fuels, America won't rely on cartels like OPEC that have in the past held our nation hostage to wild price swings and embargoes. Greens also complain that fossil fuel dependence requires a multibillion-dollar military presence in the Middle East and around the world to ensure supply. Now we can substitute OPEC with China and Russia.
Here is one simple but telling example of the shortsightedness of the "no mining" position of the environmentalists. Current electric vehicles can use up to 10 times more copper than fossil fuel vehicles. Then, additional copper wire networks will be needed to attach convenient battery chargers throughout public spaces and along roads and highways. Do we really want this entire transportation infrastructure to be dependent on China and Russia?
Of course, it is not just green energy development that will be imperiled by our mining restrictions folly. Innovation and research on new lightweight metals and alloys, such as those used in lifesaving medical devices and tiny cameras in smartphones, could also become stalled if foreign prices rise prohibitively.
Also, because our mining laws -- the ones that don't outright prohibit mining -- protect the environment far more than those in nations like China and Africa, by importing these minerals, we are contributing to global environmental degradation.
So, there you have it. The keep-it-in-the-ground movement environmentalists demand against use of almost all of America's bountiful energy and mineral resources is blocking a green future and a safer planet. Do they know this? Do they care?
“How’s this for rich irony?: Making renewable energy at all technologically plausible will require massive increases in the supply of rare earth and critical minerals. Without these valuable metals, there will not be more efficient 21st-century batteries for electric cars or modern solar panels. Kiss the Green New Deal and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ utopian vision of 100% renewable energy goodbye. “
Yeah, well they’re not exactly rocket surgeons. Never do the mention the YUGE amounts of hazardous waste byproducts produced making the clean energy pieces and parts. Or disposal of said pieces and parts when they have met their life cycle. Yawn.
The first concern should be the waste disposal of these ‘green’ energy hoaxes. The rare earths are used in solar panels, and their cost to trash them is not stated in the advertising of ‘deals’ to install solar and have it pay for itself (with heavy subsidies from taxpayers). The wind farms use fiberglass blades that can be longer than 3 football fields, and are hazardous waste. Holes fill up quick when you dump a few dozen of those puppies in. As for the jobs, the major labor costs are up front, and usually involves foreign workers. The lower-paying maintenance and de-commissioning jobs are left for Americans. That’s the great deal the globalists pushing ‘renewable’ energy in America are giving themselves.
re: “Renewable Energy Will Only Be ...”
Myopia; take a look at OTHER energy sources (out on the horizon) or be CONDEMNED to investing into what will become ‘stranded assets’ ...
I have always had some interest in mining, my dad was a mining engineer, Colorado School of Mines. He was very proud of that. In ancient times metals were extracted from ores by heat. The little point of Britain that sticks out to the Southwest has tin that was mined some 2,000 years ago. The ores were cooked and the metal ran out. Simple. Seems to me as ores of high purity become scarce ways to extract metal from much lower quality ore which turn out to be means other than heat and leaves a lot more waste. Which leads to leaching with chemicals and large leach heaps.
These things may be environmentally “safe” but metals of lesser value than gold and silver require massive operations to be profitable. These things are unsightly. Even if “safe” they photograph “poorly” some of them even from space. My guess is that if we were to even TRY to meet our energy needs with “renewables” the mining industry would have to create truly gigantic operations to recover the rare earths required. Of course the facilities do not exist yet but if I know liberals once a couple of these gigantic, sprawling, unsightly, drowning in toxic chemicals facilities are created the same libtards that insisted on having them will protect against them. Count on it.
And the 5,000 pound gorilla in the room is STILL
“What do you do when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing?”
And where does the energy come from necessary to do the mining?
Recently I saw a photo of an electric car charging station with a diesel generator as a back-up source of power.
(I’m not sure that it wasn’t satire)
Elite globalists (ie. our betters) exempted of course.
I have a renewable energy source on my property here in New Jersey, trees, tons of them.
Funny
Don’t tell the libtards that the diesel generator to car charger is losing more power then just having a diesel engine in the car in the first place and you won’t need to spend 12 hours charging it up either.
There is a reason we call them Libtards
Wind mills have a 20 year shelf life and a 21 year breakeven cycle.
Solar generates more waste than nuclear power, has a larger ecological foot print, and is a very uneconomical power source.
Like it or not, the world is going to be highly dependent on some form of carbon-based fuels for an energy source well into the 22nd and even 23rd Centuries.
There are no hydrogen mines. Anywhere. So fuel cells will remain an idle dream except for very specialized applications, and what hydrogen is generated, will come from hydrocarbons in some form, or other organic materials based on hydrocarbon compounds.
But natural gas, methane, we have right now. While this specific hydrocarbon has the highest possible ratio of water molecules to carbon dioxide molecules after combustion, there is still, of necessity, some carbon dioxide formed.
Carbon dioxide is STILL plant food, and homeostasis of the biosphere of earth pretty much keeps carbon dioxide within some very narrow parameters. Carbon is the most highly recyclable element out there.
Hey, butt it’s NOT powered by “fossil fuels” and that’s what counts. Until the wind dies down and the sun sets.
Renewable Energy Will Only Be Possible With Massive Increases in the Supply of Critical Minerals
Duh! The unicorn express just thinks these things appear magically at the store.
It is impossible to run an ac based electric grid with inverter generation.
Ask London.
Note. the media and certain industries are putting out bull crap about renewable energy almost every day now and I’m just gonna continue to shoot it down
once again solar panels have three main components , none of which are ever going to be in any sort of short supply
number one is silicon most abundant element on planet earth
number two is glass again not very rare
number three is aluminum again hardly rare
there’s minute amounts of silver that are used for the tracks to pick up the electrons on the face of the silicon cells but again silver is not going to be in short supply
so as far as photovoltaic panels go there is absolutely no critical Shortages possible
All the doom and bloom articles are showing the chair that the utilities have a photo of all tax as a matter of fact
Plain and simple , boys and girls , if I put solar panels on everybody’s house and they don’t have to pay anything for electricity anymore , how do you tell he’s going to make any money?
PGe out here has tried to take away that mirroring twice or three times already
The Sacramento utilities smothered in Lodi already put one beer on your solar and charge you four times as much for what you use
So my old guitar it is you got two choices there’s a house or a business one is pay the utility forever whatever they want to charge and the second choice is to put in solar panels
you choose - I’m not gonna make you do anything
“The mining isn’t happening because of extremely prohibitive environmental rules and a permitting process that can take five to 10 years to open a new mine. Green groups simply resist almost all new drilling.
What they may not realize is that the de facto mining prohibitions jeopardize the “green energy revolution” that liberals are so desperately seeking.
How’s this for rich irony?: Making renewable energy at all technologically plausible will require massive increases in the supply of rare earth and critical minerals. Without these valuable metals, there will not be more efficient 21st-century batteries for electric cars or modern solar panels. Kiss the Green New Deal and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ utopian vision of 100% renewable energy goodbye.
Yet, for decades now, environmentalists have erected every possible barrier to mining here in America for critical minerals — which we have in great abundance.”
Take, for example, their stance on abortion: On the one hand, they are 100% in favor of it and have been for many decades, so much so that literally millions of babies have been murdered (though they would phrase it as “millions of unwanted pregnancies were terminated, saving a lot of misery in this country.”). Yet, OTOH, their Saint/Savior in this obsession of theirs, Margaret Sanger, was an avowed racist, and founded Planned Parenthood for the express purpose of using abortion to control/lower the population of minorities. The result of this dichotomy of thought is that they have aborted their natural constituency - minorities - in far higher numbers than the natural constituents of the opposing party.
Another example is that the whole environmental movement was unified, only a couple of decades ago, on the idea of “no more nukes” (meaning not just the weapons, but specifically the power plants); now, their religious faith in global warming has forced them into the position of needing to build many more nuclear plants if they want to eliminate the fossil fuel plants (because solar and wind couldn’t power this country even on their very best days, let alone with cloudy and/or calm days.
But let them keep doing this stuff. Slowly, but surely, more people are seeing them for what they are: nihilistic little children acting out their fantasies, which are completely divorced from reality.
well, the greatest irony is that ENVIRONMENTAL regulations make it impractical to domesticly produce the necessary materials for the GND ...
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