Yeah, why not ...... here's a quick easy copy paste to ignore or rubbish or deny or choose not understand.
Here’s the study that concludes there are enough raw materials for the energy transition:
https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00001-6#%20
Future demand for electricity generation materials under different climate mitigation scenarios
Seaver Wang, Zeke Hausfather, Steven Davis, Lauren Liebermann, Guido D. Núñez-Mujica, Jameson McBride
Published:January 27, 2023
Does it now? Have you checked the details and compared with other research and known data sources yourself? Do you know what any of the sections mean and why and how they made the "assumptions" they have? Have you read and understood any of the 75 papers they relied upon to produce their paper? Are they credible and do they address a 'real' future absent all fossil fuels?
Just because a paper gets thru peer review does not by itself mean all the contents are either true or accurate or logically supportable. Being a Sciguy of course you do. But did you actually "check the facts"? I am not seeking any answers, these are only rhetorical questions to possibly reflect upon. Good luck.
A Review -
Future demand for electricity generation materials under different climate
mitigation scenarios Citation:
Wang et al., Future demand for electricity generation materials under different climate
mitigation scenarios, Joule (2023),
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2023.01.001 This paper presents a series of model outcomes for material demands for future power generation, where climate targets of 1.5 0C, 2 0C or higher than 2 0C global warming mitigation are addressed. It uses the outcomes of a number (75) of other studies for what is required to meet these climate targets.
As such, there is no discussion in how these metal demands are calculated. On page 14, the following statement was made.
“We also do not assess material demand from battery or other energy storage facilities co-located
with electricity generation, as IAMC scenarios do not explicitly specify outputs or assumptions
corresponding to such storage.” So, this study
does not examine batteries of any kind (see comments in the first paragraph).
It does not examine energy storage at all, just power generation.
These differences alone would explain the very different outcomes between my work and this paper. The materials for batteries (EV + storage) represents approximately 92-100% of required metals (depending on application).
To predict what metal might be required for construction of a future industrial system that bears little resemblance to
the one we have now is fraught with peril. The new system would have to be mapped out in context of size, character,
and function. Metal consumption up until now has been in context of a fossil fuel petroleum product dominated
industrial system. An Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle is made mostly of steel, aluminium, with small amounts
of magnesium and copper. An Electric Vehicle (EV), while having much fewer moving parts, uses some steel and
aluminum, but also now requires lithium, cobalt, and nickel to produce the battery (assuming lithium-ion chemistry) and Rare Earth Elements (REE) for some of the electronics. These are fundamentally different systems.
Many of the metals now required
are mined at this time in trace elements or very small boutique quantities. Those same metals would then
be required in volumes like what is mined for copper or even iron. Just so,
using the past to predict the future in this case is also inappropriate. The future electrified system as proposed will be radically different in material consumption for construction, operation and recycling compared to the fossil fuel ICE systems of the past 200 years.
Most material intensity requirements to phase out fossil fuels in the climate mitigation studies looked at (I looked at only a few beyond this paper) merely state what metals are needed, not to what purpose they would be used or how that calculation was developed. The future non-fossil fuel system needs to be mapped out in terms of application and technology, then in metal content for each application.
If this is not done, then predictions have no reference point. In this paper and in the several supporting studies I looked at, the following questions were not addressed in a form where numbers were presented. Each of these questions have impacts on the quantity of metals needed to phase out fossil fuels. • How many Electric Vehicles (EV’s) are to be made?
• What kinds of battery chemistries?
• What kind of market split would there be between EV’s and hydrogen fuel cell (H2-Cell) vehicles?
• What performance specifications would there be for the different classes of vehicles, both in EV and H2-Cell systems?
• How much extra electrical power will be needed to facilitate the EV and H2-Cell vehicles? This leads to
what physical work and what distance do each of these vehicle’s travel? How does this change between vehicle class?
• How does rail, maritime shipping and aviation impact these questions?
• How much existing electrical power is fossil fuel based?
• What energy mix will be needed and developed?
• How many new solar panels are needed? What kind, where each model has different metal content.
• How many new wind turbines are needed? What kind, where each model has different metal content.
•
If wind and solar are intermittent in power supply, how is that to be managed? How much capacity? For how long? • How many new nuclear power plants are needed?
• How many new geothermal power plants are needed?
• How many new biomass power plants are needed? What is sustainable in context of biomass harvested?
• How many new wave/tidal power plants are needed?
• Given the size of the task above, what quantity of metals, and what kinds would be required for a full system replacement?
• Given the quantity of metals, could recycling deliver these quantities. If not, where might we get these metals?
• Given the quantity of metals, could the mining industry as it is now, deliver in a reasonable time? Mining production compared to quantity of metals need for full system replacement.
• If mining production as it stands is not enough, could we open more mines? Mineral reserves compared to quantity of metals need for full system replacement.
• If mineral reserves are not enough, could we force the economics to raise metal price and extract all resources on land? This would need to ignore technology of extraction limitations. Mineral resources (conventional) compared to quantity of metals need for full system replacement.
• If mineral resources on land are not enough, could we mine under the sea? Undersea mineral resources (conventional) compared to quantity of metals need for full system replacement.
• If mineral reserves + conventional land based mineral resources + undersea mineral resources,
all summed together (all metals thought to be in the Planet Earth system that we know of) is still not enough, should we consider an entirely different approach? It becomes hard to untangle metal quantities required and carbon emissions mitigated.
Results are simply presented as given. It is not stated what is being replaced. Is it all fossil fuel based systems, or only some of them?
Then there is the issue of the increasing cost of production for the mining industry. It has been observed over the last
few decades that ore grade has been decreasing, resulting in much more ore required to be mined and processed for
the same unit of metal produced (Michaux 2021a). Mineral grind size has decreased, resulting in much more energy
required to grind the ore to liberation closing size. Potable water consumption has increased per unit metal. The ore
being mined has also increased in rock hardness. This has all combined to result in the Mining Productivity Index
declining roughly 50% between the year 2000 and 2012 alone. This means twice the physical work must be done to
produce the same amount of metal across a 12 year time frame.
The mining industry is struggling to maintain growth targets. The suggestion that mining can increase in capacity
several thousand percent (which is what would be required) is not feasible. The proposed expansion of mining of
metals like REE or cobalt do not recognize the nature of the mineralogy of the deposits we have available, or the
performance limitations of current mining technology.
Even if there were the available mineral deposits to expand mining to these production targets, the technology of
extraction will have to be different. How do we mine without fossil fuel supported technology? What would fossil
fuel free mining operations look like? New EV technology is being developed (for example the EV mining truck), but
the performance capability of these units is unknown. For example, how long can the EV truck carry ore before
requiring a battery recharge? A mine site is designed around he capability of the equipment selected to do the mining.
To date, the stamina of the fossil fuel systems has shown to be much longer than any of the renewable systems. You
could argue this is a manifestation of ERoEI. This needs to be thought through, before any capabilities for the future
mining capacity in a post fossil fuel world.
This paper was developed from a very different starting point and used very different methodology than my work. The paper being reviewed did not attempt to undertake many of the questions my work did.[end quote]
Of course everyone is entitled to believe whatever you wish. That is not my problem. But sincere apologies for the formatting issues - copying from a pdf doc, but my time is limited and too precious to waste on this matter. Please do carry on regardless. I'll keep the rest of what I have to myself and will share it elsewhere with people who are still open-minded, more aware, curious and genuinely interested in ongoing learning as opposed to being stuck in Conformity, Belief, PR and Myths.
