Copper

Not long ago I read an article about how difficult it is to produce usable copper—the mining and refining processes are quite complex and difficult to scale up. Just now I came across a pair of tweets on that same subject, which links to an article on the larger issue of replacing oil with metal—because that, in essence, is what the “renewable” energy scam is about.

Here are the tweets:

Brian Gitt @BrianGitt

Humans mined 700 million tons of copper over the last 5,000 years. The same 700 million tons will need to be mined over the next 22 years to meet energy transition targets using wind, solar, & electric vehicles. bit.ly/3aJT6gY

Brian Gitt @BrianGitt

The world doesn’t have enough mines operating or planned to replace fossil fuels with wind turbines, solar panels, & battery tech. Opening a new mine takes 16 years on average according to @IEA. counterpunch.org/2022/08/23/is- @SimonMichaux

And here is that article—excerpted. Note that, while (as above) there’s more to renewable energy than copper, copper is crucial. And you wondered why thieves will strip the copper piping out of homes under construction?

Is There Enough Metal to Replace Oil?

The short answer: No, not even close!

Nations of the world are only too aware that fossil fuels need to be phased out for two reasons. First, oil is a finite commodity. It’ll run out in time. Secondly, fossil fuel emissions such as CO2 are destroying the planet’s climate system.

However, a recent study puts a damper on the prospects of phasing out fossil fuels in favor of renewables. More to the point, a phase out of fossil fuels by mid century looks to be a nearly impossible Sisyphean task. It’s all about quantities of minerals/metals contained in Mother Earth. There aren’t enough.

Simon Michaux, PhD, Geological Survey Finland has done a detailed study of what’s required to phase out fossil fuels in favor of renewables, to wit:

“The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels is much larger than first thought. Current mining production of these metals is not even close to meeting demand. Current reported mineral reserves are also not enough in size. Most concerning is copper as one of the flagged shortfalls. Exploration for more at required volumes will be difficult, with this seminar addressing these issues.” (Source: Simon P. Michaux, Associate Research Professor of Geometallurgy Unit Minerals Processing and Materials Research, Geological Survey of Finland, August 18, 2022 – Seminar: What Would It Take To Replace The Existing Fossil Fuel System?)

For those who are technically inclined, that link is to a Youtube that’s about 1.12.00 in length.

… the first generation of renewable energy is only now coming on stream, meaning there will be no recycling availability of production materials for some time. Production will have to be sourced from mining.

When Michaux presented basic information to EU analysts, it was a shock to them. To his dismay, they had not put together the various mineral/metal data requirements to phase out fossil fuels and replaced by renewables. They assumed, using guesstimates, the metals would be available.

Whoops!

One factor that will influence what materials and systems are used to build out renewables is the fact that EVs require a battery that is 3.2 times the mass of the equivalent of a hydrogen fuel tank. Therefore, an analysis of EVs versus hydrogen fuel cells indicates it’ll be necessary to build out the global fleet with EVs for city traffic and hydrogen fuel cells for all long-range vehicles like semi-trailers, rails, and maritime shipping.

The entire renewable build-out requires 36,000 terawatt hours to operate, meaning 586,000 new non-fossil fuel power stations of average size. The current fleet of power stations is only 46,000, meaning it’ll take 10 times the current number of power stations, yet to be built.

I’ll skip over a lot of technical stuff and jump to the conclusion:

Current reserves of copper are 880 million tons. But 4.5 billion tons of copper are required just to manufacture one generation of renewable technology. Hmm.

Moreover, each renewable technology has a life cycle of 8 to 25 years. Thereafter, they need to be decommissioned and replaced. Also, whether renewables are strong enough, and sustainably enough to power the next industrial era is a question that hangs in the air.

THE PAST – “An industrial ecosystem of unprecedented size and complexity, that took more than a century to build with the support of the highest calorifically dense source of cheap energy the world has ever known (oil) in abundant quantities, with easily available credit, and unlimited mineral resources.” (Michaux)

THE PRESENT – “We now seek to build an even more complex system with very expensive energy, a fragile finance system saturated in debt, not enough minerals, with an unprecedented number of the human population, embedded in a deteriorating environment.” (Michaux)

Current mineral reserves are not adequate to resource metal production to manufacture the generation of renewable energy technology, as current mining is not even close to meeting the expected demand for one generation of renewable technology.

I’m utterly unqualified to pass judgment on any of the above. However, this construct, as outlined, is what the Globalistas are attempting to foist upon the collective West. The disruption could prove to be catastrophic, although the US is in a position to recover from it. But Europe is being deindustrialized in favor of “renewables” that may never be available. Disruption doesn’t begin to describe what could follow. Of course, there’s always Russia.

John Moran @RueDaungier

Britain is cheating on its own Russia sanctions, according to the Guardian newspaper. It appears the cute British are pumping Russian oil into UK tankers at sea and unloading at their ports. Some £778m worth of Russian oil was landed landed so far, the Guardian reports.

Or maybe not. Russia is developing new markets.