Are resources running out for a green power transition?

[begreen]

Not according to this detailed study published in Joule.

Study: Enough rare earth minerals to fuel green energy shift

The world is trying to switch from electricity produced by burning fossil fuels to cleaner wind and solar power, but some people have worried that there aren't enough rare earth minerals to make the green electricity switch.

apnews.com

The study:

Future demand for electricity generation materials under different climate mitigation scenarios

How many tons of steel, copper, silver, rare earth metals, and other materials are needed to build power generation facilities over the next 30 years? This study estimated future global material needs for electricity-producing infrastructure across a wide range of scenarios. While wind and solar...

www.cell.com

 

[begreen]

Meanwhile, the race for solar production is heating up. China now has 323 Gigawatts of solar production and they are on track to reach 1,200 Gigawatts by 2030. This massive infrastructure buildout has brought the cost of solar down rapidly. The cost of producing power from solar has gone from $106 per watt in 1976 to $0.38 per watt in 2019. The last decade alone has seen an 80 percent decrease, meaning it is now cheaper to produce electricity through new solar projects than fossil fuels.

People don't comprehend the scale that China is operating at or how rapidly they are addressing emissions. This article goes into the scale of China's solar operations and the impact on supply chains.

Visualizing China’s Dominance in the Solar Panel Supply Chain

The supply chain is key for the renewable energy revolution, and this chart visualizes where the world's solar panels are manufactured.

www.visualcapitalist.com

 

[EbS-P]

This guy says we don't have much of chance at producing the required minerals.

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Take away. On average, it takes 16 years to open a new mine and have it start producing.

We will need to increase mineral production by a factor of 10 to meet the climate goals, and at that amount we will need to move the entire tonnage of what the globe produces today in just minerals.

 

[begreen]

Sooner or later the reality is going to hit that the only way we are going to make a significant change is to make and consume a lot less stuff. We need to segway from an extractive, linear economy to a circular one and build accordingly.

edit: I question the statement that mining is the world's oldest industry. One would think that agriculture and construction preceded it.
edit 2: The refining side of the equation is also sobering.

 

[EbS-P]

Sooner or later the reality is going to hit that the only way we are going to make a significant change is to make and consume a lot less stuff. We need to segway from an extractive, linear economy to a circular one and build accordingly.

edit: I question the statement that mining is the world's oldest industry. One would think that agriculture and construction preceded it.
edit 2: The refining side of the equation is also sobering.

Did you catch where is was the CEO of a battery company?

So he think 20-30% BEV for light duty is possible. I don’t see how we can get anywhere close to targets without a really substantial investment in nuclear power.

And a S-ton of conservation. May a big carbon tax????

 

[begreen]

It's an excellent and sobering presentation. Thanks for posting. I am catching the Q&A now.

 

[EbS-P]

It's an excellent and sobering presentation. Thanks for posting. I am catching the Q&A now.

I did not do any research about the speaker or the organization he was talking to but, My gut says he’s probably a bit skewed by the slow pace on past business changes. But his inflation comments near the end are what really got me motivated to get some solar panels in the next 12 months. 80% of their cost is materials and that’s just going up.

 

[ABMax24]

I fell off the optimistic "we can change the energy structure of the world in 25 years" bandwagon a few years ago. My basis was solely around the manufacture of batteries themselves, I never saw it possible to be able to construct 10% of the batteries required to replace fossil fuels by 2050. What I had never considered was the supply of battery materials themselves, I'm used to the spud a hole, frac, and construct a well pad and go online in 9 months methodology. I had never really considered it was a decade+ out to build such rare earth mines or processing infrastructure.

He does make a very valid point about lack of energy investment, and its something I've personally witnessed over the last 10 years. The graph of the reversal of declining solar costs is something I've been pondering for a while now, at some point we were bound to see solar component costs follow broader energy costs, seems that time is here.

 

[jjf888]

Adapting the electric universe model and jettisoning the current cosmology model would be a huge step. There is an infinite amount of electric energy available. Then just need to get past the greed proclivity to engineer human scale deployments of it.

 

[woodgeek]

This guy says we don't have much of chance at producing the required minerals.

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Take away. On average, it takes 16 years to open a new mine and have it start producing.

We will need to increase mineral production by a factor of 10 to meet the climate goals, and at that amount we will need to move the entire tonnage of what the globe produces today in just minerals.

A PR product of the Manhattan Institute. Also a Climate Denial pushing think tank.

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

On a quick watch, he's saying that a green economy needs a larger mass/yr of solid minerals than the current fossil system needs of liquids and gases. And so that is bad for the planet and cumbersome. Not buying it, sorry. The mass of fossil fuels that a car will burn in its lifetime is far larger than the mass of the car in the first place, and most of its mass is metals that can be recycled. And it seems that a coal plant requires a large mass input that drives a lot of current freight tonnage. Moving liquids and gases around is easier (pipelines and tankers) but has the little problem with _spills_.

 

[SpaceBus]

A PR product of the Manhattan Institute. Also a Climate Denial pushing think tank.

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

On a quick watch, he's saying that a green economy needs a larger mass/yr of solid minerals than the current fossil system needs of liquids and gases. And so that is bad for the planet and cumbersome. Not buying it, sorry. The mass of fossil fuels that a car will burn in its lifetime is far larger than the mass of the car in the first place, and most of its mass is metals that can be recycled. And it seems that a coal plant requires a large mass input that drives a lot of current freight tonnage. Moving liquids and gases around is easier (pipelines and tankers) but has the little problem with _spills_.

I often find that any media against renewable energy is always connected to the fossil fuel economy.

 

[EbS-P]

A PR product of the Manhattan Institute. Also a Climate Denial pushing think tank.

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

On a quick watch, he's saying that a green economy needs a larger mass/yr of solid minerals than the current fossil system needs of liquids and gases. And so that is bad for the planet and cumbersome. Not buying it, sorry. The mass of fossil fuels that a car will burn in its lifetime is far larger than the mass of the car in the first place, and most of its mass is metals that can be recycled. And it seems that a coal plant requires a large mass input that drives a lot of current freight tonnage. Moving liquids and gases around is easier (pipelines and tankers) but has the little problem with _spills_.

They (Manhattan Institute)are main stream conservatives in my book.

the lack of investment in mineral infrastructure. the fact that ore quality has consistently declined and the increased demand for ore is convincing me that the raw materials markets will see increasing prices. That will result in increased cost to consumers. We already seen this but it’s been blamed on vivid restricted supply chains. We have enter the post covid period labor markets are tight the chip shortages are still dragging on in certain sectors.

I do think big money investors favor the conservative economic policy pontificators.

My biggest takeaway is that the overall average market performance will not see average returns but individual stocks will have some big winners and losers. (It was something to that effect I’m not interested enough to go back and find the quote).

So is there a progressive counterpoint to this.

(My gut was correct. The number of times he said “this is IEA data” was the clue to me. )

 

[GrumpyDad]

They (Manhattan Institute)are main stream conservatives in my book.

the lack of investment in mineral infrastructure. the fact that ore quality has consistently declined and the increased demand for ore is convincing me that the raw materials markets will see increasing prices. That will result in increased cost to consumers. We already seen this but it’s been blamed on vivid restricted supply chains. We have enter the post covid period labor markets are tight the chip shortages are still dragging on in certain sectors.

I do think big money investors favor the conservative economic policy pontificators.

My biggest takeaway is that the overall average market performance will not see average returns but individual stocks will have some big winners and losers. (It was something to that effect I’m not interested enough to go back and find the quote).

So is there a progressive counterpoint to this.

(My gut was correct. The number of times he said “this is IEA data” was the clue to me. )

Chip shortages are still a real thing, especially around the GPU market. Building AI is costly, and right now heading in the wrong direction with heavy bias. This is the new super sector to look at from an investment perspective.

 

[EbS-P]

Chip shortages are still a real thing, especially around the GPU market. Building AI is costly, and right now heading in the wrong direction with heavy bias. This is the new super sector to look at from an investment perspective.

Did you hear fords ceo. They aren’t getting better this year. We heard that before. At least gpus are back to msrp. Bought the kids a RX6600 for Xmas for 230$

 

[woodgeek]

In the spirit of fairness... I will offer the idea that the mass that needs to be moved/processed to extract a small amount of some metal/mineral can be a significant multiplier (on the mass of refined material). And the total mass needed to be moved/processed to extract a fossil liquid or gas from an in situ deposit is much less than the mass of the delivered product.

So it is possible that the mass that must be moved/processed to enable the green economy (before saturation and recycling) might be higher than in a mature fossil fueled economy (with steel/lead/aluminum recycling as present). But that moving is usually a short distance (to a tailing pile, not 10000 miles to market).

AS for the processing and its effects... then we are getting into details. And I want a few peer reviewed academic reports on govt funding, and an NAS review before I believe it.

Mines do take a long time to get on stream, and the size of the mass moving/processing equipment is 100% the reason. Sure, bake that into transition time.

But I don't believe mineral scarcity is actually problem, given the known and projected recoverable deposits for the key minerals, and the fact that many of them are substitutable. The whole 'Not enough XYZ green mineral' is a conservative shibboleth.

And of course, when the 'not enough minerals' thing gets refuted, they will come back with 'minerals too expensive' and/or, 'can't produce minerals fast enough' alternatives. Sound a lot like 'solar doesn't work', then 'solar is too expensive' and finally 'solar can't get built fast enough' playbook to me.

 

[woodgeek]

Did you hear fords ceo. They aren’t getting better this year. We heard that before. At least gpus are back to msrp. Bought the kids a RX6600 for Xmas for 230$

The collapse in GPU prices is due to the 'crypto winter'. I bought a bunch on Ebay for my professional use in scientific computation.

ETA: I use Nvidia Titan Xp's for work... and they are <$300 used nowadays, which is pretty nuts.

 

[GrumpyDad]

Did you hear fords ceo. They aren’t getting better this year. We heard that before. At least gpus are back to msrp. Bought the kids a RX6600 for Xmas for 230$

No I didnt hear about ford or from their CEO. I have/had my eye on their electric truck. I need to get that out of my head for awhile though. I also considered signing up for the Tesla truck, but backed out...they are having real challenges getting materials, manufacturing and pricing all aligned with near what they promised. I think alot of people are going to struggle in this sector. We may start to see vehicle stickers with a $ Market Price stick on them, like going to a restaurant and getting a filet.

That video card is what I like to call, the goldilocks cards. Not too expensive, enough performance for most people's needs. You can build a system around that card and be under $1k for a gaming rig. Especially if you stick with AMD and a modest motherboard. Using AMD can sometimes incur a slight risk above Nvidia/Intel, but with some research you can overcome obstacles or just wait for firmware updates to fix issues. My next gaming rig will likely be all AMD to be honest. The only title that would entice me to upgrade would be flight sim.

 

[ABMax24]

A PR product of the Manhattan Institute. Also a Climate Denial pushing think tank.

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

On a quick watch, he's saying that a green economy needs a larger mass/yr of solid minerals than the current fossil system needs of liquids and gases. And so that is bad for the planet and cumbersome. Not buying it, sorry. The mass of fossil fuels that a car will burn in its lifetime is far larger than the mass of the car in the first place, and most of its mass is metals that can be recycled. And it seems that a coal plant requires a large mass input that drives a lot of current freight tonnage. Moving liquids and gases around is easier (pipelines and tankers) but has the little problem with _spills_.

Maybe a quick watch wasn't the best to draw a conclusion with. His presentation (as is the title of this thread) was about the limitations the supply of mined rare earth materials have in the transition from renewables. And unfortunately his points can't be ignored.

Besides when we drill for oil and gas or mine coal the yields are significantly higher. No one would move 100,000 tons of rock to get 1 ton of coal as is common practice with other minerals like copper.

 

[woodgeek]

Maybe a quick watch wasn't the best to draw a conclusion with. His presentation (as is the title of this thread) was about the limitations the supply of mined rare earth materials have in the transition from renewables. And unfortunately his points can't be ignored.

Besides when we drill for oil and gas or mine coal the yields are significantly higher. No one would move 100,000 tons of rock to get 1 ton of coal as is common practice with other minerals like copper.

Indeed. See my post above.

Most/all of the key 'green minerals' have earth abundances higher than copper, FWIW. Copper could be a choke point. And the academic analyses I have seen say that known and recoverable deposits of all of them are sufficient for a 100% transition with current green tech (assuming no substitution). Not to mention unknown deposits are highly likely to be significant, due to the low value of the elements previously.

 

[EbS-P]

No I didnt hear about ford or from their CEO. I have/had my eye on their electric truck. I need to get that out of my head for awhile though. I also considered signing up for the Tesla truck, but backed out...they are having real challenges getting materials, manufacturing and pricing all aligned with near what they promised. I think alot of people are going to struggle in this sector. We may start to see vehicle stickers with a $ Market Price stick on them, like going to a restaurant and getting a filet.

That video card is what I like to call, the goldilocks cards. Not too expensive, enough performance for most people's needs. You can build a system around that card and be under $1k for a gaming rig. Especially if you stick with AMD and a modest motherboard. Using AMD can sometimes incur a slight risk above Nvidia/Intel, but with some research you can overcome obstacles or just wait for firmware updates to fix issues. My next gaming rig will likely be all AMD to be honest. The only title that would entice me to upgrade would be flight sim.

I have not bought a new cpu since…. 2011 (AMD phenom X4 baby. Drop in upgrade to a system that was 5 years old ) I have something like ivy bridge era systems. Still chugging along..

 

[ABMax24]

Indeed. See my post above.

Most/all of the key 'green minerals' have earth abundances higher than copper, FWIW. Copper could be a choke point. And the academic analyses I have seen say that known and recoverable deposits of all of them are sufficient for a 100% transition with current green tech (assuming no substitution). Not to mention unknown deposits are highly likely to be significant, due to the low value of the elements previously.

Sure, but he wasn't arguing that the minerals don't exist in sufficient quantities on earth at all. It's the rates of extraction that he's concerned with, and that we won't meet any emissions targets before 2050 because the materials can't be produced fast enough to make that a reality.

Watch the first 5 minutes, pretty much sums it up.

 

[EbS-P]

Indeed. See my post above.

Most/all of the key 'green minerals' have earth abundances higher than copper, FWIW. Copper could be a choke point. And the academic analyses I have seen say that known and recoverable deposits of all of them are sufficient for a 100% transition with current green tech (assuming no substitution). Not to mention unknown deposits are highly likely to be significant, due to the low value of the elements previously.

I don’t see the choke point as available deposits. It’s who controls them. I really only see this as an issue into 2030-35. And really as significant inflation concern. The money ain’t flowing into gas and petroleum exploration.

 

[woodgeek]

Sure, but he wasn't arguing that the minerals don't exist in sufficient quantities on earth at all. It's the rates of extraction that he's concerned with, and that we won't meet any emissions targets before 2050 because the materials can't be produced fast enough to make that a reality.

Watch the first 5 minutes, pretty much sums it up.

OK, I tried... but OMG I really can't do it. I got 7 minutes in. So many red flags.

Part of the problem is that he is a physicist (like me). Physicists are not reliable arbiters of this kind of market/dynamics/engineering datasets. I have seen so many bad analyses grounded 'in physical principles'.

The whole straw man of 'we all want to be like Norway'? Um no. Norway is a hydro powered petro state. And there isn't enough global hydro.
And he says 'large hydro has 4X the return on capital as 'other renewables'... just randomly saying that other renewables won't work.

And then his first chart is on a 'primary energy' basis, that makes renewables in 2022 look 3X smaller bc fossils are <30% efficient... a 'trick' that never fails to confuse folks.

This is just a collection of fossil fuel think tank PR greatest hits... in just the 7 minutes. I'm out.

---------

FTR, if you (or someone knowledgeable) tells me that building out mining operations takes 15-20 years, and that will slow the green energy transition, I will listen. Makes sense to me.

If some silicon valley guy says that we can grow mineral production at a 40% cumulative annual growth rate bc he can do that building smart phones... um, no, I don't find that convincing.

But who the heck cares if the transition takes 5 years or 15 years or 25 years? I know it matters in terms of temps in 2100, but we are just gonna do what we are gonna have do. And we will do it as fast as we can, and already ARE.

To obsess on the slowness is just a classic 'argument of futility' in fancy new clothes. Just like all those 'solar can't be the solution bc its too slow to build'... the subject of countless presentations that hit (1) the primary energy fraction and (2) used EIA projections that are laughable. And now we know that solar is very scalable, and can be built faster than anything else! And ofc 15 years ago, there was a silicon supply crunch that lasted several years that made a jog in the falling price trajectory of solar. And yet that got resolved and here we are in a cheap/fast solar future.

Or does he have some great suggestion motivated by his analysis, like, let's invest in sodium batteries and build wind turbines with induction turbines that don't need REEs??

 

[EbS-P]

OK, I tried... but OMG I really can't do it. I got 7 minutes in. So many red flags.

Part of the problem is that he is a physicist (like me). Physicists are not reliable arbiters of this kind of market/dynamics/engineering datasets. I have seen so many bad analyses grounded 'in physical principles'.

The whole straw man of 'we all want to be like Norway'? Um no. Norway is a hydro powered petro state. And there isn't enough global hydro.
And he says 'large hydro has 4X the return on capital as 'other renewables'... just randomly saying that other renewables won't work.

And then his first chart is on a 'primary energy' basis, that makes renewables in 2022 look 3X smaller bc fossils are <30% efficient... a 'trick' that never fails to confuse folks.

This is just a collection of fossil fuel think tank PR greatest hits... in just the 7 minutes. I'm out.

---------

FTR, if you (or someone knowledgeable) tells me that building out mining operations takes 15-20 years, and that will slow the green energy transition, I will listen. Makes sense to me.

If some silicon valley guy says that we can grow mineral production at a 40% cumulative annual growth rate bc he can do that building smart phones... um, no, I don't find that convincing.

But who the heck cares if the transition takes 5 years or 15 years or 25 years? I know it matters in terms of temps in 2100, but we are just gonna do what we are gonna have do. And we will do it as fast as we can, and already ARE.

To obsess on the slowness is just a classic 'argument of futility' in fancy new clothes. Just like all those 'solar can't be the solution bc its too slow to build'... the subject of countless presentations that hit (1) the primary energy fraction and (2) used EIA projections that are laughable. And now we know that solar is very scalable, and can be built faster than anything else! And ofc 15 years ago, there was a silicon supply crunch that lasted several years that made a jog in the falling price trajectory of solar. And yet that got resolved and here we are in a cheap/fast solar future.

Or does he have some great suggestion motivated by his analysis, like, let's invest in sodium batteries and build wind turbines with induction turbines that don't need REEs??

I do think his message can have has traction. 22 states are controlled by republican majorities.


To think this topic isn’t been assessed and addressed at the highest levels would be ignorant.

no matter what position you take, watch, listen to or read, there is one undisputed fact. China is currently in control of the of the refining processes for a HUGE majority of minerals. They have made financial investments for quite some time.

An African country spends 40% of its national budget on debt service to China. (Speaker didn’t disclose which one).

How might one balloon affect relations with China?

 

[begreen]

I do think his message can have has traction. 22 states are controlled by republican majorities.


To think this topic isn’t been assessed and addressed at the highest levels would be ignorant.

no matter what position you take, watch, listen to or read, there is one undisputed fact. China is currently in control of the of the refining processes for a HUGE majority of minerals. They have made financial investments for quite some time.

An African country spends 40% of its national budget on debt service to China. (Speaker didn’t disclose which one).

How might one balloon affect relations with China?

Sometimes it's not the facts that are wrong, it's how they are used to make a persuasive argument. Mills used Norway as the holy grail example implying that it is an unattainable goal for energy and transportation transition in the western world. Clearly absent from his presentation are China's accomplishments in the past 20 yrs. They can and are making a lot more progress than we are because they are not mired down in political debate. Their accomplishments are remarkable, to say the least.