Ron Stein: The “green” scam of the century: “Renewables” increase fossil fuel demands

Ronald Stein, P.E. is an engineer, columnist on energy literacy at America Out Loud NEWS, https://www.americaoutloud.news/author/ronald-stein-p-e/and advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.” 

John Shanahan, Professional Engineer, B.Sc. and M.Sc. from U. of Notre Dame, USA. Dr. of Engineering, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Twenty-five years in consulting and public education for all energy sources, related environmental issues, and petroleum by-products for the modern world and problems with policy decision making mainly in the USA and Europe.  

Co-authored by Ronald Stein and John Shanahan 

Published October 21, 2024, at America Out Loud NEWS 

https://www.americaoutloud.news/the-green-scam-of-the-century-renewables-increase-fossil-fuel-demands/ 

In the transition to so-called clean and green electricity, critical minerals and metals bring new challenges to electricity security.   

Solar plants, wind farms, and EVs generally require more minerals to build than their fossil fuel-based counterparts. A typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car and an onshore wind plant requires nine times more mineral resources than a gas-fired plant. Since 2010 the average amount of minerals needed for a new unit of power generation capacity has increased by 50% as the share of wind and solar renewables in new investment has risen. 

Our electricity is increasingly dependent on rare earth minerals and metals mined for those wind turbines, solar panels, and EV batteries under atrocious slave labor and environmental conditions in other countries that the DOE and bureaucrats ignore. 

• China controls a stranglehold 80% of the global supply monopoly on rare earth minerals and metals, with the Congo in Africa a 90% source of vital cobalt. 

• Graphite: On a total component basis for an EV battery, graphite is about 25% to 28% of the whole EV battery.  Turkey has the largest reserves of graphite, followed by Brazil and China. Together these three countries accounted for 66% of the estimated world graphite reserves.  

It should concern everyone that all those “blood minerals” come from mining at locations in the world that are never seen by environmentalists, policymakers, or EV buyers.