Amid cries of “Putin Price Hikes,” the Biden Administration and congressional Democrats continue to obsess over the “climate crisis” and promote a rapid “transition” to “renewable” energy.
It’s an exercise in distraction and magical thinking. Wind and sunshine are certainly clean and renewable. However, harnessing weather-dependent energy to meet huge and growing US and global energy needs, requires millions of wind turbines, billions of solar panels, billions of battery modules and thousands of miles of new transmission lines that need enormous quantities of metals and minerals, which are absolutely not clean, renewable or sustainable.
Indeed, just Mr. Biden’s initial 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy would require 110,000 tons of copper – plus massive amounts of cobalt, lithium, nickel, aluminum, steel, rare earth elements and other materials. Getting just the copper would require mining 25 million tons of ore. But federal bureaucrats and judges have already shut down three proposed U.S. copper mines. Again, that’s just the copper.
How many tons of metals, minerals, ores and overburden will be required overall for wind turbines, solar panels, battery modules, transformers and transmission lines in an all-electricity Green New Deal Economy? How much fossil fuel energy to do this work? Where will the mining, processing and manufacturing take place? Alaska, California and Colorado? Or China and Russia?
How much environmental destruction, and child and slave labor, will be involved? What will these materials cost, as demand surges? How much land and wildlife will be impacted by these technologies?
The vaunted Green New Deal would likely make America reliant on Chinese and Russian companies for “renewable” energy materials. Europe and the United States already have minimal leverage (and credibility) over China and Russia on diplomatic matters, territorial ambitions – or open warfare.
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“Would likely make America reliant on Chinese and Russian companies…” Well there you go.
It all makes sense now!
This is what we get for allowing the snakes in our government to invite the snake China into our house for all these years, on the premise that they will become more democratic.
The snakes became richer, while we all became poorer, and dependent on China for everything.
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