from Climate Science Press
Solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles all critically depend upon a raft of minerals known as ‘rare earths’, as well as mountains of copper and cobalt.
With the exponential increase in demand for minerals comes an exponential growth in the mountains of toxic filth left behind during mining and processing those minerals.
The minerals in question have become ‘rare’, of late, as a consequence of the Western world’s insatiable appetite for ‘feelgood’ electricity generated by sunshine and breezes, occasionally stored in giant lithium batteries, as well as the thirst among the truly virtuous for the ultimate exhibition of moral posturing: the all-electric powered vehicle.
Mining concentrated ore bodies ordinarily involves local environmental harm, depending upon what’s being mined and where. Hence, strict environmental controls and cleanup orders once the orebody is spent and miners go home – at least in Western democracies.
However, the rush to provide the ingredients for the purported wind and solar (and all-EV) transition means more mines, often operated in Third World countries where the environment rarely rates a mention.
Matthew Phelan takes a look at some work aimed at identifying the scope of the environmental destruction being caused by the West’s obsession with subsidised wind, solar and electric vehicles.
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