The Staggering Human Costs of “Renewable” Energy by Paul Driessen, CFACT
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arathon Petroleum recently announced it will “indefinitely idle” its Martinez Refinery. The decision will remove hundreds of jobs, billions of dollars, and nearly seven million gallons of gasoline, diesel and other petroleum liquids per day from the energy-hungry California economy. It will also send fuel prices even higher for minority and other poor families that already pay by far the highest gasoline prices in the continental United States: $1.32 more per gallon of regular than in Louisiana and Texas. California’s green and political interests don’t want drilling or fracking, pipelines, or nuclear, coal or hydroelectric power plants – or mining for the materials needed to manufacture electric cars. They prefer to have that work done somewhere else, and just import the energy, cars and consumer goods. They’ve long wanted a totally electric vehicle (EV) fleet, which they claim would be clean, ethical, climate-friendly and sustainable. Of course, those labels hold up only so long as they look solely at activities and emissions within California state boundaries – and not where the mining, manufacturing and electricity generation take place. That kind of “life cycle” analysis would totally disrupt their claims. Consider copper. A typical internal combustion engine uses about 50 pounds (23 kilograms) of this vital everyday metal, the International Copper Association says. A hybrid car requires almost 90 lb (40 kg); a plug-in EV needs 132 lb (60 kg); and a big electric bus can use up to 812 lb (369 kg) of copper. If all 15,000,000 California cars were EVs, they would need almost 1,000,000 tons of copper. But copper ores average just 0.5 percent metal by weight, notes energy analyst Mark Mills. That means 200,000,000 tons of ore would have to be dug up, crushed, processed and refined to get that much copper. Almost every step in that process would require fossil fuels – and emit carbon dioxide and pollutants. That’s just California. According to Cambridge University Emeritus Professor of Technology Michael Kelly, replacing all the United Kingdom’s vehicles with next-generation EVs would require more than half
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the world’s annual production of copper; join carcasses of cows and yaks floating twice its annual cobalt; three quarters of its down Tibet’s Liqi River, which has been yearly lithium carbonate output; and nearly poisoned by the Ganzizhou Rongda mine. its entire annual production of neodymium. Native people in the ABC triangle say Just one electric car or backup-power lithium operations contaminate streams battery weighs 1,000 pounds and requires needed for humans, livestock and irrigation, extracting and processing some 500,000 and leave mountains of discarded salt. pounds of various ores, Mills says. The true The world’s top producer of cobalt is the costs of “green” energy are staggering. Democratic Republic of Congo, where Imagine replacing all of the USA’s nearly some 40,000 children as young as four toil 300,000,000 cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, with their parents for less than $2 a day up buses, trucks and other vehicles with elec- to 12 hours a day. Many die in cave-ins, or tric versions under the Green New Deal – and more slowly from constant exposure to then charging them daily. The millions of toxic, radioactive mud, dust, water and air wind turbines, billions of solar panels, bil- that puts dangerous levels of cobalt, lead, lions of backup-power batteries, thousands uranium and other heavy metals into their of miles of new transmission lines, grid bodies. The cobalt ore is sent to China for upgrades and million or so fast charging processing by the Chinese-owned Congo stations all across America would also Dongfang International Mining Company. require copper, concrete, all these other That’s just to meet current raw material metals and many more materials, in incom- requirements. Try to picture the raw mateprehensible quantities. rial demands, Third World mining and child Alaska’s Pebble Mine deposit has an esti- labor conditions, and ecological destrucmated 35 million tons of high-grade copper tion, under the Green New Deal. ore and 3 million tons of molybdenum and Liberals often say they support sustainother critical GND ores. The copper alone is able, ethical coffee, sneakers, handbags and nearly two times the world’s 2019 output of diamonds. No child labor, sweat shops or that essential element. Permits were unsafe conditions tolerated. But it’s a differblocked for years for questionable reasons. ent story with green energy and EVs. In 2019, But the US Army Corps of Engineers recently California Assembly Bill 735 proposed that found that mining would not have a “mea- the state certify that “zero emission” electric surable effect” on sockeye salmon numbers vehicles sold there are free of any materials in the Bristol Bay watershed and should be or components that involve child labor. allowed to proceed, under tough US pollu- Democrats voted it down. The matter is tion control, reclamation, wildlife protection, complicated, they “explained.” It would be workplace safety, fair wage and child too hard to enforce, cost too much and labor laws. imperil state climate goals. And besides, Environmentalists intend to delay the lots of other industries also use child labor. Pebble Mine as long as possible – and block (So shut up about it.) other US exploration and mining projects. Recently, the US House of RepresentaThat’s why most mining and processing is tives had an opportunity to legislate a done overseas, much of it in China and national certification that federally funded Mongolia or by Chinese companies in Africa, electric buses and charging stations would Asia and Latin America, where none of not include minerals mined with child labor. these laws apply. The Transportation Committee approved Most of the world’s rare earth ores are the amendment 43-19 (all 19 nay votes were extracted near Baotou, Inner Mongolia by Democrats). But Pete DeFazio(D-OR) quietly pumping acid into the ground, then pro- replaced the enforceable certification lancessed using more acids and chemicals. guage with a meaningless statement that Producing one ton of rare earth metals “it is the policy of the United States” that releases up to 420,000 cubic feet of toxic funds “should not be used” for items involvgases, 2,600 cubic feet of acidic wastewater, ing child labor. and a ton of radioactive waste. The resultDeFazio claimed certification is unnecing black sludge is piped into a foul, lifeless essary because US trade agreements lake. Numerous local people suffer from prohibit child labor. But there is no agreesevere skin and respiratory diseases, chil- ment with Congo, and China has shown no dren are born with soft bones, and cancer interest in ending child labor in its supply rates have soared. chains. (Plus, the matter is complicated, Lithium comes largely from Tibet and hard to enforce and perilous for climate and arid highlands of the Argentina-Boliv- Green New Deal goals.) ia-Chile “lithium triangle.” Dead, toxic fish continued on page 70 >>
