On 7 Apr 2023 in TheTyee.ca, Andrew Nikiforuk discusses the problems we face transitioning to renewables.
The Rising Chorus of Renewable Energy Skeptics
The green techno-dream is so vastly destructive, they say, ‘we have to come up with a different plan.’
‘Doubling down on the wrong thing’
For largely ideological reasons many greens and “transitionists” have presented the transition to renewables as a smooth road with no potholes.
In so doing they have ignored much basic geology, energy physics and even geopolitics. As a consequence many imagine the construction of millions of batteries, wind mills, solar panels, transmission lines and associated technologies, but they downplay the required intensification of mining for copper, nickel, cobalt and rare minerals you’ve probably never heard of such as dysprosium and neodymium.
One of the great lies of modern technological society is that of endless mineral abundance. Urban consumers, who have little knowledge of energy realities underpinning their existence, have swallowed the idea that digital gadgets and automation will somehow detach society from the physical world and allow us to do more with less, leading to a dematerialization of society.
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