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by zkomp 1344 days ago
Will not happen. ”green” energy is not green- it consume massive amount of resources, it is expensive, short lived, destabilize the grid. I’m super happy my country is finally waking up from the horrible green hypnosis.
1 comments

It doesn't matter if it consumes resources what matters is that it's less than what it replaces a.k.a. better for the environment.

I see this manipulative arguement used all the time with lithium mining.

How are going to mine resources that doesn’t exist? There is not enough of the metals needed to go full renewable.
Ridiculous claim. What are the assumptions?
False. There is no shortage of any of the materials needed to go fully renewable.
It’s Time to Wake Up - The Currently Known Global Mineral Reserves Will Not Be Sufficient to Supply Enough Metals to Manufacture the Planned Non-fossil Fuel Industrial Systems

https://www.gtk.fi/en/research/time-to-wake-up/

"No matter what minerals will be needed, we will need large quantities of them as the renewable power sources like wind and solar, require extensive mineral resources to manufacture the infrastructure for fossil-free energy.

And there is a challenge. Given the estimated required number of Electric Vehicles (EV’s) of different vehicle class, it is clear that there are not enough minerals in the currently reported global reserves to build just one generation of batteries for all EV’s and stationary power storage, in the global industrial ecosystem as it is today."

To put it nice, I would be careful to use that report to back any argument whatsoever. To come up with their conclusion they e.g. basically assumed LFP battery chemistry does not exist. (To be more accurate, they assumed that there is a set amount of nickel/cobalt you need to produce a kWh of lithium batteries) The conclusion also requires that no significant new reserves are found after 2018, which already now is proven false. (Lithium reserves have increased since 2018 by more than what a single generation of EVs need.)
Olympic Dam SA is the world's second biggest uranium mine.

For every 0.6 kg of Uranium it produces, it produces 20kg of copper and 4.5g of silver.

Monosilicon PV is made of sand, copper, silver and aluminum.

A kg of uranium going through a pwr produces about 500GJ (with 3-10% of that being required for milling and enrichment). The 7.5g of silver in the ore that produced that kg of Uranium will produce about 200GJ in its lifetime with technologies in the pipeling that will push this to 400GJ. This silver usage is going down faster than production is increasing. There will be a huge surplus of copper from this source.

The silver is recyclable.

The uranium will require special storage for millenia or reprocessing at a cost not even massively subsidized programs are willing to bear.

The solar energy can be stored in a battery made from sodium, carbon, iron and aluminum. This is basically the composition of dirt. These are being mass produced now and full industrialisation of the supply chain is expected by 2024.

The nuclear reactor requires large quantities of zirconium, molybdenum, chromium, silver, cadmium and many other rare metals. Much of this is radioactive waste at eol.

The nuclear reactor requires more steel than the solar panel requires silicon, and more concrete than the solar panel requires glass and concrete.

A uranium mine can provide nearly as much energy from PV as it does via fission, and will soon produce more. Let that sink in for a bit.

I was curious and searched uranium for breeder reactors: I see that 1KG of Uranium will produce 86000 GJ in a breeder reactor.
Does this take into account recycling? Regardless of if recycling is occurring now.
If there’s not enough minerals to cover all needs, let alone for EVs and power storage only, how is recycling going to help, even if 100% efficient?