{"id":66801,"date":"2024-02-11T08:08:56","date_gmt":"2024-02-11T13:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66801"},"modified":"2024-02-11T08:08:56","modified_gmt":"2024-02-11T13:08:56","slug":"we-are-not-mining-with-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66801","title":{"rendered":"We Are Not Mining with Renewable Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We Are Not Mining with Renewable Energy<\/a><\/h3>\n

\u2026and when we do, shit is going to get real<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The way we like to think of \u201crenewables\u201d. No smoke, just green fields and a clear blue sky\u2026 Photo by\u00a0Serge Le Strat<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

There are no \u201crenewables\u201d without mining, an unsustainable practice turbocharged by burning fossil fuels. Yet, advocates of green technologies still believe that we could somehow electrify the recovery of critical minerals, and continue with civilization in a \u201cbusiness as usual but greener\u201d manner. In reality, this could not be further from the truth.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Before we delve into the topic of using renewables to continue extracting metals from Earth\u2019s crust, let\u2019s tackle the environmental aspects of this activity. And while at it, let me also draw your attention to the deep and intimate relationship mining has with burning fossil fuels. What a fascinating \u2014 but also disastrous \u2014 symbiosis of technologies\u2026<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s no exaggeration to say that the term \u201cbuilding a mine\u201d is actually an euphemism for environmental destruction on a truly industrial scale. First of all, opening a site for mineral extraction inevitably comes with destroying a green blanket of a living habitat. It takes large harvesting machines cutting down all those trees and shrubs \u2014 all powered by burning diesel fuel, as there are no power plugs nearby to do all this with electrified chainsaws. Then a bunch of diesel guzzling excavators and bulldozers are brought on site to build roads leading to the would be mining site. Next, a fleet of trucks arrive to haul all those logs away \u2014 again, by burning diesel \u2014 as the distance and load is usually far-far beyond what an electric semi could cover.<\/p>\n

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Plumes of diesel smoke everywhere. Photo by\u00a0Dominik Vanyi<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We Are Not Mining with Renewable Energy \u2026and when we do, shit is going to get real The way we like to think of \u201crenewables\u201d. No smoke, just green fields and a clear blue sky\u2026 Photo by\u00a0Serge Le Strat\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash There are no \u201crenewables\u201d without mining, an unsustainable practice turbocharged by burning fossil fuels. Yet, advocates […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4],"tags":[1482,33927,674,32578],"class_list":["post-66801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-mining","tag-non-renewable-renewable-energy-harvesting-technology","tag-renewable-energy","tag-the-honest-sorcerer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66802,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66801\/revisions\/66802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}