Tag Archives: mining

Renewables: not enough minerals, energy or time and mining is destructive

Posted on January 22, 2021 by

Preface. Electricity generating contraptions like wind and solar can’t replace the 50% of oil used in global manufacturing, because they can’t generate the high heat needed, or run battery or catenary electric trucks as I explained in “When Trucks Top … Continue reading →

Posted in Alternative Energy, Battery - Utility Scale, Peak Critical Elements, Peak Platinum Group Elements, Peak Rare Earth Elements, Peak Resources, Recycle, Recycling, Solar, Wind | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Ugo Bardi’s The Universal Mining Machine

Posted on January 19, 2021 by

Preface. Below I’ve excerpted some of Ugo Bardi’s “The Universal Mining Machine” (24 January 2008 europe.theoildrum), but I’ve left a great deal out of this excellent article, I encourage you to read all of it if you have time. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Mining, Peak Critical Elements, Ugo Bardi | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Foreign Policy: The limits of clean energy

Posted on January 5, 2020 by

Preface. This article appeared in the magazine Foreign Policy. Some key points: Renewables to power the world would require 34 million metric tons of copper, 40 million tons of lead, 50 million tons of zinc, 162 million tons of aluminum, … Continue reading →

Posted in Alternative Energy, Mining, Peak Lithium | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Going 100% renewable power means a lot of dirty mining

Posted on August 4, 2019 by

Preface. Everyone talks about oil spills, but what about the dirty mining that will have a huge polluting footprint on the earth of mercury, arsenic, and other toxic heavy metals.  The Pebble mine is canceled for now, but if the … Continue reading →

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Mining: Waste, Pollution, Destruction from Ugo Bardi’s “Extracted”

Posted on November 15, 2017 by

Preface. I’ve reworded/shortened some of the wording at times from this excellent book. Here are 7 other posts from this great book: Mining: Waste, Pollution, Destruction Ugo Bardi predictions of the future Minerals and War Minerals: Natural gas Minerals: Coal … Continue reading →

Posted in Chemicals, Hazardous Waste, Mining, Nuclear Waste, Pollution, Ugo Bardi | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Minerals & Energy from Ugo Bardi’s “Extracted”

Posted on October 5, 2017 by

Preface. This is a small section of Ugo Bardi’s excellent book “Extracted”. His most important observation is that: “The limits to mineral extraction are not limits of quantity; they are limits of energy. Extracting minerals takes energy, and the more … Continue reading →

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Tackling mine wastes

Posted on September 1, 2017 by

Preface. This barely scratches the problems of mining wastes, but for what it’s worth, here are a few of the articles I’ve run across on this topic.  Like burying nuclear waste deep underground while we still have cheap energy and … Continue reading →

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Corrosion eats $552 billion of infrastructure a year (6% of GDP)

Posted on March 26, 2016 by

Preface. United States infrastructure was built when the EROI of oil was very high and minerals and metals were cheap due to high ore concentrations. This study was done in 2002, since then, things have gotten much worse (see ASCE … Continue reading →

Posted in Bridges, Oil & Gas, Rail, Transportation Infrastructure | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Peak element and mineral production

Posted on September 10, 2013 by

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Posted in Mining, Peak Critical Elements, Peak Platinum Group Elements, Peak Precious Elements, Peak Rare Earth Elements | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Peak element and mineral production