Assoc Prof Simon Michaux - The quantity of metals required to manufacture just one generation of...
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited in energy transition threads for ballpark numbers on mineral demand, though some commenters criticize its assumptions.
What it is
Associate Professor Simon Michaux presents estimates of the metals needed to build one generation of renewable technology to replace fossil fuels. He argues current production and reserves fall far short, with copper a key shortfall.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2022 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Recommends SinParadise · 2023-09 · on “Our climate change debates are out of date”
[this video] Long video, but informative. TLDR: We don't have enough minerals (including reserves) to completely switch our energy from ff to renewables, assuming our current energy consumption flatline, and our renewable technology efficiency and mineral consumption remain the same.
Cites s-lambert · 2022-08 · on “I Choose Optimism”
Solar energy isn't free, it takes a lot of metals just to turn solar energy into electrical energy (including batteries for storage) and they don't last forever. Here's a link to a talk from an associate professor doing an estimation of how much metals are needed to switch to renewable energy: [this video]
Cites dimtion · 2022-08 · on “EV shipping is set to blow internal combustion engines out of the water”
On the flip side, the amount of materials, metals, and energy necessary to produce enough batteries to replace current fossil fuel usages, are order of magnitude larger than the current world production and known reserves. This presentation does ballpark analysis of the problem: [this video] Even if the numbers are off by an order of magnitude, them problem remains worrisome and difficult to solve at scale.
Cites TheLoafOfBread · 2022-08 · on “California votes to ban new gas car sales by 2035”
I don't believe that BEV economics will improve. It could actually get worse as we are running out of material, especially copper The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels, is much larger than first thought. Current mining production of these metals is not even close to meeting demand. Current reported mineral reserves are also not enough in size. Most concerning is copper as one of the flagged shortfalls. Exploration for more at required volumes will be difficult, with this seminar addressing these issues. [this video]
Cites elihu · 2022-08 · on “The Mining of Minerals and the Limits to Growth (2021) [pdf]”
There's also this much longer talk he gave that I watched recently: [this video] The premise is that we don't have enough minerals to transition to a decarbonized economy if we just do the most obvious, naive thing. For some reason, he assumes we need a battery capable of storing the world's energy use for 4 weeks, and then shows that there's no way we can manufacture that amount of lithium ion batteries. His analysis also assumes pretty heavy use of hydrogen for ground transport to get around the limitations of batteries, despite being rather energy-inefficient by comparison. I'm actually kind of optimistic: his result just means we can't do things that don't scale, but we could do other things
Cites TheLoafOfBread · 2022-09 · on “The energy historian who says rapid decarbonization is a fantasy”
Here is a longer presentation from same author from this year about lack of copper to even start with renewables as planned [this video]
Cites TheLoafOfBread · 2022-10 · on “Toyota CEO talks about why he isn’t all-in on EVs”
Toyota is probably only company who understands that poor people can't afford BEVs and will be left behind. And introducing another EV Hummer or Cybertruck for 100k USD won't really help them to get affordable EV. I am convinced that BEV are not the future, because there is not enough of material, especially there is not enough copper. Assoc Prof Simon Michaux on shortage of copper [this video] [LINK]
Cites evilos · 2022-10 · on “Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants”
1) It is dangerous yes. That is the nature of the energy being so concentrated. But this concentration is a blessing because you don't need to mind nearly as much material, and it is far far easier to keep an eye on the waste. Where does the waste from coal/gas go? Into the air. It costs way more to try to contain the harms of those substances because they are the opposite of energy dense. Nuclear waste is such a tiny tiny amount that we just keep it on site. It's solid. It's not going to leak out of its containers. It just sits in concrete casks on site. Even better, it still has 98% of the energy in it so you don't really want to get rid of it. It can be used in breeder reactors to extract