Ed Conway Profile picture
Jul 2, 2022 28 tweets 9 min read Read on X
🔋THREAD🔌
The inconvenient truth about climate change is that solving it will involve digging, blasting & leaching more minerals from the skin of this planet than ever before.
No one much likes to talk abt this.
But talk about it we must.
⛏👇
Why? Because tackling climate change is a multi-decade (poss centuries-long) effort.
Hushing up the trade-offs & costs may feel right today, esp if it helps galvanise change.
But it'll only fuel a bigger backlash in decades to come. Because eliminating fossil fuels is a HARD SLOG
It will involve building a LOT more infrastructure: wind turbines and solar panels, high voltage cabling and energy storage.
In crazy quantities.
Because a) these power sources are less energy-dense than fossil fuels and b) the logic of net zero is to electrify EVERYTHING.
And there is simply no way of building all this stuff without digging a LOT of minerals out of the ground.
To see what this means in practice, consider a wind turbine. Many materials in there: steel in the tower structure, fibreglass & carbon fibre, rare earth metals up top...
But also, you need crazy amounts of copper.
Imagine a moderately big turbine, capable of turning out about one megawatt of power (so actually smaller than the mega one in the pic).
You need about three tonnes of copper in the generator and another tonne in the transformer... Image
Then you need about half a tonne of copper in the cables carrying the power down the tower.
Then you need to get that power back onshore, which involves long shielded collector cables which have enormous copper wiring. Look at this cross section of one of them! Image
There's more: copper at the substation where the power arrives; copper in the distribution cables connecting it to the grid... Tot it all up and according to @WoodMackenzie you're talking about roughly 15 tonnes of copper per megawatt generated.
And we need LOADS of these! Image
Extrapolate this across the world, and perhaps you're starting to see why copper is, to quote Goldman Sachs, the "new oil". They reckon we could see a four-fold or even nine-fold increase in demand from green energy in the coming decades.
We don't think about this all that much because copper is, as far as most of us are concerned, invisible. Yet it's already a massive part of our lives, since without copper there is no electricity. But suddenly, now we're electrifying EVERYTHING, we need much, much more.
The good news with copper is that we are pretty experienced at getting it out of the ground. The bad news is that a) we've already got most of the easy stuff and b) the rate of new mine discoveries has petered out in recent years. So there's a looming shortfall.
The other bad news is that copper extraction is a dirty business. Even when done as "cleanly" as possible it still involves displacing crazy amounts of rock, leaching them with acid, expending lots of energy, and dumping the waste in enormous tailings dams. It's often dirtier.
Copper is not evenly distributed. I just visited Chile, which has the world's biggest reserves (& the world's biggest copper company, state-owned Codelco).
Yet there the new government, led by new socialist President @gabrielboric is pondering new environmental controls on mining Image
They just shut down a copper smelter in Ventanas because it had caused so much pollution that the local area had been designated a "sacrifice zone". There are other such zones around the country. It's a big issue in Chile. mining-journal.com/copper-news/ne…
Over the past year a convention of people from around the country has been rewriting Chile's constitution. It's a v big moment: first rewrite since Pinochet. For a while they mulled banning some forms of mining altogether. The final draft is less radical but still proposes limits
So even as the rest of world looks to Chile for the crucial material upon which its net zero ambitions depend, Chile is thinking long and hard about restrictions: more environmental rules, bans on mining near glaciers. And this is doubly significant given it's not just copper...
For alongside the copper, Chile also has the world's biggest reserves of lithium - the material at the heart of rechargeable batteries. Lithium ion batteries are so named because the power inside them is stored/discharged thanks to lithium ions moving between cathode and anode Image
When people talk abt critical materials in batteries they often reference cobalt. Understandable given much of it comes from the DRC. But you don't actually NEED cobalt in batteries. Lithium on the other hand is essential - EVERY battery chemistry needs it (plus copper!) Image
So where does the lithium come from? In Chile's case from under the Salar de Atacama. This place 👇An enormous salt flat which looks extraordinary. But even more extraordinary is what lies beneath that salt - a great underground reservoir of brine, concentrated salt solution
This is a v different kind of mining to copper. No digging/blasting: brine is pumped up & evaporated over a year, removing non-lithium salts and leaving a liquid which is then refined at this place on the edge of the desert. The SQM refinery. Biggest lithium plant on the planet.
Problem is: this is one of the driest places on the planet. Locals say lithium miners are taking their water. SQM et al have convincing arguments that they don't. But even so, this is an incredibly sensitive environment. Some, eg @criordor, say local ecosystems are being harmed.
The undersecretary for mining from the new Boric government says he is concerned about this - and about pollution from copper mines. He also wants to create a state lithium firm a la Codelco. Tho interestingly he told me there are no plans to force nationalise private companies Image
The problem is that while there are clearly impacts from this type of brine mining, the other type of lithium mining - getting it from spodumene in Australia - involves considerably more water use and carbon emissions. It's more like conventional, dirty mining. Look: Image
So it's not just that there are compromises involved with replacing fossil fuels with renewable alternatives. There's a big spectrum in the cleanliness and nature of compromises of one type of lithium vs another.
Yet, again, few people want to discuss this!
Anyway, this is a v long-winded way of saying: please watch my film abt this.
I've left pretty much all the detail from the film out of this thread because I'd much prefer you watch it, cos a) we've been working on this for a while & b) I promise you'll enjoy it.
Wee preview:
🍿Full film here🍿
Shot by Richie Mockler (his first piece since coming back from Ukraine so esp grateful in every respect to have him along). Produced by @aoifeyourell. Pls share if you enjoy
Final thing: I was also in Chile researching my forthcoming book, MATERIAL WORLD.
📖 It'll touch on all this stuff - & go into more detail.
🪨Fascinating nuggets aplenty.
If u enjoy this kind of thing, do check it out.
Erm, when I've finished it.🫣
Out next year all being well...
The link to the video seems to have disappeared so here’s an updated link.
Do give it a watch if you find any of the above 👆interesting.

🍿THE RACE FOR CRITICAL MATERIALS🍿

A short film about SCALE:
Big news from Chile today: voters have rejected the new convention which proposed a raft of big changes, inc a national health system and new constraints on mining. Big blow to @gabrielboric.
More on why Chile matters so much to all of us in thread ☝️ theguardian.com/world/2022/sep…

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More from @EdConwaySky

Jan 10
🇨🇳I was rather hoping to be writing this from China, where the Chancellor has just landed for the most significant economic mission in ages - restarting Britain's formal economic relationship with China.
Alas I'm still in London.
But make no mistake; this visit is a BIG deal.
🧵
Why?
Because this is the first such trip since 2017.
UK econ relations with China have been getting frostier for 6 yrs or more.
Huawei have been thrown out; rules imposed on Chinese businesspeople; accusations of spying.
& around the world nations are imposing tariffs on China.
But the UK is doing something different.
While nearly every other G7 nation has imposed tariffs on Chinese electric cars, the UK hasn't. While most countries are going colder on China (most notably the US), the UK is now cosying up to China. Why?
Read 19 tweets
Jan 7
🔥GAS PRICES🔥
Why are they on the rise again?
Why is Europe (and the UK) deindustrialising at a rapid pace?
Why have we failed (contrary to the conventional wisdom) to increase the amount of non-Russian gas in our system?
Lots of questions. Some answers in my five min primer 👇
This is a big deal - and not widely understood:
The volume of non-Russian gas in the European system is FLAT vs before the Ukraine war.
That's not the conventional wisdom.
Back in 2022 many assumed imported LNG would help make up the lost gas from Russia.
That didn't happen... Image
Instead what happened is subtly, but importantly, different.
Yes, the amount of LNG coming in from the US rose quite sharply - albeit from a low base.
But that rise was only enough to compensate for the fact that domestic production in the UK/EU was FALLING at the same time Image
Read 13 tweets
Jan 5
🌾 VERTICAL FARMING🌾
Could it save the world?
I used to be sceptical. There are MANY challenges.
But then I visited one. & I'm no longer so sure.
So with the world facing future food crises here's a thread on the most interesting thing to happen to farming in a long time...
🧵 Image
Let's start with a chart.
A few weeks ago I did a deep data dive into the state of farming in the UK.
It culminated with a v long-run chart suggesting our ability to grow ever more crops in a given hectare is slowing. Possibly stalling.
This is a really big deal
What if we could send the line in that chart 👇into the stratosphere?
It would have massive consequences. We'd be able to get ever more food from a relatively small section of land. Meaning more land for housing/rewilding or whatever else we'd want to use it for. But how? Image
Read 22 tweets
Dec 30, 2024
If you're interested in energy/climate you've probably heard the nugget that "kerosene/crude oil helped save the whales", by reducing demand for whale oil in lanterns.
I've even trotted it out myself🤦‍♂️
But there's a problem with it. A BIG problem...
🧵
The backstory here begins 200 years ago, before the age of crude oil & electricity, when the best way to light a room was a lantern, and the best oil to burn in that lantern was oil from a sperm whale.
It burnt brighter and with less smoke or stink than other oils Image
The oil itself is found in the head of the sperm whale. It comes from a totally unique organ whose function remains a matter of debate - the spermaceti organ.
Whale oil is a long chain molecule unlike nearly anything else in the natural world, giving it unique qualities Image
Read 15 tweets
Dec 19, 2024
If you're even half interested in energy, I bet you've seen this chart. I call it The Most Hopeful Chart in the World.
The point? We're embracing renewable power MUCH faster than expected.
Hurrah!
Only problem is, this chart has an evil twin. A chart we really need to discuss
🧵 Image
The Most Hopeful Chart in the World shows how each year the @IEA predicted that the amount of solar output around the world would plateau or rise v slowly in the following years. But instead solar output defied all expectations, rising exponentially.
That's great news.
But making solar panels is an energy-intensive exercise.
You need a lot of coal to smelt down the silicon and a lot of power to turn metallurgical silicon into polysilicon, let alone the monocrystalline boules you really need for a decent solar module (read my book for more 📖)
Read 11 tweets
Dec 14, 2024
🚜FARMAGEDDON🌾
The story of what's REALLY going on in farming. A story far more complex than the conventional wisdom.
This isn't just (or even mainly) about inheritance tax. It's about a cascade of challenges & crises that may ultimately threaten food security.
📽️5 min primer👇
Let's begin with that big, overarching issue: food security.
For most of the past century, farmers have been encouraged to grow as much food as possible. The story here goes back to WWII and its aftermath, when the conventional wisdom was the UK needed to be more self sufficient Image
Encouraged by the govt, the UK's domestic food production, which before WWII had dropped to just 35% of what we ate, rose rapidly to over 60%.
Some economists say self sufficiency is overrated. But it's one of those post-war principles that stuck.
By accident as much as design. Image
Read 30 tweets

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