There is an insidious lie that has taken root in the energy transition narrative pushed by the world’s most powerful financial, political, and environmental institutions: we need to massively scale up “critical mineral” mining to secure a green future. The World Bank claims that production of key minerals will need to increase by 500% by […]

  • The world needs to move from fossil fuels to renewable ones, but the narrative pushed by powerful financial, political, and environmental institutions — that it’s necessary to massively scale up mining of “transition” or “critical” minerals to achieve this — is false, a new op-ed argues.

  • Not only do these minerals’ extraction cause countless environmental and community harms, the numbers cited about how they are used — and the number of new mines needed — don’t add up, a recent report has shown.

  • “The vast majority [of critical minerals] are used in industries that are either unrelated — or in direct opposition — to the clean energy transition,” the author writes.

  • spankysalmon@fedinsfw.appEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I never said the grid is perfect as is. Just that those saying it cannot handle EVs are blowing smoke.

    Notice how few politicians whined about the grid when it came time to talk about data centers? At least not until it came time to reconcile plans against reality…

    Notice how the politicians supporting data centers didn’t say “no” from the start, like they always do with pushing EVs?

    • HerbGrower@slrpnk.net
      0·
      2 months ago

      You can charge an EV on a regular socket. Unless you are driving a lot that would be enough.

      The majority of car journeys are less than the distance I cycle to work. You don’t need fast charging for that. When you need it is on the rare occasion you do make a long distance trip. So 100+ kW at motorway service stations and perhaps a few others scattered around is really all you need.

      Other places a lot of people park like work and shops could have a few moderate speed ones too, but even where we have them here most people with EVs don’t really use them much. Still, having a few would be pretty helpful for those without home charging options. An hour to charge kind of speed would be fine if it is while shopping, multiple hours if its at work.

      • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        That was the big surprise to me with my EV. I can usually get away with charging on a 120v outlet.

      • spankysalmon@fedinsfw.appEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        Bingo. Excellent job seeing through the BS lies of purchased figureheads who are FAR too often confused for politicians.

    • ikt@aussie.zone
      0·
      2 months ago

      I never said the grid is perfect as is. Just that those saying it cannot handle EVs are blowing smoke.

      Well that’s a bit more elaborate from what you initially said :P

      The result is a lopsided flow of power that’s maxing out transmission corridors from the Highlands to London. That grid strain won’t ease any time soon

      https://spectrum.ieee.org/grid-congestion-uk

      In 2022, TenneT, the Dutch transmission system operator, spent EUR 388 million on grid congestion management, over six times the amount spent in 2020, although this was partly linked to higher electricity prices. Similar trends are seen in other countries, such as Germany, where grid congestion management costs increased more than three-fold from 2020 to 2022 and surpassing EUR 4 billion. In most cases, these costs are passed on to the consumers via network charges.

      https://www.iea.org/commentaries/grid-congestion-is-posing-challenges-for-energy-security-and-transitions

      etc

        • ikt@aussie.zone
          0·
          2 months ago

          edit: why did you downvote me ya dick?

          not a lot I suspect, renewables is the biggest driver of transmission grid upgrades

          netherlands in particular was not built for renewables but has the most enthusiastic renewables deployment in europe:

          He explains that the problem is that the grid “was designed in the days when we had just a few very large, mainly gas-fired power plants”.

          "So we built a grid with very big power lines close to those power plants, and increasingly smaller power lines as you got more towards the households.

          “Nowadays we’re switching to renewables, and that means there’s a lot of power being injected into the grid in the outskirts of the network where there are only relatively small power lines.”

          And these small power lines are struggling to cope with all the electricity coming in from wind turbines and solar panels scattered around the country.

          https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn40y9yxkgvo