“Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.” – Top Google engineers
“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”– Bertrand Russel
***
GOTTA love this one from tweeter You Had One Job…
It’s like a vegan that secretly eats meat. pic.twitter.com/URhzLY6nkk
Trucks at the Murrin Murrin nickel-cobalt mining joint venture in Western Australia | The Australian
THE next time you are met with the fashionable climate hashtag #keepitintheground by a holier-than-thou climate warrior, calmly remind them that their iPhone, iPad and electric car is not as “sustainable” as they might have hoped for and definitely doesn’t run on a planet-friendly diet of tofu and mung beans.
THEN advise them to direct their misinformed, groupthink-enabled rage at their silicone valley eco-icons – Elon Musk and Apple et al – who are digging gigantic holes in the ground too. Oh, and hiring child miners aged 4 who are living a hell on earth in the Congo mining for their Cobalt…
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
via The Australian
Apple fires up fight for cobalt
ALEXANDRA FREAN
The Times
Apple is seeking to buy cobalt directly from mining companies amid a looming shortage of the metal, a key ingredient for the lithium-ion batteries in its iPhones and iPads.
Fearful that the boom in electric cars might put pressure on supplies, the Californian technology giant has been in discussions to secure contracts for “several thousand metric tons” of cobalt each year for at least five years, according to Bloomberg.
While smartphones use an estimated ten grams of refined cobalt, a typical electric car battery uses five to ten kilograms.
If sales of electric vehicles hit a forecast of 30 million by 2030, it will drive further explosive growth in cobalt demand, according to research for Glencore, the mining company, by CRU, a commodities analyst. It forecasts a “material” impact from demand for electric cars by as early as 2020, with an extra 24,000 tonnes needed as early as 2020, compared with about 110,000 tonnes mined globally in 2017 and an additional 314,000 tonnes by 2030.
If Apple secures its own cobalt contracts, rather than leaving it to companies that supply its batteries, it could find itself in fierce competition with carmakers for the metal.
The talks, understood to have begun more than a year ago, come after a tripling in the price of cobalt in the past 18 months, as carmakers jump into the fully electric or hybrid power business, following the likes of Toyota and Tesla. Countries including Britain and France have said that they will ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2040.
Apple declined to comment on the talks. However, Ivan Glasenberg, chief executive of Glencore, the world’s biggest cobalt producer, said in December that the iPhone maker was among the companies it was talking to about cobalt, along with Tesla and Volkswagen.
Overnight (AEDT) Mr Glasenberg said that no deal had been signed. “We don’t have any long-term contracts with Apple; we haven’t signed anything with Apple.”
He added: “We have seen the investments that motor car companies are making in electric vehicles and they will need battery supply, so the demand for electric vehicles is strong. It will require a lot of cobalt and we all know the geological scarcity of cobalt.”
Mr Glasenberg noted that supply was “relatively constrained”, as cobalt could not be mined like lithium, but was a by-product mainly of copper and nickel.
There are also questions about the stability of supply in the Democratic Republic of Congo after a vote last month by its parliament to raise royalties on mining. The change is designed to ensure that the country gets a bigger share of the money paid for its commodities, but it will raise costs for producers.
Mining companies are lobbying against the change, which Mr Glasenberg said would lead to under-investment. “Can the world produce as much cobalt (as) it’s going to need? … What happens in the DRC is going to be very important going forward,” he said.
Apple’s move to secure its own supplies of cobalt comes amid a global drive to safeguard supplies of crucial metals used in electronics while reducing dependence on the DRC, which supplies two thirds of the world’s cobalt but has been criticised for human rights abuses, including using child labour.
Cobalt miners in the Congo. Pic: Reuters
In response to criticism from human rights groups, Apple now uses only cobalt refined and smelted in China, Belgium and Finland. It will accept metal from the DRC only if it comes from mines that can prove they provide adequate health and safety protections and safeguards against child labour.
Michael Giblin, mining analyst at S & P Global Market Intelligence, said that end-users of cobalt were already looking for alternatives to the metal.
“Due to the rapid increase in the cobalt price over the last year, plus the fact that the majority of cobalt will be sourced from areas with political and social instability, battery technology is being continually evolved to reduce the reliance on cobalt.
“Conventional battery chemistries are being modified to reduce the cobalt content by increasing content of other metals such as nickel or manganese.”
With Emily Gosden
The Times
Apple fires up fight for cobalt | The Australian
•••
Related :
CHILD miners aged four living a hell on Earth so YOU can drive an electric car: Awful human cost in squalid Congo cobalt mine that Michael Gove didn’t consider in his ‘clean’ energy crusade | Climatism
•••
PLEASE Tip The Climatism Jar To Help Keep The Good Fight Alive!
(Still waiting for that “big oil” cheque to arrive in the mail!)
South Australia’s green utopia – burning 80,000 litres of diesel every hour, everyday to cover up its renewables debacle!
WHAT do you do when you submit to the deep-green climate faith, blow up all your baseload coal-fired power stations, disconnect from the National grid and become reliant on intermittent, weather-dependent, unreliable green energy – wind and solar?
YOU buy $360 million worth of diesel generators and hope that burning 80,000 litres of petrochemicals every hour, everyday will prevent summer blackouts ahead of your next state election.
THOSE blackouts, which occur when the total demand for electricity exceeds supply, occurred three times last summer.
Blackout Blues: Wind Power Obsession Makes South Australia an International Joke | Climatism
BUT, aren’t petrochemicals, like diesel, the same “dirty” fossil fuels that climate catastrophists scarify us for indulging in, claiming that their use will fry the planet? #LeaveItInTheGround, #BigOilShill, #DivestFossilFuels – a few of the propagandised euphemisms bandied around by eco-activists.
SO, that question again – what’s the point of the billion dollar, taxpayer funded, unreliable energy (wind and solar) experiment?
FOR the Jay Weatherill’s of the planet, one could only assume that it’s a moral blend of “Save the Planet” virtue, mixed with “Save the Planet” virtue. It certainly has nothing to do with sense or reason, or being “green”…
Weatherill’s 80,000 litres of diesel an hour solution to SA energy crisis | The Australian
Generators the Weatherill government is buying to prevent blackouts this summer ahead of the March state election will use 80,000 litres of diesel an hour.
The fleet of generators, currently being shipped from Europe to South Australia, have been used for temporary generation around the world. But those behind the South Australian energy security project, costing taxpayers more than $300 million, yesterday could not say if the generators had ever been used as part of a permanent solution.
In a major revision to his $550m go-it-alone energy plan, Premier Jay Weatherill last week announced nine “state-of-the-art” generators providing up to 276 megawatts would be purchased to provide back-up power for the next two summers.
Weatherill’s 80,000 litres of diesel an hour solution to SA energy crisis | The Australian
*
BATTERY BLUES
AS part of the government’s $550 million go-it-alone energy plan, the Premier, along with Tesla’s subsidy-sucking vampire Elon Musk, announced in July that Tesla would build a $200 million 100MW giant battery pack to store energy for when the wind don’t blow or when the sun don’t shine…
Elon Musk’s Tesla to build SA’s giant battery | Adelaide Now
BUT, this week, in a blow to Jay Weatherill’s “bromance” with Mr Musk, the US tech billionaire’s Tesla has slammed the South Australian government’s planned energy security target and warned it is not representative of the state’s leadership on renewable energy.
ANALYSIS of Tesla’s (toxic) battery pack by Paul Homewood estimates that it “could have enough battery storage to replace wind power for a whole minute, should the wind stop.”
Other analysts suggest that the battery is still only big enough to keep a town of just 13,000 homes going for 24 hours!
IS Elon hedging his grandiose claim of Tesla saving South Australia from complete energy meltdown? Sounds a lot like it. Ouch.
*
BIG GOVERNMENT
JUST as socialist central planning failed miserably before it was replaced by free market economies, green central planning will have to be discarded before South Australia will be able to see a return to energy security and erase its name from the unenviable title of having the “highest power prices in the world.”
UNTIL big government backs off, taxpayers will continue to pay billions of dollars more for fake fixes to a fake catastrophe.
“My sympathies to all the South Australians who didn’t vote for this.” Jo Nova.
Climatism concurs, Jo!
•••
H/t to Miranda Devine
SA Power Crisis Related :
IT’S OFFICIAL : South Australia Has The World’s Highest Power Prices! | Climatism
THE Twisted Irony of Deep-Green Energy Policy (RET) | Climatism
POLITICIANS Mad With Global Warming Theory Are Destroying The Economy And Hurting The Poor | Climatism
$14,000 per MWh – the price South Australia Pays for Renewables Madness | Climatism
‘Unreliable’ Power Australia – Steven Marshall Should Have Listened And Blown Up A Wind Farm | Climatism
South Australia Blackout Report : Green Energy Failure | Climatism
When The Wind Don’t Blow, The Lights Don’t Glow! | Climatism
Doomed to the Dark Ages: No Solution for South Australia’s Wind Power Blackouts | Climatism
‘Unreliable’ Power Australia – Green Hypocrites Exposed By South Australia Storm | Climatism
How green power has killed South Australia | Herald Sun
Blackout Blues: Wind Power Obsession Makes South Australia an International Joke | Climatism
Elon’ll Fix It! | Climatism
See Also :
THE $Trillion Windmill Industry Is The Greatest Scam Of Our Age | Climatism
Wind Power Chaos Promises to Deliver Mass Summer Blackouts Across Australia | Climatism
Hazelwood Power Plant Closing 31st March – Currently Delivering More Power Than Every Wind Plant In Australia | Climatism
The Renewable Energy Target: useless, expensive, mad | Herald Sun
JUST 1 IN 6.6 MILLION CHANCE TO STOP WARMING | Herald Sun
Adding More Solar And Wind Power ‘Doubles’ CO2 Emissions | Climatism
Shock news.
Study: Tesla car battery production releases as much CO2 as 8 years of driving on petrol https://climatism.wordpress.com/2017/06/20/study-tesla-car-battery-production-releases-as-much-co2-as-8-years-of-driving-on-petrol/
Climate Moranomics in action…
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Apparently the Guardian actually has one sensible reader.
From their letters page:
There seems to be little understanding of the simple fact that electric vehicles (EV) are, in the main, pollution shifters – from tailpipe to power generation facility (Ban from 2040 on diesel and petrol car sales, 26 July). The electricity generation and transmission system is already tested to its limits during a harsh winter. Only if objections disappeared to the mass building of thousands of the largest wind turbines, plus similar numbers of hectares of photovoltaic solar generation, could the pollution shifters’ argument be refuted. Even then, there would still be need for conventional or nuclear generation for when the sun doesn’t shine and wind doesn’t blow – doubling the capital requirement.
Then there is the transmission system. Its capacity is based on “averaging”. It assumes that not everyone will be using the…
Recent Comments