Are resources running out for a green power transition?

[woodgeek]

I do think his message can have has traction. 22 states are controlled by republican majorities.


To think this topic isn’t been assessed and addressed at the highest levels would be ignorant.

no matter what position you take, watch, listen to or read, there is one undisputed fact. China is currently in control of the of the refining processes for a HUGE majority of minerals. They have made financial investments for quite some time.

An African country spends 40% of its national budget on debt service to China. (Speaker didn’t disclose which one).

How might one balloon affect relations with China?

Not sure what you are getting at. But this is why the IRA and CHIPS act are set up the way they are. Not a moment too soon... the strategic issue on chip manufacturing in the US has been well known for 5-10 years. At least that's at the fed level. Are you saying that republican states won't allow new mining operations and battery factories to be built on their soil?

The dominance of China in many industries can be seen as evidence for some sneaky ulterior motive... but they have taken over a lot of jobs that were too dirty or messy for anyone else to want to do them.

Chinese aid and diplomacy has largely been about loans rather than grants. Now a lot of recipient countries have regrets, and it has turned into a PR fiasco. And western aid donors don't want their aid to be used just to bail out chinese loans... bc it looks like aid going to China. When the western powers made the same mistakes (and they did) they just forgave the loans... will the Chinese? Probably.

At the end of the day, China is not having a few good PR years here. And they know it.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Sooner or later the reality is going to hit that the only way we are going to make a significant change is to make and consume a lot less stuff. .

That’s going to happen with normal aging. As the baby boomers age out and there aren’t as many young people, the worlds population, and consumption, will fall. I give it a decade, maybe 15 years and we’ll be seeing population shrinkage.

 

[EbS-P]

That’s going to happen with normal aging. As the baby boomers age out and there aren’t as many young people, the worlds population, and consumption, will fall. I give it a decade, maybe 15 years and we’ll be seeing population shrinkage.

I will disagree. China is on a rapid pace of social modernization and per capita resource consumption has grown. India is now just beginning that shift. The boomer die off will be an insignificant blip in world wide consumption in my opinion.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

May be the case, lol. Time will tell. China already has a shrinking population. It’s consumption may have grown, but as we age, our consumption habits change. Western Europe is about ready to round that bend.

The next 10-15 years are going to be real interesting.

Globalization is cooked. It’s just going to take time to unwind it’s tentacles. I think we’re going to start seeing more regional stuff.

 

[begreen]

I have not bought a new cpu since…. 2011 (AMD phenom X4 baby. Drop in upgrade to a system that was 5 years old ) I have something like ivy bridge era systems. Still chugging along..

That is all that is needed for email, word processing, and web browsing. As long as the OS supports it, it's fine.

 

[woodgeek]

I will disagree. China is on a rapid pace of social modernization and per capita resource consumption has grown. India is now just beginning that shift. The boomer die off will be an insignificant blip in world wide consumption in my opinion.

I guess I'm gonna waffle and like both sides of this.

Yeah, global consumption will rise as China continues to develop and India and other developing countries develop. The choices they make re 'smart growth' versus 'BAU growth' will be hugely significant for the next 50 years of climate impacts (that is, EVs or ICE, coal or solar, beef/dairy or flexitarian/vegan).

The developed world is also important, as in our choices matter too, despite our declining population, partly bc a lot of kids from those developing countries are going to come here to keep our economy going and will emit here.

 

[begreen]

Yes, there is decoupling, but that does not mean the end of globalization.

 

[begreen]

I have been researching some of Mark Mills's statements. I don't disagree with his premise that the pressure on the planet and supply chains will be very high but some of his statements are worth refuting, or at least qualifying. One stood out - that the world copper supply would be depleted in 2 yrs. Looking at mining reports it appears they see this at about 40 yrs, with another 200 yrs. in future reserves. Lithium is another example. He failed to mention recent discoveries and processes. By simply adding another processing plant to the existing extraction plants at the Great Salt lake in Utah, they will be extracting 25 thousand tons of lithium a year. At the Salton Sea brine power plant, they expect to extract about 600,000 tons of lithium a year. Both of these situations are not 16 yrs out processes. They happened fairly quickly because they are just add-ons to existing infrastructure. Car companies are well aware of their future supply requirements to transition to EVs. GM and Ford are taking equity stakes in the mines themselves to ensure supply.

The other element is the effects of technology which he only hinted at when responding to the last question. It's a bad bet to think that technology won't bring about improvement. In some cases, like with steel and cement production, the carbon reduction potential is large. The MIT Sparc project is on schedule to start testing in 2025. If successful, it is expected to be producing online power within 5 yrs. not 50.

 

[woodgeek]

By simply adding another processing plant to the existing extraction plants at the Great Salt lake in Utah, they will be extracting 25 thousand tons of lithium a year. At the Salton Sea brine power plant, they expect to extract about 600,000 tons of lithium a year. Both of these situations are not 16 yrs out processes. They happened fairly quickly because they are just add-ons to existing infrastructure. Car companies are well aware of their future supply requirements to transition to EVs. GM and Ford are taking equity stakes in the mines themselves to ensure supply.

And ofc, the average EV uses about 10 kg of lithium... so those projects ALONE are enough for 6 million new EV/year. Versus the 15 million units per year new car market in the US.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

The mining and manufacturing are most likely coming to the American continents. The world learned they can’t count on supply lines they can’t control.

The catch is we don’t have enough people of working age for the jobs we have now.

This probably means automation and inflation due to wage pressures.

 

[woodgeek]

The mining and manufacturing are most likely coming to the American continents. The world learned they can’t count on supply lines they can’t control.

The catch is we don’t have enough people of working age for the jobs we have now.

This probably means automation and inflation due to wage pressures.

Or what we have been doing for decades without issue... immigration.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Yeah, immigration has and will continue to keep our population growing.

The new NAFTA might curtail it a little and regional growth might make a significant impact on it if good jobs can be found in the home country. As Mexico becomes more industrialized they will undoubtedly have fewer children. Theyll move higher up on the skill chain and the more basic manufacturing will, move further south.

 

[SpaceBus]

Or what we have been doing for decades without issue... immigration.

Could just increase wages to draw people out of entry level jobs and raise them out of poverty, but that would not be best for the shareholders' bottom lines, so definitely immigration.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

And that is happening too. I see McDonald's advertising over $15/hr to cook fries. Harbor freight is paying over $16/hr to stock shelves.

 

[woodgeek]

Totally agree guys. Which is true? Immigrants are holding down the floor of wages, extending poverty OR immigrants are doing jobs that Americans refuse to do even if poor? Or is automation destroying those jobs? I dunno.

I would argue that low-paying jobs are a rounding error on economic activity. No one is saying inflation is caused by a lack of Mexican landscapers, or them demanding a living wage. When we had a shortage of table servers in 2020... we got QR codes instead.

We will need immigration to fill skilled and high paying jobs. A shortage of those workers can spiral inflation and snarl total productivity.

Ofc I spend my days training the smartest kids from China and India to get the highest paying (engineering) jobs in the US. Because most of the smartest kids in the US want to become surgeons, lawyers and MBAs rather that engineers.

So I might be biased.

 

[joop]

i'll be dead .have at it everything bites u on the backside .nothing is carbon neutral.just have to teach turtles to stop sticking straws up their noses

 

[EbS-P]

Question…. What policies have countries like Mexico, Brazil ect made that will influence the demand on the battery/labor sector. IRA influences on the labor market have not been realized. The battery and automobile sectors are about to change a lot. I want to know the hands on person hours per vehicle of the major manufacturers.

Not a lot of this discussion here has focused on how, or if, this green revolution will have positive impacts (or negative ones too) on developing countries that are the source of raw materials. Considerable effort will be devoted to organizing or attempting to organize a fair economy for the developing countries. USAID is one of the organizations I know of.

 

[peakbagger]

The US has lot of large proven copper and strategic metal deposits. Most are not going to be mined as they tend to be locked into sulfide deposits. The recoverable metal is probably gone within 10 or 20 years but the sulfides exposed are forever. Add in rainwater and what is running off into the environment is effectively dilute acid forever and the site becomes a superfund site. It comes down to 3rd world countries are willing to trash their environment int he short term, so they are the lowest cost producer. Its not just third world, Canada has quite few very toxic mines spread around way in the woods on Crown land,

 

[woodgeek]

Question…. What policies have countries like Mexico, Brazil ect made that will influence the demand on the battery/labor sector. IRA influences on the labor market have not been realized. The battery and automobile sectors are about to change a lot. I want to know the hands on person hours per vehicle of the major manufacturers.

What little I have read suggests that labor hours per vehicle varies pretty significantly across car makers, due to different levels of automation and varying levels of efficiency. Higher margin products and makers can support more labor.

Regarding EVs, the general opinion is that labor hours to produce each vehicle are dramatically lower, due to far fewer mechanical and wearing parts. Electrification will likely require large-scale reductions in the auto manufacturing labor force, and the number of parts suppliers and repair locations.

In an efficient market, those labor reductions will manifest as lower prices for EVs vs ICE eventually. Tesla is preparing to defend/expand market share in future EV price wars by aggressively reducing labor requirements and vehicle complexity, even as they have a segment leading margin per vehicle.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Which is true? Immigrants are holding down the floor of wages, extending poverty OR immigrants are doing jobs that Americans refuse to do even if poor? Or is automation destroying those jobs? I dunno.

Obviously, an addition of unskilled workers will hold down wages. Fixed demand with an increasing supply.

I’ve never bought the jobs Americans won’t do argument. I think it’s entirely possible that the wage isn’t high enough to deal with the hassles of the job. If the job needs to be done, the wage will increase along with the cost of the service. If it doesn’t, it won’t get done.

Some jobs aren’t fit for automation.

But for those that are, it’s a good way to get work done. To use McDonald’s from above, there’s only so much they can charge for a Big Mac before people figure out they can get better food elsewhere. If they can’t find people to work for the wage they can pay, they have to figure out a new way to do it. They were hiring senior citizens. Automation may be the answer. Japan has made huge advances with this. They also moved their factories closer to their markets. Toyota wants to sell trucks in the USA. Japan doesn’t have the workers to do make them, South Carolina does. Build the factory there. Use automation to do some of the work.

I don’t worry too much about it. It will all get figured out.

 

[begreen]

And that is happening too. I see McDonald's advertising over $15/hr to cook fries. Harbor freight is paying over $16/hr to stock shelves.

They said this would ruin the local economy when Seattle became the first with the $15 minimum wage in 2014. This was staged in and in spite of dire predictions it has not slowed down restaurants, hiring, etc. What did slow down things a lot was the pandemic and downtown is still recovering from that. The minimum wage raise worked well enough that now the WA state minimum wage is $15.74. A local Seattle McD is hiring burger flippers at $17 here.

 

[begreen]

Back on the point of China's switch to renewables, their pace and accomplishments are hard to fathom against our heel-dragging. They are building out at a rate that would supply all of some major nations' energy needs.


When added up. their total renewable power generation capacity is already stunning and this does not include hydro.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

When you import over 3/4 of your energy needs, you have great motivation to invest in anything you can to knock down that dependency.

 

[woodgeek]

Noah Smith has a recent article about renewables and coal in China...

China must stop its coal industry

One of the world's biggest political-economic problems

noahpinion.substack.com

He makes the point that China is adding more solar next year than the US has total to date. And other figures.

But his point is that coal is still growing in China. They are still building coal plants overseas!

He argues that as a central planned economy, China can do BOTH. Build cheap solar and keep uneconomic coal going, with no plan to phase it out. Apparently large regions and cities and 6 million coal miners rely upon the coal industry... and so it will continue.

And that Chinese coal industry (basically, a welfare program) can break the environment all by itself Just too powerful to give it up.

And before we judge... remember that US animal agriculture emits as much global forcing emissions as Chinese coal. And that is untouchable too, despite being uneconomic, unnecessary and unhealthy. Its there bc no politician dares broach the issue!

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Given the energy sanctions on Russia after they invaded Ukraine, China could reasonably expect similar sanctions on their imports should they invade Taiwan. They are just trying to survive. I don’t think they mind cleaner air, but I don’t think it’s their priority.