We Are Not Mining with Renewable Energy
…and when we do, shit's going to get real
There are no “renewables” without mining, an unsustainable practice turbocharged by the burning of fossil fuels. Yet, advocates of green technologies still believe that we could “somehow” electrify the recovery of critical minerals, and continue with civilization in a “business as usual but greener” manner. In reality, this could not be further from the truth.
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Saving the environment by destroying it
Before we delve into the topic of why using renewables to continue with extracting metals from Earth’s crust is a self-defeating proposition, let’s tackle the environmental aspects, and the deep connections of this activity to fossil fuel use, first. Perhaps it’s no exaggeration to say that the term “building a mine” is actually an euphemism for environmental destruction on a truly industrial scale. First of all, opening a site for mineral extraction inevitably comes with destroying the green blanket of a living habitat. It also takes large harvesting machines to cut down all those trees and shrubs—all powered by diesel fuel, of course, as there are no power plugs nearby to do all this with electric chainsaws. Then a bunch of diesel guzzling bulldozers are brought on site to build roads leading to the would be mining site, followed by a fleet of trucks to haul all those logs away—again, by burning diesel—as the distance and load is usually far-far beyond what an electric semi could cover.
Once the site is cleared of all life and all the topsoil was removed (or destroyed in the process), explosives are used to blast away rocks covering those precious ores we are about to go after. Building a mine often comes with removing and crushing thousands of feet of hard stone, which is then get spread on the newly built dirt roads to make them sturdier. In some cases a mile or more of rocks will have to be removed, before any mineral extraction could be started in earnest. This process usually takes years, or a decade even, till the actual mining equipment can be brought on site at last, together with power lines to bring the stationary machines to life. If there are no power lines nearby, an electric generation facility has to be built (burning fossil fuels of course, due to the 24/7 power demand of a mine).
Finally, when the mine starts operating, diesel powered excavators and dump trucks begin to do the shoveling, working in concert with explosive engineers exposing layer after layer of the ore they are going after.1 Ores brought up by diesel trucks then need to be crushed into a fine powder using electric grinding machines and mixed with lots of water laced with aggressive chemicals (like sulfuric acid, a byproduct of refining oil) to leach out their metal content. Once scrubbed for metal salts (the end product of mineral extraction), this process leaves behind a huge toxic tailing—another ticking time bomb waiting to explode. All this to exploit a finite resource then to move on to the next prospect.
No wonder people around the world oppose even the idea of a mine being opened in their neighborhood: living downstream to any such operation is a disadvantageous proposition, to say the least. Rivers, lakes and groundwater often get contaminated with heavy metals and poisonous chemicals, making the water unsafe for watering grass even. Mining also leads to sinkholes, erosion, increased noise and dust levels, biodiversity loss and habitat fragmentation. Mines also compete for water with local communities, and tend to increase worker exploitation in the area. ‘Not in my backyard!’ is thus not just a fancy slogan for local communities, but a matter of existential nature.
Cannibals eating each other
If all this haven’t spoiled your appetite for more mineral extraction, you might ask: why don’t we power this activity with “renewable” electricity then? OK, but which part? Excavators? Probably in a coal mine going after a seam of pure lignite, with power directly fed back from a nearby power plant. But metals needed for renewables are often embedded in hard rock, requiring a caterpillar driving around and hauling massive rocks on a dumper. Trucks, then? Sure, in a coal mine with a power plant nearby or, perhaps, in a clay or limestone mine located near the surface, up on a hillside. You see electric dumper trucks are best utilized if they are loaded on the top of a hill, then driven down to the valley where these materials are used in making cement or get burned for power. The weight difference between the light ascent and heavy descent is enough to charge the batteries, and make the climb back to the mine a freebee. In an open pit, however, you have to drive down to a man-made canyon empty and climb back loaded with heavy ores — exactly the opposite what is needed to charge the batteries on the way. Besides, you are likely hundreds of miles away from the nearest power plant… This means that you would need to install huge solar panel and wind turbine arrays near the pit where the trucks would spend at least half of their useful time charging. Swapping batteries might be an option here, but since the battery itself is a huge cost factor, buying 2, 3, or perhaps 4 of them per vehicle increases investment cost considerably—turning an already thin margin deeply negative.
Apart from the obvious question of ‘just how economic is that?!’, this leads us to a much more ominous phenomenon: resource cannibalism. As long as we mine using diesel machines mostly built from abundant steel, and burning fossil fuels, there is little to no copper, lithium, cobalt etc. needed to be invested into the extraction of the metals much needed for the “transition”. However, if we were to switch to mining goods with electric trucks powered by “renewables” (were that even technically feasible), we would need to build tons of these precious “transition” metals into the very equipment we use to obtain them (then replace them several times over the mine’s life cycle as they age). Mining would then actively compete for the very metals they are going after. Not a winning proposition, if you ask me.
Consider also the not so insignificant role of long distance transportation. Remember: mines are often located far away from industrial centers where the refining, smelting and manufacturing takes place. If we were to believe that these logistic activities could be electrified too (which I seriously doubt), we would face an even bigger share of lithium, copper, cobalt, aluminum etc. cannibalized for the sole purpose of extracting more metals… All this to build even more renewables powering even more mines, needed to build more electric vehicles, required to bring all those ores to the surface.
And here is the kicker. As rich metal deposits deplete, the industry is forced to go after ever worse ore grades (meaning ever lower amounts of metal recovered for the same amount of ore hauled from the pit). And just like with fossil fuels, this translates into an ever increasing energy demand per ton of metal produced. The electricity demand for Chile’s copper production, a report found, have increased by an estimated 53.5 % between 2015 and 2026, although the growth in copper production over that period was put to a mere 7.5% In summary: “mines are faced with numerous challenges, such as falling raw material prices, declining metal grades in the ores and higher energy prices.” What this implies is that energy cannibalism will get exponentially worse with time, especially with electrification. By electrifying an industry already struggling with depletion and a rising energy demand, energy would not only be cannibalized by still existing oil wells, but metal mines as well. (Oh, and by the way, the same goes to fusion, and making manufactured fuels like hydrogen or synfuels, too… Just saying.)
What this means for our future
You see, there is much more to the topic of sustainability than reducing CO2 emissions... First of all, mining is a grossly ruinous process (and the same goes to the extraction of fossil fuels, too). Second, all sites are posed to deplete over time, and new ones have to be opened constantly, usually on a spot even further away from civilization, and involving lower and lower grade resources. This will further accelerate energy and material cannibalism—a process driven by geology and physics and accelerated by technology. Third, all mining activity involves burning fossil fuels, due to their high energy density and 24/7 availability—both needed by mines to stay profitable. This not only causes emissions to rise, but also exposes how “renewables” rely hopelessly on yet another set of finite resources, beyond metals themselves: fossil fuels.
In an irony of ironies the much touted “clean” technologies aim to replace the very fuels which make building them possible in the first place. The very idea that mining can be made “sustainable” defies logic, and should be considered as an insult to our intelligence.
To make matters worse, ore degradation and the resulting increase in energy use follows an exponential curve: slow at the beginning, then skyrocketing towards the end. This means that the energy needed to continue extracting Earth’s resources will continue to double every few decades or so, until it brings civilization to a standstill. Again, throwing more technology at the “problem” could only make it worse, as every increase in technological progress comes with additional complexity, meaning higher material and energy use. Technology cannot recreate rich mineral reserves, nor fossil fuels which have enabled this unprecedented bonanza in the past couple of centuries.
Despite all our efforts we could easily find ourselves in a place where the world economy could no longer afford to mine metals nor drill for oil at the same time. In the meantime the competition for energy and materials among the industries producing it, and the manufacturing firms using them up will keep increasing. As a result companies will have to spend an ever growing share of their revenue on fuels and electricity, and at the same time suppress wages to stay competitive. Consequently consumers will face the same dilemma as the corporations employing them: no longer being able to buy that new car, refrigerator, home etc., and pay for fuel and electricity at the same time. With demand dampening it will increasingly look like that the world no longer needs more oil and metals. This apparent lack of demand will eventually lead to a drop in raw material and energy prices, and the cancellation of new mining and drilling projects, starting another round of de-industrialization and economic decline. No wonder: energy is the economy. No energy → no economy → no mining.
So, what sort of technology will be available in the late 21st century? Following the logic of energy and resource cannibalism it is not terribly hard to see where things are headed. It increasingly looks like to me that we are hurtling towards an ever faster deindustrialization of the entire world economy, and a radical re-localization of the production of essentials. And its not only copper or cobalt: even though we still have abundant iron and bauxite (aluminum) reserves, we are already in the process of running out of affordable energy to process them. Iron ore represents 93% of all the metals mined, and all of it was mined and delivered using fossil fuels—mostly diesel. Without enough diesel fuel though, our remaining vast iron and coal reserves will remain under ground, as there will be no way to haul away the miles of rock overburden covering them. Sorry, but no diesel, no coal. And no coal, means no steel. And with a drastically diminished steel production, it would be even harder to build more mines, railroads, processing plants, wind turbines, you name it. No steel, no manufacturing, no construction, no complex society either.
Once large scale coal and oil extraction will be gone, though, our descendants will be forced to return to burning charcoal to process the scrap metals left behind by us. This would not only mean rapid deforestation but also a drastic drop in metal production and recycling. As a result more than 90% of the materials currently in circulation today could be lost during the long descent of modernity, as we will most likely lack the capacity and energy needed to process them. Most of our metals will simply be left to rot and rust where they are. And as we have already depleted all easy to access high grade ores (amenable to artisan mining and smelting techniques) our descendants far into the future will eventually have nothing to extract from Earth—surely not with a pickax and ox-drawn carts. We will thus first see the emergence of a vibrant scavenger economy, salvaging and repurposing whatever they can as modernity starts to break down, then as we lose metallurgy due to the lack of energy to power it, our late descendants will witness the complete loss of all our present day modern technologies. Sure, they will have an odd blacksmith here and there, but that’s about it.
Dark ages after collapse are usually not due to a loss of human intelligence, but to a loss of complexity.
The future without mining will be so low tech, that it is hard to imagine for anyone living today. So, when envisioning life a few centuries down the road, rather than picturing a bustling city from the 18th century, ripe for another round of industrialization, we should start harboring thoughts of the return of the Neolithic age.
Until next time,
B
Thank you for reading The Honest Sorcerer. If you value this article or any others please share and consider a subscription, or perhaps buying a virtual coffee. At the same time allow me to express my eternal gratitude to those who already support my work — without you this site could not exist.
PS: The title of this article is a tribute to the work of Simon Michaux, geologist, mining engineer and author of a number of in depth studies on the subject.
We no longer pursue seams of high grade metal deposits in deep mine shafts — that stuff is mostly gone—besides it’s much more expensive to build an underground mine than an open pit. Mines, as a result of depletion, increasingly have to process large amounts of ore with ever lower metal to rock ratios, and the only way to do that is to open huge open pits the size of the Grand Canyon.
Thank you for this.
In case anyone's interested, I wrote a 2024 report on mining for "green" "technology" (like renewables and batteries) when I was with Protect Thacker Pass: https://protectthackerpass.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/HowMiningHurtsCommunities_Spreads.pdf
It describes the devastating harms from mining to both human and non-human communities of life.
The photo on this article exemplifies the ecology blindness people have around renewables, not just because they look at the wind turbines and blue skies and think it's "clean and green", but because they don't see that the field those turbines are in is itself total destruction of ecosystems--a plowed, fertilized, poisoned, "green desert" monocrop, life stripped clean including in the soil to feed one species. I'm even more horrified by the industrial agriculture than by the turbines!
Great article and a much needed dose of reality for all the hopium I usually see about renewables. The plug-and-play energy transition is the stuff of pure fantasy. Bill McKibben needs to read this.