Digging Deep to Go Green

What’s missing from the public and policy discussions around renewable energy and energy transitions is awareness of the enormous quantities of raw and fabricated materials needed to produce the solar panels, wind turbines, biofuels, electric vehicles, batteries and other products we hope will support the development of a less carbon-intensive energy system.

‘Clean’ machines and the resulting green energy should be considered in relation to how land- and materialsintensive they are.

We should insist on a more comprehensive analysis of the full cycle environmental and land use impacts of going ‘clean and green.’

Jock Finlayson is executive vice-president of the Business Council of British Columbia. Denise Mullen is director of environment and sustainability at the Business Council of B.C.