Going green can be a dirty business

Our industrial foundation, our economies, are built on the mining sector for aggregates, minerals, metals and fossil fuels; the raw materials needed to make steel, aluminum, copper, cement, critical battery materials and other essential commodities needed to help decarbonize the energy sector.

Industries that we depend on to produce solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and hydro installations are themselves carbon intensive, most depending on fossil fuels.

A typical lithium-ion electric vehicle (EV) battery pack contains 16 kilograms of lithium, 46 kg of nickel, 46 kg of cobalt and 43 kg of manganese, plus smaller amounts of other metals. Wind turbines require concrete, steel, copper, rare earth elements. Solar panels require aluminum, silica sand magnesium, copper and other materials.

As demand for critical battery minerals increases, companies are looking to the seabed, where deposits of concentrated metal nodules and crusts are found, adding to the long list of insults we inflict on the marine environment.

Fossil fuels account for 91 per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Of this total, steel production accounts for seven to nine per cent, cement eight per cent and mining four to seven per cent.

Jonathan Watts of The Guardian writes, “A mere 57 oil, gas, coal and cement producers are directly linked to 80 per cent of the world’s global fossil CO2 emissions since the 2016 Paris climate agreement...”

Hydro electricity is a carbon-free source of energy, but building massive dams is not. It is time-consuming, environmentally destructive and incredibly expensive. Shifting rain and snowfall patterns, affecting water reservoir levels, threaten hydro production. Think Lake Mead and the Hoover dam.

From picks and shovels to huge Euclid trucks, mountaintop removal machines and enormous floating oil and gas drilling platforms, the scale of mining has increased dramatically to satisfy our growing needs.

Mining comes with a lot of baggage, however — habitat destruction, is water intensive, air and water pollution, health and safety issues, displacement and mistreatment of Indigenous peoples and other human rights abuses. The loss of life, habitat and environmental damage caused by mining is extensive — Springhill, Hillcrest, Deep water Horizon, Piper Alpha, are the tip of the iceberg.

According to earth.org, “the mining sector is one of the major emitters of greenhouse gases and it produces fossil energy resources that also significantly contribute to global CO2 emissions.” Abandoned mines are often left unremediated, threats to the environment and human health, leaking toxic materials, a problem for others to deal with.

While the earth’s exhaustible mineral resources, particularly critical minerals, diminish while human populations and demand continue to grow, at what juncture will demand outstrip supply?

Geopolitical tensions and conflicts will arise as countries race to secure sources of critical minerals, making recovery and recycling of battery materials essential, but this will also require fossil fuel energy.

What can we expect with the proposed development of the 5,000 square kilometre “Ring of Fire” in northern Ontario, an area of environmentally sensitive fens and bogs, a huge storehouse of carbon, but also an estimated $90-billion source of minerals that could feed the massive Stellantis and Volkswagen battery plants?

It could be a model of resource development or an environmental disaster.

Will the environment assessment be rigorous? Will the Indigenous people who live there be properly consulted? Can they trust governments to honour development agreements? Will they benefit from this development? Will we be given assurances that all efforts will be made to minimize the environmental damage, and there could be significant damage?

Who will profit most from this development; Canadians, or multi/ transnational companies? Will we be subsidizing this development with taxpayers’ money, and will we be on the hook for cleanup at the end of operations? Who can be trusted to develop the Ring of Fire responsibility?

As we move to a lower carbon world, we can’t ignore the greenhouse gases generated to get us there. This is our conundrum. There is no free lunch.