[MCN] The energy transition from drill, baby, drill to mine, baby, mine -- and the meaning of sustainability

[Lance Olsen]

The Financial Times  December 25, 2021

Rio Tinto’s lithium mine plan electrifies Serbia
President Vucic wants country to be link in EU battery industry but project faces local opposition

By Marton Dunai in the Jadar valley, Serbia, and Neil Hume in London
https://www.ft.com/content/707e7a39-f357-484a-8efc-b0b7dc475600 <https://www.ft.com/content/707e7a39-f357-484a-8efc-b0b7dc475600>

EXCERPTS

Through knee-deep snow, Marijana Petkovic climbed to a hilltop monastery overlooking Serbia’s Jadar valley — where one of the world’s largest resources groups wants to mine one of Europe’s biggest lithium deposits.

“Twenty-two villages down there would be lost completely,” Petkovic, a school teacher in nearby Gornje Nedeljice, said. “Lithium may make the rest of the world cleaner, and it may help western Europeans to feel good about themselves. Here, it would create a dump and destroy our lives.”

But protesters and environmentalists believe the project would destroy picturesque and valuable farmland. “There is no chance that this mine can extract lithium in an ecologically sustainable way,” said Savo Manojlovic, leader of Kreni Promeni (Go, Change), the main group behind the protests. “This is not like the west’s green passion. For us it’s a matter of survival.”

“Until recently, ours was a lonely fight,” Petkovic said. “The protests gave us a huge boost, put us on a national scale. Vucic used to call us a bunch of rural drunks.”

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The New York Times  December 27, 2021

As Miners Chase Clean-Energy Minerals, Tribes Fear a Repeat of the Past
Mining the minerals that may be needed for a green energy revolution could devastate tribal lands. The Biden administration will be forced to choose.
By Jack Healy <https://www.nytimes.com/by/jack-healy> and Mike Baker <https://www.nytimes.com/by/mike-baker>
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/us/mining-clean-energy-antimony-tribes.html <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/us/mining-clean-energy-antimony-tribes.html>

EXCERPT

President Biden came into office vowing to safeguard Native American resources like these and uphold the rights of tribes that have endured generations of land theft and broken treaties. But in the rolling headwaters of central Idaho, where mining interests have long overrun tribal rights, the administration’s promise is colliding with one of its other priorities: starting a revolution in renewable energy to confront climate change.

Deep in the Salmon River Mountains, an Idaho mining company, Perpetua Resources, is proposing a vast open-pit gold mine that would also produce 115 million pounds of antimony — an element that may be critical to manufacturing the high-capacity liquid-metal batteries of the future.

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The New York Times  December 28, 2021

Chile Rewrites Its Constitution, Confronting Climate Change Head On
Chile has lots of lithium, which is essential to the world’s transition to green energy. But anger over powerful mining interests, a water crisis and inequality has driven Chile to rethink how it defines itself.
By Somini Sengupta <https://www.nytimes.com/by/somini-sengupta>
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/28/climate/chile-constitution-climate-change.html <https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/28/climate/chile-constitution-climate-change.html>

EXCERPTS

SALAR DE ATACAMA, Chile — Rarely does a country get a chance to lay out its ideals as a nation and write a new constitution for itself. Almost never does the climate and ecological crisis play a central role.

Their work will not only shape how this country of 19 million is governed. It will also determine the future of a soft, lustrous metal, lithium, lurking in the salt waters beneath this vast ethereal desert beside the Andes Mountains.

Lithium is an essential component of batteries. And as the global economy seeks alternatives to fossil fuels to slow down climate change, lithium demand — and prices — are soaring.

And so, it falls to the Constitutional Convention to decide what kind of country Chile wants to be.

Around the world, nations face similar dilemmas — in the forests of central Africa, in Native American territories in the United States — as they try to tackle the climate crisis without repeating past mistakes. For Chile, the issue now stands to shape the national charter. 

“… how much damage do we want to cause?” said Cristina Dorador Ortiz, a microbiologist who studies the salt flats and is in the Constitutional Convention. “What is enough damage to live well?”

Dr. Dorador is vying to be the convention’s president. “Someone buys an electric car and feels very good because they’re saving the planet,” she says. “At the same time an entire ecosystem is damaged. It’s a big paradox.”

Indeed the questions facing this Convention aren’t Chile’s alone. The world faces the same reckoning as it confronts climate change and biodiversity loss, amid widening social inequities: Does the search for climate fixes require re-examining humanity’s relationship to nature itself?

“We have to face some very complex 21st century problems,” said Maisa Rojas, a climate scientist at the University of Chile. “Our institutions are, in many respects, not ready.”


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Confirmed — Sustainability means making do with less

Earth’s Future First Published:  8 December 2021

Open Access
Sustainable Use of Groundwater May Dramatically Reduce Irrigated Production of Maize, Soybean, and Wheat <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2021EF002018>
Jose R. Lopez <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Lopez%2C+Jose+R>, Jonathan M. Winter <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Winter%2C+Jonathan+M>, Joshua Elliott <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Elliott%2C+Joshua>, Alex C. Ruane <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Ruane%2C+Alex+C>, Cheryl Porter <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Porter%2C+Cheryl>, Gerrit Hoogenboom <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Hoogenboom%2C+Gerrit>, Martha Anderson <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Anderson%2C+Martha>, Christopher Hain <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Hain%2C+Christopher>
Key Points

We integrate a crop model with satellite observations and survey data to simulate sustainable groundwater use for agriculture
Optimistic sustainable groundwater use may decrease US irrigated production of maize, soybean, and winter wheat by 20%, 6%, and 25%
Pessimistic sustainable groundwater use may decrease US irrigated production of maize, soybean, and winter wheat up to 45%, 37%, and 36%
Open Access
PDF <https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2021EF002018>
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“The fact is that we, humans, have changed the composition of the atmosphere with respect to heat-trapping gases enough to start the progression of global climate, not into a new steady state, but into an open-ended warming that is pulling the environment out from under this civilization.”

George Woodwell

<<https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-dr-george-woodwell-sets-the-record-straight-455bfcf14412/ <https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-dr-george-woodwell-sets-the-record-straight-455bfcf14412/>>>





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