The promise of a carbon-neutral world thanks to renewable energy hides a darker reality, which rarely makes the headlines. Over the next 30 years, we will have to extirpate as many metals as have been extracted in the entire history of humanity. Green, the energy transition? Journalist Celia Izoard sows doubt in her essay The mining rush in the 21st centurye century.
“Which multinational, which state has not committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050? From one end of the globe to the other, this promise is made in press conferences, on screens and leaflets: we will no longer emit greenhouse gases in thirty years. »
Celia Izoard opens her essay by recalling this commitment that we all now know. The world will be carbon neutral and the race to get there has already begun. Such enthusiasm for new sources of energy is reminiscent of the beginnings of the pre-industrial era… and the rush towards fossil fuels.
These same fossil fuels have nevertheless caused global warming whose acceleration has no equal in the history of our planet. To remedy this, the only salvation is through renewable energies. The sun, wind and water will power our societies thanks to solar panels, wind turbines and other hydroelectric dams.
Exit gasoline vehicles, which will be replaced by electric models. At the same time, the world is turning more than ever to digital: phones, screens, watches and other gadgets whose sales are increasing year after year.
However, this new industrial revolution cannot come to fruition without increasing the extraction of metals to levels unprecedented in the history of humanity.
Celia Izoard points out in particular that a 3 megawatt wind turbine approximately 120 meters high contains 3 tonnes of aluminum, 2 tonnes of rare earths, 4.7 tonnes of copper, 335 tonnes of iron and 1200 tonnes of concrete.
According to various analyses, it would be necessary to extract up to 28 times more copper, 74 times more nickel and multiply the production of lithium by 1000 to achieve carbon neutrality objectives. Can we really talk about renewable energies if they are based on the expansion of mining activities and their non-renewable resources, whose environmental impact often leaves something to be desired?
Because despite the industry’s promises, the “green” mine does not exist, says the author. Promises denounced among others by SystExt, a French association which is interested in the impacts of mining activities.
This is the main problem: despite its gains in efficiency, the 21st century minee century is doomed to become more and more polluting and consuming of resources.
Celia Izoard, in her essay The mining rush in the 21st centurye century
“Whatever the country, whatever the regulations in force to exploit deposits which contain only a few grams of gold or a few hundred grams of silver per ton of rock, more water is necessarily required, more energy, more chemicals. The lower the content of the deposits, the more polluting the mine,” writes Celia Izoard.
The work has the merit of raising questions that are practically non-existent in public debate. This is the elephant in the room that no one is talking about: are our consumption patterns sustainable in the long term? “The history of transitions turned out to be a history of additions,” writes the author. In a way, the transition is a promise that has already been made twice and which, in both cases, resulted in increased consumption of the riches of the subsoil. »
Extract
“To say that the energy transition consists of moving from fossil fuels to renewable energies evades a material reality with serious consequences. The transition actually involves moving from fossil fuels to metals, which are not renewable. […] By 2050 it is estimated that, to respect the Paris Agreements according to the dominant economic scenarios, we would have to produce five to ten times more metals than today. »
Who is Celia Izoard?
Independent journalist, Celia Izoard collaborates in particular with the French magazine Reporterre. She is also the author of the essay Please change careera critique of new technologies and their social and ecological impacts.
The mining rush in the 21st centurye century – Survey of metals in the transition era
Éditions de la rue Dorion
338 pages