3 ms·

Yeah but at least the byproducts produce a solid that can last for years vs treating it as a consumable. I'm fulling expecting someone will reply to me and say

Yeah but at least the byproducts produce a solid that can last for years vs treating it as a consumable. I'm fulling expecting someone will reply to me and say that making plastic wastes 75% of the oil or something during production, and that it's just as wasteful amortized across the lifespan of a wind turbine. I'm tired, man.

leonidasrup 7mo ago
You can compare material intensity of different electricity generation technologies. https://davidturver.substack.com/p/material-intensity-electricity-generation https://davidturver.substack.com/p/material-intensity-electr... According to International Energy Agency mineral demand for clean energy technologies would rise by at least four times by 2040 to meet climate goals, with particularly high growth for EV-related minerals. https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in...
- triceratops 7mo ago
  You can recycle the minerals so it will also fall back down to almost 0 on a longer timescale. If you keep burning gas you will never stop mining.
  - leonidasrup 6mo ago
    We have heard many claims from politician about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_economy You can recycle the minerals and you should recycle minerals, but almost no recycling technology can recycle 100% of minerals and recycling has always costs attached to it (this can be for example capital costs, building recycling facilities, operating costs in form labor costs for separation, energy costs for melting material and purification processes). For example aluminum is recycled, not because we have have a shortage of aluminium ore (Earth's mantle is 2.38% aluminium by mass), but because recycling is less energy intensive then production of fresh aluminum. https://international-aluminium.org/work-areas/recycling/ https://international-aluminium.org/work-areas/recycling/ Recycling of EV batteries will lose between 1-10% of the valuable metals https://blog.ucs.org/jessica-dunn/how-are-ev-batteries-actually-recycled/ https://blog.ucs.org/jessica-dunn/how-are-ev-batteries-actua... The worst kind of recycling is decreasing the costs of recycling by outsourcing to third world countries, by exploiting lax environmental regulations or corrupted environmental protection officials. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/18/world/africa/lead-poisoning-car-battery.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/18/world/africa/... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chittagong_Ship_Breaking_Yard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chittagong_Ship_Breaking_Yard https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/10/05/g-s1-6411/electronics-public-health-waste-ghana-phones-computers https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/10/05/g-s1-...
    - triceratops 6mo ago
      > aluminum is recycled... but because recycling is less energy intensive then production of fresh aluminum So what? > Recycling of EV batteries will lose between 1-10% of the valuable metals How much gasoline, coal, and natural gas can you recycle? > The worst kind of recycling is decreasing the costs of recycling by outsourcing to third world countries That's going to happen as long as those countries are poor. They need to develop their economies quickly to demand better laws. Climate change will be a danger for many of them in the coming years. Better, less-polluting recycling tech will help them far more than continuing to burn fossil fuels.
      - leonidasrup 6mo ago
        I just wanted to show that there no such thing as perfect recycling technology. If you want to choose least material intensive source of energy, you choose nuclear energy. By choosing nuclear energy you get the benefit of almost decarbonizing you electricity production as can be seen in France.
        triceratops 6mo ago
        Nuclear isn't perfect either. You can be embargoed for uranium way more easily, if you don't already have it. It's more expensive to build than solar and takes much longer (and don't BS me with "it's because of the regulations!" - everything, even solar, has regulations that drive up the cost and construction timelines). If you can build price-competitive nuclear energy without government backstops or insurance, you have my blessing. I personally think nuclear's time is in the far future when we have more advanced, exotic materials that make it radically safer and cheaper. For applications where solar isn't sufficient, such as space propulsion.
        leonidasrup 6mo ago
        No energy technology is perfect each has it's benefits and drawbacks. Yes a nuclear power plant more expensive than solar power plant. But an electric grid based on renewables, if we add the costs for storage, backup generator, power lines upgrades needed for smoothing out regional variations of production, is more expensive (or it can be cheaper if you have access to cheap natural gas, Texas power grid). https://doi.org/10.1080/14786451.2024.2355642 https://doi.org/10.1080/14786451.2024.2355642 https://www.olivierdeschenes.org/uploads/1/3/6/6/136668153/jdj_2022.pdf https://www.olivierdeschenes.org/uploads/1/3/6/6/136668153/j... Uranium is plentiful. Uranium is more plentiful than antimony, tin, cadmium, mercury, or silver, and it is about as abundant as arsenic or molybdenum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium#Occurrence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium#Occurrence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_reserves Also uranium is very, very energy dense. Current nuclear fuel can provide up to 45 gigawatt-days per metric ton of uranium. So stockpiling few years worth of fuel is not a problem. https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/bg-high-burnup-spent-fuel https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/b... Governments are always supporting new technologies https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/cleanenergy/tax-guidance-explainers/2024/12/19/2024-in-clean-energy-tax-credits-year-in-review/ https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/cleanenergy/tax-guidanc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Sources_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Source... https://emagazine.com/clean-energy-subsidies-explained-how-they-work-and-who-benefits/ https://emagazine.com/clean-energy-subsidies-explained-how-t... Nuclear energy also quite safe https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

leonidasrup 7mo ago

You can compare material intensity of different electricity generation technologies. https://davidturver.substack.com/p/material-intensity-electricity-generation https://davidturver.substack.com/p/material-intensity-electr... According to International Energy Agency mineral demand for clean energy technologies would rise by at least four times by 2040 to meet climate goals, with particularly high growth for EV-related minerals. https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in...

triceratops 7mo ago
You can recycle the minerals so it will also fall back down to almost 0 on a longer timescale. If you keep burning gas you will never stop mining.
- leonidasrup 6mo ago
  We have heard many claims from politician about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_economy You can recycle the minerals and you should recycle minerals, but almost no recycling technology can recycle 100% of minerals and recycling has always costs attached to it (this can be for example capital costs, building recycling facilities, operating costs in form labor costs for separation, energy costs for melting material and purification processes). For example aluminum is recycled, not because we have have a shortage of aluminium ore (Earth's mantle is 2.38% aluminium by mass), but because recycling is less energy intensive then production of fresh aluminum. https://international-aluminium.org/work-areas/recycling/ https://international-aluminium.org/work-areas/recycling/ Recycling of EV batteries will lose between 1-10% of the valuable metals https://blog.ucs.org/jessica-dunn/how-are-ev-batteries-actually-recycled/ https://blog.ucs.org/jessica-dunn/how-are-ev-batteries-actua... The worst kind of recycling is decreasing the costs of recycling by outsourcing to third world countries, by exploiting lax environmental regulations or corrupted environmental protection officials. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/18/world/africa/lead-poisoning-car-battery.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/18/world/africa/... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chittagong_Ship_Breaking_Yard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chittagong_Ship_Breaking_Yard https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/10/05/g-s1-6411/electronics-public-health-waste-ghana-phones-computers https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2024/10/05/g-s1-...
  - triceratops 6mo ago
    > aluminum is recycled... but because recycling is less energy intensive then production of fresh aluminum So what? > Recycling of EV batteries will lose between 1-10% of the valuable metals How much gasoline, coal, and natural gas can you recycle? > The worst kind of recycling is decreasing the costs of recycling by outsourcing to third world countries That's going to happen as long as those countries are poor. They need to develop their economies quickly to demand better laws. Climate change will be a danger for many of them in the coming years. Better, less-polluting recycling tech will help them far more than continuing to burn fossil fuels.
    - leonidasrup 6mo ago
      I just wanted to show that there no such thing as perfect recycling technology. If you want to choose least material intensive source of energy, you choose nuclear energy. By choosing nuclear energy you get the benefit of almost decarbonizing you electricity production as can be seen in France.
      - triceratops 6mo ago
        Nuclear isn't perfect either. You can be embargoed for uranium way more easily, if you don't already have it. It's more expensive to build than solar and takes much longer (and don't BS me with "it's because of the regulations!" - everything, even solar, has regulations that drive up the cost and construction timelines). If you can build price-competitive nuclear energy without government backstops or insurance, you have my blessing. I personally think nuclear's time is in the far future when we have more advanced, exotic materials that make it radically safer and cheaper. For applications where solar isn't sufficient, such as space propulsion.
        leonidasrup 6mo ago
        No energy technology is perfect each has it's benefits and drawbacks. Yes a nuclear power plant more expensive than solar power plant. But an electric grid based on renewables, if we add the costs for storage, backup generator, power lines upgrades needed for smoothing out regional variations of production, is more expensive (or it can be cheaper if you have access to cheap natural gas, Texas power grid). https://doi.org/10.1080/14786451.2024.2355642 https://doi.org/10.1080/14786451.2024.2355642 https://www.olivierdeschenes.org/uploads/1/3/6/6/136668153/jdj_2022.pdf https://www.olivierdeschenes.org/uploads/1/3/6/6/136668153/j... Uranium is plentiful. Uranium is more plentiful than antimony, tin, cadmium, mercury, or silver, and it is about as abundant as arsenic or molybdenum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium#Occurrence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium#Occurrence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_reserves Also uranium is very, very energy dense. Current nuclear fuel can provide up to 45 gigawatt-days per metric ton of uranium. So stockpiling few years worth of fuel is not a problem. https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/bg-high-burnup-spent-fuel https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/b... Governments are always supporting new technologies https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/cleanenergy/tax-guidance-explainers/2024/12/19/2024-in-clean-energy-tax-credits-year-in-review/ https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/cleanenergy/tax-guidanc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Sources_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Source... https://emagazine.com/clean-energy-subsidies-explained-how-they-work-and-who-benefits/ https://emagazine.com/clean-energy-subsidies-explained-how-t... Nuclear energy also quite safe https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...