A Journal of Analysis and News
Child labor in the mines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Credit: UNICEF
By Ronald Stein
While wind and solar do not emit carbon dioxide, there are substantial environmental degradations and humanity atrocities occurring in China, Africa, Turkey, Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. The materials for EV batteries and to produce electricity from wind turbines and solar panels, require large scale mining of critical minerals and metals, many of which are mined and refined in countries like China and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where human rights violations against miners are common and environmental protections are limited.
Environmentalists’ tunnel vision just toward the wealthier countries on this planet that can afford the cost of regulations for the environmental movement to large batteries for electric cars, trucks, buses, and for electricity to be generated occasionally by wind turbines and solar panels, is tunnel vision that is hypocritical, unethical, and immoral.
Today, a typical EV battery weighs 1,000 pounds and contains:
It should concern everyone that all those “blood minerals” come from mining at locations in the world that are never seen by environmentalists, policymakers, or EV buyers.
EV’s are heavily subsidized in multiple ways: through direct federal and state tax benefits to purchasers, through government loan incentives to manufacturers, and through added production costs passed on to gasoline vehicle purchasers.
Both China and Africa have minimal labor and environmental laws, resulting in extensive environmental degradation and humanity atrocities that support “clean” EV batteries. Both Lithium and Cobalt, the major components of the EV battery, are noted on The Periodic Table of Endangered Elements as having a limited availability or experiencing a rising threat from increased usage.
It appears that it is both unethical and immoral to continue financially encouraging China and Africa to exploit “their” poor with yellow, brown, and black skin, and financially supporting environmental degradation to “their” landscapes just to support clean EV batteries in “our backyards”!
The safety of lithium-ion batteries is becoming a sensitive subject. If they’re punctured, crushed, or overheated, they can short-circuit, catch on fire or even exploding. Things can get nasty when they do. EV battery fires can reach temperatures topping 1,000 degrees and emit toxic gases. Worse, they can’t be extinguished by water or normal firefighting chemicals. With potential fires from the EV batteries in vehicles:
The recent book, “Clean Energy Exploitations” – Helping Citizens Understand the Environmental and Humanity Abuses That Support Clean Energy was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. The book discusses the lack of transparency to the world of the green movement’s impact upon humanity exploitations in the developing countries that are mining for the exotic minerals and metals required to create the batteries needed to store “green energy”. In these developing countries, these mining operations disproportionately impact low-income communities and exploit child labor and are responsible for the most egregious human rights’ violations of vulnerable minority populations. These operations are also directly destroying the planet through environmental degradation.
Soon after “Clean Energy Exploitations” nomination for a Pulitzer Prize, President Biden provided validation to the books’ message that there is no such thing as a clean supply chain of minerals and metals from lesser developed countries. All are tainted by various degrees of abuse, including slavery, child labor, forced labor, debt bondage, human trafficking, hazardous and toxic working conditions, low wages, injury and death, and incalculable environmental harm when the Biden administration declared October 4, 2022, that batteries from China may be tainted by child labor. However, other government leaders believe that zero emissions at any cost is more important than the environmental and humanity abuses that support “clean” electricity.
Of the six electrical generation methods, occasional generated electricity from wind and solar cannot compete with continuous uninterruptable electricity from hydro, nuclear, coal, or natural gas:
I find it amusing that twenty-three states have adopted goals to move to 100 percent “clean” ELECTRICTY by 2050. The elephant in the room that no policymaker wants to discuss is that:
Please share this information with your friends to encourage energy literacy conversations at the family dinner table.
Ronald Stein, Founder and Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure of PTS Advance, headquartered in Irvine, California.
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