Energy expert B.F. Randall recently posted an excellent thread on Twitter about the folly of the electric vehicle industry and its reliance on batteries, in particular the copper needed to make them.
Randall is correct about one thing; there are not enough raw materials on this planet to make enough batteries to make the number of electric cars that they claim to want.
In any case, Randall correctly notes that there just isn’t enough copper on earth to satisfy the left’s obsession for EVs.
COPPER is an essential and limited resource for civilization, dating back to the Bronze age. With the advent of electric power, world demand for copper suddenly became infinite. Butte, MT held the world's most important copper resources. And the whole world came to Butte /2 pic.twitter.com/i2o0spw6bH
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 25, 2022
A 3-MW wind turbine contains up to 4.7 tons of copper. Half is from the cable and wiring, 24% from the turbine/power generation components, 4% from transformers, and 19% from turbine transformers. Onshore wind farms use approximately 7,766 lbs. of copper per MW. /4 pic.twitter.com/vdN3ZNTeXi
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 25, 2022
For copper processing, size reduction is essential so typical blasting patterns are small. That means lots and lots of holes through hard rock. It can take weeks or months to drill out a single bench. Tungsten carbide drill bits are essential for economical drilling. /6 pic.twitter.com/86AP3JJMqa
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 25, 2022
Then comes the fun part: BLASTING. Ammonium Nitrate / Fuel Oil -ANFO- is the primary blasting agent. It's 94% ammonium nitrate with diesel fuel oil. AN is manufactured from methane and requires a great deal of fossil-fuel energy and associated emissions. /8 pic.twitter.com/3QeQjXo70x
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 25, 2022
Steel to manufacture the equipment; tires; lubricating oil; grease; fuel; maintenance; batteries; wear steel; and associated transportation, mobilization, and demobilization – 100% consumptive just to pick up and move rock. /10
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 25, 2022
Next comes milling & grinding. Copper ore is hard and must be milled down to a fine sand. This step consumes vast amounts of electrical energy, which must be 100% reliable, 24/7, so much so that most copper mines operate their own power plants. Coal/gas. /12 pic.twitter.com/vwc8dDiam4
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 25, 2022
The KUC tailings pond enormous. Its construction to date has required moving tens of millions of tons of soil, rock, clay, and cover material. It's an engineered system, requiring the use of tens of millions of tons of processed, washed, screened, and imported sand and gravel /13 pic.twitter.com/ARWGUG7qxo
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 25, 2022
Next, the concentrates (24% Cu) are smelted using coal. No other fuel will do. The KUC ore is high in sulfur. Most is removed and converted to acid, but some is released. My kids and I breathe this daily. The carbon / FF used in this step are astronomical. But we aren't done /15 pic.twitter.com/cZZxbgeent
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 25, 2022
The end result of the mining process is new cathode copper. I directly challenge analysts calculating lifecycle impacts of VRE to account for the fossil fuel and carbon impacts expended in producing new cathode copper. Every step before cathode is 100% consumptive. /17 pic.twitter.com/EJNDKmOITM
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 26, 2022
Copper cathode is transported (diesel fuel) to a rod mill, where it is melted in an electric arc furnace and turned into rods and then wire. The EAF requires vast amounts of dispatchable electric energy. Wire is then shipped to the turbine manufacturer. /19 pic.twitter.com/huKee9be5Q
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 26, 2022
Since Roman times, copper ore grades have been decreasing, astronomically so since Edison's and Tesla's inventions electrified the planet. This is a function of the natural occurrence of copper in earth's crust and the cost of extracting it. Commodity economics. /21 pic.twitter.com/RQb9sPJhlX
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 26, 2022
Why does grade matter? Because the essential inputs and impacts required to extract one pound of copper cathode go up as grade decreases. Today's ore was yesterday's waste rock. BTW, Jackling's breakthrough? The coal-powered steam shovel. /23 pic.twitter.com/niTgbp4Sgt
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 26, 2022
It's hard to describe the internal amusement I experience every time a Wind/Solar/Battery advocate lectures me about the imminent depletion of uranium and thorium fuel or the contention that nuclear energy is "not renewable." Windmills Forever! /25
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 26, 2022
ALL of the copper mined on earth prior to the advent of wind/solar energy was essential to civilization for uses unrelated to wind/solar. Copper requirements will continue and will even expand with technology development. Such is competing with wind/solar. /27
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 26, 2022
Resolution is one of the largest undeveloped copper projects in the world and has the potential to become the largest copper producer in North America. Unlike other copper mines, the Resolution resource is high-grade, vast, and deep underground. /29 pic.twitter.com/V5OOAkf9ET
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 26, 2022
Sorry folks. I accidentally grabbed the wrong image. This is Bingham Canyon- KUC main pit. pic.twitter.com/tajFeHP7ti
— B.F. Randall (@brandall9481) September 27, 2022
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