It’s Time to Wake Up - The Currently Known Global Mineral Reserves Will Not Be Sufficient to Supply Enough Metals to Manufacture the Planned Non-fossil Fuel Industrial Systems
"No matter what minerals will be needed, we will need large quantities of them as the renewable power sources like wind and solar, require extensive mineral resources to manufacture the infrastructure for fossil-free energy.
And there is a challenge. Given the estimated required number of Electric Vehicles (EV’s) of different vehicle class, it is clear that there are not enough minerals in the currently reported global reserves to build just one generation of batteries for all EV’s and stationary power storage, in the global industrial ecosystem as it is today."
To put it nice, I would be careful to use that report to back any argument whatsoever. To come up with their conclusion they e.g. basically assumed LFP battery chemistry does not exist. (To be more accurate, they assumed that there is a set amount of nickel/cobalt you need to produce a kWh of lithium batteries) The conclusion also requires that no significant new reserves are found after 2018, which already now is proven false. (Lithium reserves have increased since 2018 by more than what a single generation of EVs need.)
Olympic Dam SA is the world's second biggest uranium mine.
For every 0.6 kg of Uranium it produces, it produces 20kg of copper and 4.5g of silver.
Monosilicon PV is made of sand, copper, silver and aluminum.
A kg of uranium going through a pwr produces about 500GJ (with 3-10% of that being required for milling and enrichment). The 7.5g of silver in the ore that produced that kg of Uranium will produce about 200GJ in its lifetime with technologies in the pipeling that will push this to 400GJ. This silver usage is going down faster than production is increasing. There will be a huge surplus of copper from this source.
The silver is recyclable.
The uranium will require special storage for millenia or reprocessing at a cost not even massively subsidized programs are willing to bear.
The solar energy can be stored in a battery made from sodium, carbon, iron and aluminum. This is basically the composition of dirt. These are being mass produced now and full industrialisation of the supply chain is expected by 2024.
The nuclear reactor requires large quantities of zirconium, molybdenum, chromium, silver, cadmium and many other rare metals. Much of this is radioactive waste at eol.
The nuclear reactor requires more steel than the solar panel requires silicon, and more concrete than the solar panel requires glass and concrete.
A uranium mine can provide nearly as much energy from PV as it does via fission, and will soon produce more. Let that sink in for a bit.
The point isn't that PWRs are prohibitive. The point is that renewables are fine in any world where the only existing kind of full scale grid generating nuclear reactor is fine.
The total amount of cars needed each year is a combination of people getting one for the first time and others who are replacing one. That car that is replaced, assuming it's not being resold, is material that could reenter the system.
Also moving pulling back this debate to more general topics:
1.We don't need to replace all cars, many older gas powered cars will still be on the road for a long time which buys time for points 2-4
2. There are other types of batteries, like NiMH, which don't contain lithium. Although these aren't as efficient many hybrids use them, I think the new Mavrick hybrid does (or some truck hybrid)
3. There could be new battery technology that will be invented
4.New technology has helped Tesla make more energy dense batteries and have them last longer
A 2016 model s with the 70kwh battery pack has a 200 miles of range
A 2022 Model s performance with a 98kwh battery pack has a range of 326 miles
(this is a touch comparison because the new performance has much more power)
I see this manipulative arguement used all the time with lithium mining.