STUDY: The Earth may not have sufficient materials for world governments’ “green” plans

Governor Phil Murphy forged ahead with his Orsted wind farm adventure this week, Save Jerseyans, a big part of what he keeps telling us will be New Jersey’s green, carbon-neutral future. The Murphy Administration’s umbrella “energy master plan” is a state-based version of the Green New Deal costing hundreds of millions of billions of dollars. No more gas-powered oven ranges, huge subsidies for electric cars and unreliable alternative energy infrastructure, etc. You’ve heard it all before.

New Jersey isn’t only dropping money on EV stations but also suing the UPSP to use electric vehicles.

The stated goal: 0% carbon emissions by mid-century.

It’s life and economy-altering.

It’s expensive.

It’s clearly reckless.

Here’s an under-discussed angle: is it even possible?

Hat tip to our friends and partners at Affordable Energy for New Jersey for flagging research published by the Geological Survey of Finland GTK which “developed a bottom-up calculation to determine what would be required to fully replace the existing fossil fuel supported global system.”

Surprise:”there are not enough minerals in the currently reported global reserves to build even one generation of batteries for all electric vehicles and stationary power storage, in the global industrial ecosystem as it is today.”

And there’s more:

“The research also shows that the planned non-fossil solution will require more energy than ever consumed before while at the same time the future non-fossil fuel energy system may well be smaller in capacity than the current fossil fuel supported energy system. This is a consequence of non-fossil fuel systems having a lower Energy Returned on Energy Invested (ERoEI) ratio compared to fossil fuel systems using oil, gas, or coal as a feedstock.

The required stationary power storage to buffer wind and solar power systems has also been significantly underestimated in past studies, which results in an inappropriately low estimate of the needed volume of batteries. This together with the smaller capacity to deliver power of non-fossil fuel energy system means that the number of required new power stations is much bigger than estimated earlier.”   

You can read the full report here which is obviously sobering.

All of the world’s collective green energy schemes may not be able to be powered by what we believe – explored and unexplored – actually exists here.

GTK concludes that “if we want to genuinely transition away from fossil fuels accordingly to the current plan, mining of minerals and using recycled minerals and metals from industrial waste streams in new ways will have to increase greatly.”

It’s no mystery why the BPU won’t release a cost estimate for Murphy’s green energy designs two years after they were introduced, Save Jerseyans. The real answer: a green energy future will cost whatever we’d need, as a species, to start mining asteroids.

Matt Rooney
About Matt Rooney 8403 Articles
MATT ROONEY is SaveJersey.com's founder and editor-in-chief, a practicing New Jersey attorney, and the host of 'The Matt Rooney Show' on 1210 WPHT every Sunday evening from 7-10PM EST.