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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/04/australia-warned-of-over-mining-risk-in-race-to-secure-minerals-needed-for-clean-energy>
"In the high-stakes quest to break China’s grip over minerals crucial to clean
energy technology, Australia risks over-mining while ignoring alternatives such
as improved battery recycling, according to a new report.
The release of the Jubilee Australia research, which questions mineral demand
assumptions and warns against causing unnecessary environmental harm, comes as
the federal government prepares a strategy to address China’s dominance of
minerals seen as critical to a nation.
Jubilee said Australia could be digging up more critical minerals than
necessary due to a rush to capitalise on “staggering predictions”.
“It is critical that we adopt a smarter and more efficient approach as we look
to exploit another resource,” said the report’s lead author, Luke Fletcher.
“While the government’s strategy to make Australia a ‘renewable energy
superpower’ will validly speed up the transition from a fossil fuel-based
export economy, extracting these key transition minerals will cause significant
social and environmental damage if we don’t manage it correctly.”
Critical minerals – such as lithium and copper – and its rare earths subset are
used in everything from electric vehicle batteries and wind turbines to
smartphones, high-powered magnets and defence technology.
China is a large producer of many of those minerals and often dominates the
refining processes needed to make them useful. Mining of rare earths, in
particular, can generate large volumes of toxic material and processing is
complex, giving China a large head start over other other nations.
While Australia has large deposits of most minerals, it traditionally sends
them offshore for processing."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
