Pete Buttigieg wants a “made-in-America EV revolution.” But a new IEA report spotlights China's stranglehold on supply chains for EVs, wind turbines, and solar panels.
When will Americans wake up to the insanity of pushing EV’s? Perhaps when their electricity bills double ? Triple ? We need a class action lawsuit against our politicians.
The leadership from both parties over the years has allowed our manufacturing to move to China, and our trade deficit to give China all the money they needed to arrive at EV, wind, and solar dominance (among other areas). China graduates' multiples of engineers compared to the US. We graduate social scientists who cannot, do not, and will never understand why we are on a sinking path. I am not a racist, nor a misogynist (married 63 years six days from now) but the path we are on I believe is led by "educated" white women. I try not to think about the crisis it will take for Americans to wake up.
I'm not sure if I missed it but the most bizarre conversation in Buttigieg's interview when asked by Margaret Brennen about "the portion that is under your purview in the $7.5 billion investment (love that word - "investment"? sounds better than your "taxes") is to build out 1/2 million charging stations. Secretary Buttigieg gave an update and proudly stated -drum roll: 7. Then further gave some random prognostication they'll be done by 2030. Now "that" is funny.
Perhaps, for a change, we can play some 3-D chess with the Chinese. Now that they have spent all those resources to dominate the market for solar panels and rare earth minerals, we should simply pivot back to ICE cars, nuclear power and nat gas power. If we remove the idiotic mandates by the DOE and DOT, and go back to allowing the customer to choose what they want to buy, while companies manufacture those products, then we will dramatically reduce current and future demand for those things that the Chinese have spent billions to dominate. If they lose their key market for those things, they will have incurred significant debt and wasted significant resources with no return, exactly what they don't want to do.
as to our needs, we can simply decommission the existing windmills and use the magnets in more important sectors like defense and autos.
Isn't it also the case that our domestic electricity supplies are completely insufficient to provide electric power to EV's if produced according to federal mandates?
Of course, China is completely destroying the environment to be the metals, minerals, and magnets supplier to the world. The U.S. is trashing the environment too, but at a fraction of the pace that China is. They may be the manufacturer to the world, but if they can't breathe, eat, or drink without ingesting large amounts of poisons, and the web of life is crumbling around them (thus their major purchases of land for agriculture in other countries), what's the point? Oh right. $$$. Trading the living for the dead. What a deal!
The situation we have here is called catch up. Covid exposes the flaws of the supply chain to the world's governments and their ill preparedness/responsiveness for externalities, this exposure had to be corrected. What we see is industrial policy not climate policy. The West has been sleep walking into a deindustrialize graveyard and trying to dig up the bones of Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt, & Carnegie, they are 30 years late and no amount of paper can help us play catch up. Keeps this in mind the United States largest export is paper debt, not planes, oil & petroleum products, semiconductor chips, or cars. We lost the minute debt became policy.
We have been trying to open a rare earth processing facility with a group ( Who you interviewed on your power hungry podcast ) - for 15 Years!
In this time , the Defense Logistics Agency and several others have given MP Materials and Lynas OTA funding and other funding at over $1 Billion+ dollars - and the USA got NOTHING for it. By The Way - MP is essentially owned by Shenghe Resources of China and Lynas is an Australian company - so , even if they had delivered a few grams of RE, it would have still been from foreign companies.
AND - neither company can produce HEAVY rare earth METALS or Magnets.
China has a 100% monopoly on refining rare earth minerals into metals and magnets - Period.
The idea that we could make a power drill , let a lone a fighter jet, in the USA is a treasonous lie to the people of the USA and the West.
"In other words, by trying to force automakers to produce EVs, Buttigieg and the EPA want to trade reliance on domestically produced gasoline and diesel fuel for near-total reliance on Chinese metals, minerals, and magnets. It’s difficult to imagine a more foolish trade."
As Ayn Rand said, "Mistakes of this size are not made innocently." Since at least the Clinton administration's "Chinagate" in the mid-1990s, the USG's suicidal policy has been to hand China direct access to advanced supercomputers, machine tools, and jet engine technology, and to allow American aerospace firms to assist China's military space program. Our venal politicians have welcomed Chinese operatives into the government and given them top secret clearances in exchange for laundered cash that flows into campaign accounts. Local, state, and federal government officials are selling out small towns to Chinese solar and wind manufacturing companies. China owns nearly 400,000 acres in the US on which to build solar and wind installations along with the manufacturing plants for them. Almost everything needed to produce wind and solar monstrosities is largely (if not entirely) controlled and supplied by China, which is breaking coal production records because it's not stupid enough to slit its own throat.
On a good day, wind and solar produce just 4% of the power needed to keep the lights on in the US. Once every conventional power source is eliminated, it will be suddenly be "discovered" that wind and solar, too, are bad for "the environment," and access cut off. The country will be transported back to the 1800's with no EMP required. Millions of people will die, and are intended to. China is already holding the US's leash, and every sell-out town council that approves a new Chinese-owned wind/solar project adds a link to the chain.
No one rules if no one obeys. It's far past the time for energy companies and car manufacturers to stop licking the boot that's been stomping them. Decades past the time. "To say that an unconstitutional law must be obeyed until it is repealed, is saying that an unconstitutional law is just as obligatory as a constitutional one." --Lysander Spooner
Buttigieg is a hack and an idiot. Then again, so is the rest of Biden's Cabinet, in some cases just downright evil, but conniving, idiots.
Since 1973, until Trumps term as President, US policy makers decried our dependence on foreign oil, albeit from multiple sources. During Trump's term, the US became a net exporter, I believe?
The US needs to look closely at the EU's debacles with 'green' porn and disentangle ourselves from the climate hysteria boondoggles. Cut all subsidies and tax credits for at least commercial scale wind, solar and EV. Lift the idiotic sanctions on gas and oil. Let the market correct itself.
In other words...I'm not buying the government is here to help.
As a geologist with a longtime familiarity with the minerals sector, I’d like to add a small clarification: while China has captured the supply chains for most strategic minerals, the ultimate arbiter of supply is nature itself.
With just a few exceptions, all of these minerals occur in trace amounts – parts per billion to (in the best ores) parts per million. Put differently, for every pound of copper that is mined, there are (for an average ore) some 250,000 – 1,000,000 pounds of waste rock produced. And copper is one of the more concentrated ones. A related fact is that an awful lot of the low hanging fruit, i.e., the richer deposits, have already been exploited. And most of the remaining ones are located either: 1) in undeveloped ecosystems that need to be preserved to have any chance of avoiding mass bird and wildlife extinctions – to say nothing of meeting the “30 x 30” goals of the international biodiversity initiative; or 2) on indigenous lands protected by legally binding treaties.
Last, there’s considerable doubt among the geological community as to whether some of these minerals even exist in economic quantities on Planet Earth to meet even a fraction of the demand created by the “transition” to RE/EV’s and still have enough for all of the many other technologies we take for granted.
“Preliminary calculations show that global reserves, let alone global production, may not be enough to resource the quantity of batteries required. In theory, there are enough global reserves of nickel and lithium if they were exclusively used just to produce li-Ion batteries for vehicles. To make just one battery for each vehicle in the global transport fleet (excluding Class 8 HCV trucks), it would require 48.2% of 2018 global nickel reserves, and 43.8% of global lithium reserves. There is also not enough cobalt in current reserves to meet this demand and more will need to be discovered. Each of the 1.39 billion lithium ion batteries could only have a useful working life of 8 to 10 years. So, 8-10 years after manufacture, new replacement batteries will be required, from either a mined mineral source, or a recycled metal source. This is unlikely to be practical, which suggests the whole EV battery solution may need to be re-thought and a new solution is developed that is not so mineral intensive”.
Of course, even that assumes there is enough water (500,000 liters per lb of lithium extracted from ore) in the desert environments where most lithium deposits occur.
In all reality, how much of that material is going to be recycled? I'm wagering that you would be lucky to get to 10% recycling, and that's for lithium. For metals like copper, do they really think that they'll be recycling houses and industrial buildings every 10-20 years to "recycle" the copper?
When will Americans wake up to the insanity of pushing EV’s? Perhaps when their electricity bills double ? Triple ? We need a class action lawsuit against our politicians.
P.S. what do we call it when there is no accountability for the actions of our leaders ?
Robert you have it right. Here is a link to my thoughts from 2022.
https://billpound.substack.com/p/controlling-climate-change-via-wind/comments
The leadership from both parties over the years has allowed our manufacturing to move to China, and our trade deficit to give China all the money they needed to arrive at EV, wind, and solar dominance (among other areas). China graduates' multiples of engineers compared to the US. We graduate social scientists who cannot, do not, and will never understand why we are on a sinking path. I am not a racist, nor a misogynist (married 63 years six days from now) but the path we are on I believe is led by "educated" white women. I try not to think about the crisis it will take for Americans to wake up.
So the Climate Emergency is a make-work jobs program.
I'm not sure if I missed it but the most bizarre conversation in Buttigieg's interview when asked by Margaret Brennen about "the portion that is under your purview in the $7.5 billion investment (love that word - "investment"? sounds better than your "taxes") is to build out 1/2 million charging stations. Secretary Buttigieg gave an update and proudly stated -drum roll: 7. Then further gave some random prognostication they'll be done by 2030. Now "that" is funny.
Perhaps, for a change, we can play some 3-D chess with the Chinese. Now that they have spent all those resources to dominate the market for solar panels and rare earth minerals, we should simply pivot back to ICE cars, nuclear power and nat gas power. If we remove the idiotic mandates by the DOE and DOT, and go back to allowing the customer to choose what they want to buy, while companies manufacture those products, then we will dramatically reduce current and future demand for those things that the Chinese have spent billions to dominate. If they lose their key market for those things, they will have incurred significant debt and wasted significant resources with no return, exactly what they don't want to do.
as to our needs, we can simply decommission the existing windmills and use the magnets in more important sectors like defense and autos.
Isn't it also the case that our domestic electricity supplies are completely insufficient to provide electric power to EV's if produced according to federal mandates?
Another important "truth bomb" article. Thanks!
Of course, China is completely destroying the environment to be the metals, minerals, and magnets supplier to the world. The U.S. is trashing the environment too, but at a fraction of the pace that China is. They may be the manufacturer to the world, but if they can't breathe, eat, or drink without ingesting large amounts of poisons, and the web of life is crumbling around them (thus their major purchases of land for agriculture in other countries), what's the point? Oh right. $$$. Trading the living for the dead. What a deal!
Wonderful report, Robert.
The West is indeed backing itself into a corner.
However, China has its own dependencies. Food and Energy.
We can survive on Nokia phones and without EVs, solar panels and wind turbines.
We can survive longer without these than China can without corn and soybeans.
The situation we have here is called catch up. Covid exposes the flaws of the supply chain to the world's governments and their ill preparedness/responsiveness for externalities, this exposure had to be corrected. What we see is industrial policy not climate policy. The West has been sleep walking into a deindustrialize graveyard and trying to dig up the bones of Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt, & Carnegie, they are 30 years late and no amount of paper can help us play catch up. Keeps this in mind the United States largest export is paper debt, not planes, oil & petroleum products, semiconductor chips, or cars. We lost the minute debt became policy.
Ontario, Canada’s data reports hourly the inconsistency and unreliability of wind and solar energy. Sygration.com
Awesome article! Thank you for it.
We have been trying to open a rare earth processing facility with a group ( Who you interviewed on your power hungry podcast ) - for 15 Years!
In this time , the Defense Logistics Agency and several others have given MP Materials and Lynas OTA funding and other funding at over $1 Billion+ dollars - and the USA got NOTHING for it. By The Way - MP is essentially owned by Shenghe Resources of China and Lynas is an Australian company - so , even if they had delivered a few grams of RE, it would have still been from foreign companies.
AND - neither company can produce HEAVY rare earth METALS or Magnets.
China has a 100% monopoly on refining rare earth minerals into metals and magnets - Period.
The idea that we could make a power drill , let a lone a fighter jet, in the USA is a treasonous lie to the people of the USA and the West.
"In other words, by trying to force automakers to produce EVs, Buttigieg and the EPA want to trade reliance on domestically produced gasoline and diesel fuel for near-total reliance on Chinese metals, minerals, and magnets. It’s difficult to imagine a more foolish trade."
As Ayn Rand said, "Mistakes of this size are not made innocently." Since at least the Clinton administration's "Chinagate" in the mid-1990s, the USG's suicidal policy has been to hand China direct access to advanced supercomputers, machine tools, and jet engine technology, and to allow American aerospace firms to assist China's military space program. Our venal politicians have welcomed Chinese operatives into the government and given them top secret clearances in exchange for laundered cash that flows into campaign accounts. Local, state, and federal government officials are selling out small towns to Chinese solar and wind manufacturing companies. China owns nearly 400,000 acres in the US on which to build solar and wind installations along with the manufacturing plants for them. Almost everything needed to produce wind and solar monstrosities is largely (if not entirely) controlled and supplied by China, which is breaking coal production records because it's not stupid enough to slit its own throat.
On a good day, wind and solar produce just 4% of the power needed to keep the lights on in the US. Once every conventional power source is eliminated, it will be suddenly be "discovered" that wind and solar, too, are bad for "the environment," and access cut off. The country will be transported back to the 1800's with no EMP required. Millions of people will die, and are intended to. China is already holding the US's leash, and every sell-out town council that approves a new Chinese-owned wind/solar project adds a link to the chain.
No one rules if no one obeys. It's far past the time for energy companies and car manufacturers to stop licking the boot that's been stomping them. Decades past the time. "To say that an unconstitutional law must be obeyed until it is repealed, is saying that an unconstitutional law is just as obligatory as a constitutional one." --Lysander Spooner
Buttigieg is a hack and an idiot. Then again, so is the rest of Biden's Cabinet, in some cases just downright evil, but conniving, idiots.
Since 1973, until Trumps term as President, US policy makers decried our dependence on foreign oil, albeit from multiple sources. During Trump's term, the US became a net exporter, I believe?
The US needs to look closely at the EU's debacles with 'green' porn and disentangle ourselves from the climate hysteria boondoggles. Cut all subsidies and tax credits for at least commercial scale wind, solar and EV. Lift the idiotic sanctions on gas and oil. Let the market correct itself.
In other words...I'm not buying the government is here to help.
As a geologist with a longtime familiarity with the minerals sector, I’d like to add a small clarification: while China has captured the supply chains for most strategic minerals, the ultimate arbiter of supply is nature itself.
With just a few exceptions, all of these minerals occur in trace amounts – parts per billion to (in the best ores) parts per million. Put differently, for every pound of copper that is mined, there are (for an average ore) some 250,000 – 1,000,000 pounds of waste rock produced. And copper is one of the more concentrated ones. A related fact is that an awful lot of the low hanging fruit, i.e., the richer deposits, have already been exploited. And most of the remaining ones are located either: 1) in undeveloped ecosystems that need to be preserved to have any chance of avoiding mass bird and wildlife extinctions – to say nothing of meeting the “30 x 30” goals of the international biodiversity initiative; or 2) on indigenous lands protected by legally binding treaties.
Last, there’s considerable doubt among the geological community as to whether some of these minerals even exist in economic quantities on Planet Earth to meet even a fraction of the demand created by the “transition” to RE/EV’s and still have enough for all of the many other technologies we take for granted.
Take lithium. The Geological Survey of Finland (not exactly a fringe group of radical anti-mining activists) conducted what is still the most comprehensive study of global lithium reserves (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354067356_Assessment_of_the_Extra_Capacity_Required_of_Alternative_Energy_Electrical_Power_Systems_to_Completely_Replace_Fossil_Fuels). Published in 2021, the report weighs in at nearly 1,000 pages with a 35-page executive summary. The study examines several scenarios, but the bottom line for a mass EV scenario (1.39 billion EV’s worldwide) can be distilled into one quote:
“Preliminary calculations show that global reserves, let alone global production, may not be enough to resource the quantity of batteries required. In theory, there are enough global reserves of nickel and lithium if they were exclusively used just to produce li-Ion batteries for vehicles. To make just one battery for each vehicle in the global transport fleet (excluding Class 8 HCV trucks), it would require 48.2% of 2018 global nickel reserves, and 43.8% of global lithium reserves. There is also not enough cobalt in current reserves to meet this demand and more will need to be discovered. Each of the 1.39 billion lithium ion batteries could only have a useful working life of 8 to 10 years. So, 8-10 years after manufacture, new replacement batteries will be required, from either a mined mineral source, or a recycled metal source. This is unlikely to be practical, which suggests the whole EV battery solution may need to be re-thought and a new solution is developed that is not so mineral intensive”.
Of course, even that assumes there is enough water (500,000 liters per lb of lithium extracted from ore) in the desert environments where most lithium deposits occur.
‘Nuff said.
In all reality, how much of that material is going to be recycled? I'm wagering that you would be lucky to get to 10% recycling, and that's for lithium. For metals like copper, do they really think that they'll be recycling houses and industrial buildings every 10-20 years to "recycle" the copper?