The road to a cleaner energy future does not run in a straight line through a black-and-white world.
Nor will the world make any progress on that road if there is no appreciation from all sides that the issues involved in greenhouse gas reduction are complex.
Greening energy systems is also going to take a unified global effort.
Consider, for example, that minerals are fundamental to the infrastructure and technology required to shift world economies from fossil fuel dependence to renewable energy alternatives. But their extraction continues to be a hot-button environmental flashpoint.
However, again, the issues here are not black and white as informed organizations like the International Energy Agency (IEA) continue to illustrate. The promoter of secure and affordable energy supplies is in the business of gathering data to help companies, governments and populations make informed, rather than politically partisan, decisions.
Its most recent contribution to that mission, The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions, should be required reading for anyone interested in getting to a greener energy future without driving the global economy over a cliff.
Consider that, as the IEA points out, clean energy technologies are far more mineral-intensive than their hydrocarbon counterparts. Electric cars, for example, require “six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car” and “an onshore wind plan requires nine times more mineral resources than a gas-fired power plant.”
The IEA also notes that the lion’s share of lithium, cobalt and other minerals crucial to electric vehicle battery performance come from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and China.
That raises major energy security concerns elsewhere in the world.
It and other data included in the IEA’s report also underscore the complex realities Canada and the rest of the world face in the drive for a greener energy future.
In short, the road map to that future has to be based on facts and informed decisions or no country will get there.
