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Why Sustainable Power Is Unsustainable
Urchin writes "Although scientists are agreed that we must cut carbon emissions from transport and electricity generation to prevent the globe's climate becoming hotter, the most advanced 'renewable' technologies are too often based upon non-renewable resources including indium and platinum —
resources that could dry up in 10-15 years if they were widely used in the renewable energy market."
Who would pay for an exploration team to go around, looking for new sources of a material that was already abundant? Answer: no-one. As a consequence, a lot of "rare" minerals only have a known source that will last a couple of decades - or less. Until they become scare and the price rises, there's no profit in spending money looking for new reserves.
In the 70's the big scare was that there was only 15 years worth of (known) oil reserves left. Hey, we didn't run out. When the price went up, that incentivised people to go out and find new sources.
Same when I was doing electronics design in the early 80's - there was a scare that we'd run out of tantalum (for capacitors).
Scares aren't new and tend to have a way of working themselves out. Even if one metal did become to prices - i.e. scarce, no doubt processes will be invented to use a different material.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Sorry, but that's a bullshit answer.
I use about 150 gallons of gasoline a year for my 2 cars. Why? We ride bikes. Pretty much everywhere. The only time I actually drive is on road trips. And we do a lot of those.
There are a lot of ways you can save without being "more poor". You can save and "be richer".
My solar water heater gives me enough hot water for my family to take showers without running out of hot water - as we used to with only the electric heater. We have "always on" computers because I run multihead off the main server, saving the powerbill for individual computers. You want a computer? Turn the monitor on. No boot time, no waiting. I could go on and on. A little bit of care and though and you can save and be rich.
TFA is complete BS, at least in terms of platinum.
I work for a company which is in the process of adding several centuries' supply of PGEs (platinum group elements) to proven reserves. Platinum and fuel cells are going to get a lot cheaper, within 10 years.
We know where PGEs are, but it's often in politically unstable places, or those that are busy strangling their domestic exploration industry (e.g. Canada).
This global recession will likely help finally unjam a lot of political roadblocks. When people are hurting, they don't tolerate environmental protests as much, and aren't as willing to turn a blind eye to eco-terrorism, which has wracked the industry in the last decade. Even the first world is finding it harder to ignore potentially adding a hundred billion to one's GDP for decades.