Mining for a climate solution: Why going renewable means getting our hands dirty | Four Corners

Around Australia new mining operations are being established and old sites, shuttered decades ago, are being brought back to life.

These miners aren’t digging for coal or gold, they’re hunting for other lucrative commodities – known as critical minerals.

If you own a mobile phone, if you power your home with renewable energy or drive an electric vehicle, then these minerals are already playing a key part in your life.

Four Corners investigates the new critical minerals mining boom and finds Australia is in the box seat to exploit a surge in worldwide demand.

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[MichaelSmith-pxev]

Major EV manufacturers in China and Tesla are already stating that Cobalt is no longer needed. Lithium Iron Phosphate is the new minerals driving this change as the cheaper solution than Cobalt based EV batteries that the legacy car OEM are using. Overall This is something we should have moved on 10 - 12 years ago but again we move way to slowly. Australia maybe lucky but we are surely the dumb country as well.

[Danger_mouse]

No surprises here.
As someone who has been involved in hard rock mining in Australia for over 15 years, this is something I have been saying for ages.
Yes, our mining IS getting greener, with more modern and efficient machinery, but it is a very dirty and energy intensive industry.
Refining Australian minerals mined here is a critical step in ensuring our economy survives the transition to the electric future the world is pushing towards.

If we send our raw materials overseas for processing (at minimal profit), only to return the finished product is a carbon intensive way to do business.
We are also beholden to external market prices.

We need to strike a balance between saving our collective futures AND saving the country to enjoy it later as well.
People like Bob Brown are there to step in the way and stop mining in his local area, however, it is a two faced argument.
Where does he propose to source the raw materials from, if he wants a 'Green EV' and copper wire and steel for wind and hydro turbines, minerals for solar panels etc to supply his energy?

Not from my backyard, take it somewhere else?

[weblightstudio]

its not really about saving the planet. It is about how much it will cost to retain the status quo and its profits

[chicolejade]

Calculating ecological footprints needs to include the impact of the full supply chain, not just at the end product footprints.

[paulbaysinger]

"They paved paradise to put up an EV charging station"

[makylemur]

1. All reactive minerals must be removed from the tailings: sulfides, arsenic containing minerals, all radioactive materials for instance.
2. Tailings must not be retained behind earthen dams
3. Water draining from mines and tailings ponds must be treated to drinking water standards
4. Land must be restored once the mining operations are done
5. All gases resulting from refining and smelting must be treated to eliminate pollution
I am sure that I have left out other requirements.

[hrausss]

We also need to make sure poor quality items are stopped from being sold .

We keep wasting our resources on crap. It needs to be legislated

[ryanzwiep]

It would also be good if we can value add to the raw materials, i.e. manufacture batteries etc.

[dielfonelletab]

The obvious solution is to nationalise mining. We can make sure it follows strict environmental rules and we'll get to put the profits back into our schools and hospitals. Why should Gina Rinehart and co get to profit from the shared wealth of Australia?

[David_in_Thailand]

"Clean metals", made a clanging sound in my head just like "clean coal" does.

[mattstirling]

Cracking work, as per usual, by the Four Corners team!

[LiamNoir]

What's missing from this is the discussion of recycled electronics and minerals. We have decades of a boom in electronics that there must be a substantial amount of minerals to be extracted from thrown away devices. If we can turn rocks into electronics, surely we can turn electronics into electronics with much less environmental impact.

[yubchan]

Never enough, keep consuming, keep consuming, keep consuming. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[SkenonSLive]

I love how one side is producing very well-researched, concise, logically sound arguments, and the other side is just no no no no fake lies no!

[UnDaoDu]

We have a world built on the idea of infinite growth on a finite resource planet. This is our economic model it’s insane.

[waywardgeologist]

The piece didn’t mention sodium ion, shame. This technology has the potential to bypass the need for lithium, cobalt, and nickel in batteries and instead can use common salt, cheap Prussian blue, and hard carbon.

[zaneledlamini]

It’s funny how instead of scaling back human activity on the planet we just find new and now apparently
“greener” ways of producing and consuming more stuff much of which we don’t really need

[romanecoquel]

Angus Grigg is probably the best investigative reporter in Australia. Always interesting to hear his stories.

[ozwalks]

This is awesome, we can still do the same stuff we have been doing for ever under the guise of a green life until there’s no more earth . That’s is so cool, who needs a world to live in anyhow 🤔

[--Nath--]

Australia's major parties are too busy promoting and prolonging coal. They have no idea..
Only trouble is that mining isn't known for good management of the total life of a mine: remediation or transition of jobs.. Always by then they have sold off the liability for $1 and the jobs were contracts rather than full-time.