Mark Mills: The energy transition delusion: inescapable mineral realities

Energy expert Mark Mills speaks at SKAGEN Funds New Years Conference 2023

[Himoutdoors]

I want to hear more from this man. He speaks a great deal of sense.

[cyruschadrezzar]

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”

[alterweissermann]

It is always a pleasure to listen to intelligent people. I have learned a lot.

[MrDoyley]

If built in obsolescence was abolished in a sustainable product initiative the demand on raw materials would be hugely mitigated.

[rodneyparker]

Outstanding talk and presentation. Thanks for posting.

[mishka]

Norway has a population of 5.4M and 1.3M live in Oslo alone so much of the land is unhabitable because of mountains and cold. Only 3 percent of Norway's total area is arable land, and 30 percent of this can be used for grain production and vegetables. The rest of the area can only be used for grass production. This means for a small population infrastructure costs are small compared to say Germany which about the same size which has a population of 84M and 51% arable land. it looks great but its a microcosm not transferable to other places.

[jaymacpherson]

Given the importance of the data presented, I would appreciate legends showing what the various colors and line types or bars indicate. It is challenging to both listen to the auditory information while looking at something that is vague.

[xchopp]

Ignores the volume of cobalt used in petroleum refining, the massive electricity requirements of petroleum refining, opportunity (loss) costs, economies of scale, manufacturing improvements... and does not compare an energy transition with the alternative ("business-as-usual"). I mean _all_ the consequences. Yes, we'll need new mines, but it's something we know how to do. Many statistics presented here seem cherry-picked, with the least favorable trajectories given, rather than the spread, or likely future scenarios. Liberty ships, anyone? So is it all motivated reasoning? Surely not. But a lot of it is.

[AndrewCharnley]

I already had an outline of understanding through being fortunate in getting in front of other quality presentations and articles. Now with Mark Mills presentation I feel as if I have reached the level of understanding that is necessary to quell the absurd goals set by our 'political leaders and the many idiotic industrial influencers or leaders'. Thank you Mark, your presentation skills through your stance, tone and information deliver and easy to absorb summary with detailed explanations. Undoubtedly, a formidable presentation.

[prettyblueplanet]

Speech title, “How I Invalidated Al Gores Life in a One Hour Speech”.

[CraftyFX]

Excellent. Finally somebody pointing out that our puny human economic ideas will not bend the realities of nature just because we wish it really hard.

[danapeck]

It will be interesting to revisit this in a few years

[dadananda]

Excellent. Finally, the real numbers. Why can governments not do this?

[gavinlangley]

Excellent stuff. Could you make this compulsory viewing for all the delusional politicians?

[bigbirdwpg]

Ironic that Norway's push to clean is funded by oil and gas!

[jaimecastells]

At 11:15 "...2, 000 to 7, 000 percent increase in metals to deliver the same vehicle..." these numbers make no sense. He is saying that an EV must weigh 20 to 70 times as much as an internal combustion vehicle or that there is a gigantic amount of wasted metal in the construction of EVs. There must be something much more complex about the numbers he is quoting. They must be trying to account for the amount of metal invested in creating infrastructure to support the EV manufacture, but even that doesn't make sense because such investments are amortized over very large numbers of vehicles so the per vehicle cost of that infrastructure is small compared to the vehicle itself.

No, he's failed to explain the argument adequately and I suspect that a closer examination would show that there are large holes in it.

[thelimitingfactor]

Mark seemed to confuse the annual rate of consumable resources like gas with the one off requirement for EVs. Evs burn electrons, while with gas you need to fill up your tank every week.

[carter]

What bothers me about this situation is the fact that the news and media are all going about a recession which is understandable due to the war and pandemic but still the same media still publish articles about folks in the same economy pulling off hefty 6figure profit(Averg. 200k in barely 8weeks) in this downtrend how is that possible?

[mikebaker]

China is already produced no hundreds of GWh of LFP batteries - no cobalt and no magnesium. Getting close to 300 miles EPA range from 75kwh packs. On top of this Redwood and many others are now ramping up battery recycling businesses: battery materials do not degrade (the ion intercalation rate decays but the chemicals are as new once recycled). Then there is the absolute limit of cars on our roads: very soo, most cities will valve without cars; mobility as a service will replace sole owner transport. The calculation is not linear.

[weirdshibainu]

So...the argument that battery prices will decline as production scales is fallacious as input costs will actually rise due to organic constraints on supply