Always a wealth of valuable information in your work. If there's any hope of a reasoned, dispassionate discussion on the future of energy, exposing the many absurdities of the go-green-today-or-die-tomorrow crowd is essential. You're doing a helluva job. Thx 🙏🏽
Mar 26, 2023·edited Mar 26, 2023Liked by B.F. Randall ⚛ ⛏ ⚡
Super piece. It's even worse than space gives you to detail it. We know this b/c we know your background. And ours own experience.
Case in point. Iron Mtn Superfund NPL site near Redding, CA. The Responsible Parties under Superfund have paid ~$100 million into a form of risk transfer/risk finance. The interest off that fund is supposed to operate a wastewater treatment plant in perpetuity to deal with the acid mine drainage.
Like the Animas site you mentioned, there are many of these. While we piss away $369 BILLION in the Inflation Reduction Act on "Rube Goldberg machines" (we love that term you coined), sites like these (deemed "imminent and substantial endangerments to human health and the environment" or they wouldn't be on the NPL list) aren't resolved. And, we want to create more? Why? EV's. To pretend we're saving the planet.
Want to see what it looks like to have to pay US Fish & Wildlife agents to scare waterfowl off a mine tailings pond so acidic it cooks birds from the inside out? We included video from the infamous Berkeley Pit at the Silver Bow Creek/Butte Superfund site, near Butte, Montana (an ARCO legacy mining site) in "Sustainabilchemy - part 1" >https://envmental.substack.com/p/sustainabilchemy
This is something that is very much absent from mainstream discourse on 'the environment'. Of course we need to deviate in some way from the current model, but the massive green push we are being morally marketed aligns so seamlessly with corporate interests that we aren't noticing its drawbacks.
I don't know much about nuclear options; are there feasible smaller-scale facilities that could be placed in any country?
Interesting fact. France, which partially reprocesses its fuel, having used just 5oz of uranium per person per year to generate 88% of their domestic electricity supply. About $15 worth/yr. With these or even lower requirements for a closed fuel cycle, it would be unnecessary to mine uranium. You could just add an additional flotation and extraction circuit on any metal mine mill to extract the trace amounts of uranium & thorium in the ore. All the energy our civilization would need for a 100Myrs.
Accelerated by-production of mine tailings is not just "expected" to increase, it must increase. Demand for mineral products is skyrocketing and primarily driven by the third world seeking to improve their standards of living.
Always a wealth of valuable information in your work. If there's any hope of a reasoned, dispassionate discussion on the future of energy, exposing the many absurdities of the go-green-today-or-die-tomorrow crowd is essential. You're doing a helluva job. Thx 🙏🏽
Super piece. It's even worse than space gives you to detail it. We know this b/c we know your background. And ours own experience.
Case in point. Iron Mtn Superfund NPL site near Redding, CA. The Responsible Parties under Superfund have paid ~$100 million into a form of risk transfer/risk finance. The interest off that fund is supposed to operate a wastewater treatment plant in perpetuity to deal with the acid mine drainage.
Like the Animas site you mentioned, there are many of these. While we piss away $369 BILLION in the Inflation Reduction Act on "Rube Goldberg machines" (we love that term you coined), sites like these (deemed "imminent and substantial endangerments to human health and the environment" or they wouldn't be on the NPL list) aren't resolved. And, we want to create more? Why? EV's. To pretend we're saving the planet.
Want to see what it looks like to have to pay US Fish & Wildlife agents to scare waterfowl off a mine tailings pond so acidic it cooks birds from the inside out? We included video from the infamous Berkeley Pit at the Silver Bow Creek/Butte Superfund site, near Butte, Montana (an ARCO legacy mining site) in "Sustainabilchemy - part 1" >https://envmental.substack.com/p/sustainabilchemy
Hats off to you and JLPIII. Great piece.
This is something that is very much absent from mainstream discourse on 'the environment'. Of course we need to deviate in some way from the current model, but the massive green push we are being morally marketed aligns so seamlessly with corporate interests that we aren't noticing its drawbacks.
I don't know much about nuclear options; are there feasible smaller-scale facilities that could be placed in any country?
We must destroy the earth to save the planet.
Interesting fact. France, which partially reprocesses its fuel, having used just 5oz of uranium per person per year to generate 88% of their domestic electricity supply. About $15 worth/yr. With these or even lower requirements for a closed fuel cycle, it would be unnecessary to mine uranium. You could just add an additional flotation and extraction circuit on any metal mine mill to extract the trace amounts of uranium & thorium in the ore. All the energy our civilization would need for a 100Myrs.
Accelerated by-production of mine tailings is not just "expected" to increase, it must increase. Demand for mineral products is skyrocketing and primarily driven by the third world seeking to improve their standards of living.
Thank you for another great essay. I share your work with all my "green" "friends".
What a load of bullshit.