There are no sustainable energy sources/consumption

About

One form of the argument claiming that there are no sustainable energy sources focuses on the consumption necessary to produce sustainable energy. The argument generally goes something like this:

• Even sustainable energy sources such as solar and wind power require rare-earth minerals (for solar cells, generator magnets, and storage batteries)
• Mining of rare earth minerals is just as environmentally disastrous as mining of oil and coal, or fracking of natural gas.
• Therefore sustainable energy sources such as wind and solar are no more unsustainable than oil, coal, and natural gas.

Flaws

Flaws with this argument include the following:

1. The rate of usage for sustainables is orders of magnitude lower.

The rare-earth minerals used by sustainable energy sources are used to build the conversion devices -- that is, the devices necessary to convert solar and wind power from their naturally-occurring forms into usable electricity.

This differs sharply from fossil fuels, where the materials mined are themselves burned to make energy -- they are the fuel. Material mined for sustainable energy generally goes to make durable goods -- motors and solar cells. (Batteries might not be classified as "durable goods", but they are typically used for many years and then recycled.)

This leads to two key differences in how sustainables use mined materials:

• The rate of consumption is orders of magnitude lower than for fossil fuels. ^{2008-02-28/DK}
  • A pound of selenium, for example, might be used in the manufacture of several kilowatts worth of generation capacity with an expected lifespan somewhere in the range of five to thirty years (and likely generating many tens of thousands of kilowatt-hours of power).
  • A pound of coal or oil is burned up for the sake of generating something on the order of a kilowatt-hour of energy.
• When sustainable conversion equipment reaches the end of its life, the minerals it uses can be recycled. (More about this below.)

2. Newer solar and battery technologies use more common minerals.

Research in this area is very intense right now, including the search for ways of accomplishing conversion with cheaper materials, and new discoveries happen regularly. There are probably more examples, but one recent example is a sulfur-based battery that outperforms Li-ion batteries.^{2013-06-05/PO}

3. Rare earths are recyclable.

researching this -- although certainly batteries are recyclable (and many areas require a "core deposit" to encourage people to bring large rechargeable batteries in for recycling) and electronic equipment and metals are also highly recyclable.

4. The argument presumes that "sustainability" requires no consumption.

This is a perfectionism straw-man argument. All that is required is for sustainables to consume at a rate lower than that of replacement -- i.e. (in this case) more slowly than the materials can be reclaimed or recycled.

Sources

• 2008-02-28/DK. Lifecycle Costs of Photovoltaics "Using data compiled from the original records of twelve PV manufacturers, we quantified the emissions from the life cycle of four major commercial photovoltaic technologies and showed that they are insignificant in comparison to the emissions that they replace when introduced in average European and U.S. grids."
• 2013-06-05/PO. New all-solid sulfur-based battery outperforms lithium-ion technology