What I'm Reading (or Watching) 4/18/2020

Foreign Policy - The Limits of Clean Energy -

n 2017, the World Bank released a little-noticed report that offered the first comprehensive look at this question. It models the increase in material extraction that would be required to build enough solar and wind utilities to produce an annual output of about 7 terawatts of electricity by 2050. That’s enough to power roughly half of the global economy. By doubling the World Bank figures, we can estimate what it will take to get all the way to zero emissions—and the results are staggering: 34 million metric tons of copper, 40 million tons of lead, 50 million tons of zinc, 162 million tons of aluminum, and no less than 4.8 billion tons of iron.

In some cases, the transition to renewables will require a massive increase over existing levels of extraction. For neodymium—an essential element in wind turbines—extraction will need to rise by nearly 35 percent over current levels. Higher-end estimates reported by the World Bank suggest it could double. 

The same is true of silver, which is critical to solar panels. Silver extraction will go up 38 percent and perhaps as much as 105 percent. Demand for indium, also essential to solar technology, will more than triple and could end up skyrocketing by 920 percent.

And then there are all the batteries we’re going to need for power storage. To keep energy flowing when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing will require enormous batteries at the grid level. This means 40 million tons of lithium—an eye-watering 2,700 percent increase over current levels of extraction.      

 Reuters - Majority of FCC backs Ligado plan for broadband network: sources -

A majority of the five-member Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has voted to approve an order to allow Ligado Networks’ to deploy a low-power nationwide 5G network despite objections from the Defense Department and major U.S. airlines, two government officials told Reuters. 

 In an April 10 letter to Pai, the executive branch - including the Pentagon, NASA, and the departments of Commerce and Homeland Security - said the Defense Department “strongly opposed” Ligado’s proposal because it would “adversely affect the military potential of GPS.”

An Air Force memo warned that Ligado’s proposals to reduce interference were “impractical and un-executable” and would “place enormous burdens on agencies and other GPS users to monitor and report the interference.”  

UnHerd - Swedish expert: why lockdowns are the wrong policy -