Quote:
Originally Posted by PeteMoss
Pretty well every country has some evil going on somewhere. Russia is the one right now threatening to nuke people every 2nd day - so you swallow hard and deal with the lesser evils.
And we reduce our reliance on fossil fuels so we don't have to pal around with either of them.
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Divesting from Russian resources is a good thing for many reasons, but let's not pretend that shifting away from fossil fuels would be some sort of humanitarian win. Look at where a large portion of the metals that are needed for the renewable industry come from and you'll see it's a real who's-who of human/environmental rights champions to pal around with. Cobalt (70%) from Congo, Rare-earths (80%+) from China, Palladium (30%) from uh, Russia. Unless we here in the West are prepared to increase our share of the dirty work (ie. the actual mining and processing), under the same high standards and regulations as the fossil fuel industry functions under now, I don't see how renewables lead to an improvement on the humanitarian front.
Also, we also have to be weary of shifting our energy security out of our hands. China alone completely dominates the solar market (97% share of silicon wafers production, 79% share of PV cells and 67% share of polysilicon, as of 2019 ). If there was a large scale shift of energy to solar, we effectively put our energy security in their hands. The last month of war should be a giant warning flag about what happens when any region puts its energy security in the hands of another. You are effectively crippled to do anything of consequence.
I'm all for divesting from Russia, but let's make sure that we're not just setting the foundation for the next conflict.