January 25, 2026 • 41 mins
This episode does not argue against renewable energy—renewables are essential to decarbonization—but it does ask what the transition looks like when you account for materials, extraction, and infrastructure.
The clean energy transition is often framed as a straightforward swap: renewables replace fossil fuels, emissions fall, problem solved. But beneath that story sits a harder set of questions. How material-intensive is a renewables-led grid, really? What happens when you account for the steel, concrete, and critical minerals that make wind, solar, and battery storage possible? And if mining expands dramatically to enable decarbonization, what are the environmental and social trade-offs?
To explore these questions, I spoke with Saleem Ali, a systems scientist and industrial ecologist at the University of Delaware who studies the “materials–energy nexus”—the idea that energy systems are constrained not only by fuels and emissions, but by infrastructure, extraction, and supply chains. We talk about why wind and solar can be surprisingly material-heavy up front, how storage options like pumped hydro compare with large battery farms, why nuclear and biofuels remain part of the conversation, and what a more pragmatic approach looks like when every option carries trade-offs.
Links to Resources
- The fight over minerals for green energy — and a better way forward - Saleem's 2024 TED Talk
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:01):
I just present myself as a system scientist and
I say, look, let's look at thepros and cons.
We do an analysis, we havetechniques like life cycle
analysis, and you compare theimpacts and you make decisions
accordingly.
And I do say there's alwaystrade-offs.
It's a matter of whichtrade-offs you want to accept.
So I think if you approach itthat way rather than in a
(00:23):
dogmatic way, then people areunderstanding of it.
SPEAKER_00 (00:33):
Welcome to the Case for Conservation podcast, where
we make the case for conservingnature and its biodiversity by
building a robust, credibleargument, one that sometimes
requires us to re-examineconventional wisdom.
I'm your host, Andre Moto.
This episode does not argueagainst renewable energy, and
this should be stated up front.
Renewables are essential todecarbonization.
(00:56):
But it does ask what thetransition looks like when you
account for materials,extraction, and infrastructure.
The clean energy transition isoften framed as a
straightforward swap.
Renewables replace fossil fuels,emissions fall, problem solved.
But beneath that story sits aharder set of questions.
How material intensive is arenewables lead grid really?
(01:17):
What happens when you accountfor the steel, concrete, and
critical minerals that makewind, solar, and battery storage
possible?
And if mining expandsdramatically to enable
decarbonization, what are theenvironmental and social
trade-offs?
To explain these questions, Ispoke with Salim Ali, a systems
scientist and industrialecologist who studies the
(01:39):
materials energy nexus, the ideathat energy systems are
constrained not only by fuelsand emissions, but by
infrastructure, extraction, andsupply chains.
We talk about why wind and solarcan be surprisingly material
heavy upfront, how storageoptions like pumped hydro
compare with large batteryfarms, why nuclear and biofuels
(02:00):
remain part of the conversation,and what a more pragmatic
approach looks like when everyoption carries trade-offs.
I began by asking Salim how hisattention was drawn to this
topic in the first place.
SPEAKER_02 (02:19):
The the scale of the infrastructure investment around
wind power, particularly, Ithink that really made me very
conscious.
I remembered seeing one day thismassive um wind um tower being
transported, just the the toweritself.
And uh, you know, that was asmall one.
(02:41):
And then I was like, this isunbelievable.
The amount of infrastructurewhich we will need to actually
generate the kind of energy thatwe want requires a lot of
materials.
And I'm not even talking aboutthe critical minerals for the
magnets and all, just the steeland the aluminium and the
physical materials, concretethat's needed in many cases for
(03:03):
wind, particularly offshorewind.
It's phenomenal.
So then uh, you know, the rareearths uh crisis in 2012, that
really alerted the world to theimportance of these minerals for
the green transition.
This was when China clamped downon its supply of these minerals.
(03:25):
And at the time, a lot of theconcerns were around defense,
but in terms of volume, thematerials are needed far more
for green infrastructure,batteries and uh magnets, solar
panels themselves, and so on.
So, yeah, I mean, I think 2012was a real inflection point in
(03:46):
terms of global awareness.
And for me, I mean, as someonewho studies materials and as and
works on an industrial ecologyperspective around minerals,
I've always been interested inwhat we call the material energy
nexus.
You know, how much material doyou need to generate
electricity, not just from thepoint of view of fuel, but the
infrastructure you need toharness it?
(04:08):
So that's how I became veryinterested in this.
You know, and we also publisheda paper in 2022, which was
around the material needs uh foruh energy generation, and we
looked at the amount ofmaterials needed per terawatt
hour of electricity generation,and wind and solar are
(04:32):
astonishingly high in thatregard.
If you compare that to uh uh andhydropower also is pretty high,
but most of it is concrete.
And we, you know, that paper wasreally focused on that aspect of
this question.
But also in terms of uh fuelusage, of course, you do not
need fuel for wind and solar.
(04:53):
So you have the massiveinfrastructure cost up front,
but then you don't have the fuelcost, which you do have with
fossil fuels and for nuclearenergy, you also need fuel.
So, in terms of infrastructureper unit energy generation,
nuclear comes out really good interms of the amount of material
needed, uh, but you do need thefuel.
SPEAKER_00 (05:14):
Yeah, I guess I mean, just to kind of jump
straight into the the bigquestion, and I realize that
it's a really big one that youyou won't be able to answer
simply, but um, maybe we cansort of start digging at it.
And that question is like, whatis the true impact of renewables
versus fossil fuels versusnuclear?
I mean, this is kind of the bigquestion, right?
But I, you know, despite I mean,I'm a biodiversity guy, so I
(05:36):
don't really spend a huge amountof my time looking into this
specifically, but you know, uhchecking the news every now and
again and listening in onconversations among
renewables-oriented colleagues,I never really hear that
question answered.
Or if it is, then it'll be justsort of tiny little hints here
and there.
So you mentioned the fuel issue.
Renewables don't require fuel,and nuclear requires very small
(05:59):
amounts of fuel, but then thereare all these other material
costs that you spoke about.
And I'm particularly well, onething I'm particularly
interested in is batteries, youknow, and how they factor into
all of this because renewablesbeing non-baseload power, unless
they have an entire backupsystem, they're more or less
worthless without batteries,right?
So I'm sorry, I've crammed a lotin there, but the main question
(06:21):
is what is the true impact ofrenewables versus these other uh
traditional sources of energy?
SPEAKER_02 (06:27):
Yeah, I mean, you know, the battery uh storage
aspect is this major materialusage issue, except for if you
use a pumped hydro as a battery,you know, and that is possible.
Uh it depends on the topographyof where you are, then you don't
need the batteries which requireall these metals and so on.
SPEAKER_00 (06:48):
So, what you mean by pumped hydro is sort of on a
very large scale pumping riverwater back into a dam and
letting it run throughgenerators again?
SPEAKER_02 (06:56):
Essentially, what it means is like if you have solar
and wind being generated at acertain time when you can't use
it, instead of then putting itin a battery, you just use it to
pump water up uh a hill or youknow at a higher elevation where
it has potential energy, andthen uh it becomes like a
battery.
And when you need it, you justrun it down the turbine.
SPEAKER_01 (07:19):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (07:19):
So uh pumped hydro, I mean, overall, if you think
about energy storage capacity,you know, that is the largest
way in which we store energy.
It is true.
Hydro storing it in that way.
SPEAKER_00 (07:32):
So quite common, is it is that a common way of sort
of compensating for thenon-baseload nature of of wind
and solar?
SPEAKER_02 (07:40):
Yeah, it it is in certain areas where you have the
topography to do it.
Yeah, it's much more so at alarger scale, you know, you you
use it in that form.
Um, but um uh you don't havethat ability to do it in flat
areas, and you know, you yourbatteries give you far more
versatility.
(08:00):
So there is going to be thataspect of the importance of
these large battery farms for uhrenewable energy grids to be
effective uh down the road.
I think the role of uh naturalgas or biofuels particularly uh
is still going to be important.
(08:21):
I don't think that wind andsolar can on their own manage
this situation.
Uh and certainly nuclear canplay a role, but nuclear also
has its constraints because ofcost in many cases.
I think cost will go down, andnuclear certainly has many
carbon advantages.
So nuclear, I think, has afuture, definitely, and one
(08:42):
which needs to be explored, bothfission and fusion.
I mean, fusion until recentlywas very much pie in the sky,
but now it's becoming much morerealistic.
And even countries which areopposed to nuclear fission
energy, like Germany, they arevery amenable to nuclear fusion
energy research.
So that's one to keep an eye on.
And it's now much closer toreality than we would have
(09:05):
thought even five years ago.
But that too will have materialneeds, you know.
Like some of these companieswhich are developing nuclear
fusion reactors, they requireseveral critical metals of all
kinds.
You know, so so that they'rejust for the mechanisms by which
they'll generate the power.
In some cases, they're magnets,in some other cases, they're
(09:27):
different kinds of catalysts.
And so we'll have to keep an eyeon this.
But uh overall, when it comes tocoal, I think coal is definitely
on the exit.
You know, just the cost factorsare clear.
Uh, but natural gas and oil,we'll see, you know, how many
more years of transition weneed.
(09:49):
I think um we should keep an eyeon biofuels also.
I know for environmentalists andconservationists they have been
an ethema to them, but they haveversatility.
I mean, they do have it, theyhave the same advantages that
oil and gas have.
So for mobile fuels, for whenyou're talking about aircraft,
you know, you're talking aboutuh uh even some kinds of cars uh
(10:12):
where you may find them to bequite uh efficient.
So I think we we need to keepthat option open.
SPEAKER_00 (10:19):
Especially from a waste crop point of view, right?
I mean, if there are way, Idon't really know what the
figures are here, but I don'tknow.
There are basically twodifferent ways of using
biofuels.
SPEAKER_02 (10:28):
Either you grow a crop for the purpose of biofuel
or you use an existing crop withthe residue from an existing
crop for cellulose ethanol,yeah, you know, using the waste
material of plants more so, andthen using that to develop it
rather than using cash cropslike corn.
I mean, the bigger concern withbiofuels was when we were using
(10:50):
large amounts of land togenerate them and having
deforestation as a result andyou know, food security issues
so that the crops are beingreplaced.
But if you're using wastematerial cellulose, which is a
byproduct of the food cropproduction, you know, you have a
win-win, and there is much moregreat.
And then there's algae, ofcourse, which has a lot of
(11:11):
potential.
And we've seen massiveinvestment in algae for
biofuels, even with companieslike Boeing, you know, for
aviation fuel.
So I think part of the problemwith environmentalism is it
tends to become very nihilisticat certain levels, you know,
where like you can't do that,you can't do that.
It's like you can't do anything,and you just have to hunker down
(11:32):
and reduce consumption.
Well, the reality is, much as wemay want to, and yes, we should
try to aim to conserve andreduce consumption.
Uh, you have plenty of uh ofpeople in the world who are
already consuming too little.
You know, there's there's still800 million people without
electricity uh connections.
You can't expect them to consumeless.
(11:53):
So at some level, you will haveto consume more, and we have to
plan for these better, smarterways to do it.
SPEAKER_00 (11:59):
Right.
And I guess a big part ofsolving the future is to just be
open to all the possibilities,right?
You know, to keep all of thesecards on the table so that none
of them are ruled out umentirely.
Even the ones that are morepolluting, I guess, you know.
I mean, I guess the one thatcomes to mind there is, as
you've mentioned, is liquidnatural gas, which is, as far as
(12:21):
I understand, been responsiblefor incredible reductions in
emissions in the US inparticular.
And yet the more extremeenvironmentalists would want to
take that off the table entirelyin favor of renewables.
SPEAKER_02 (12:34):
Yeah, I mean, that was the big debate at COP30 was
you know, they could not getthrough, they wanted a complete
fossil fuel phase outcommitment, and they weren't
able to get that because of theconcerns that some kinds of
natural gas particularly will benecessary for the foreseeable
future uh to meet some of thesekinds of needs for fuels where
(12:58):
you don't have um flexibility uhfor the variety of reasons we've
talked about.
And hydrogen is going to bepotentially playing a role, but
right now a lot of the hydrogencomes from natural gas.
So then, you know, we have tothink about other sources.
Ammonia is the similarly the wayforward, potentially for
(13:19):
shipping.
You know, a lot of people arenow focusing on ammonia instead
of diesel, which is much betterthan diesel for shipping, but
most of the ammonia is producedfrom natural gas currently.
So, how do we get green ammonia?
And then that's going to be usedfor shipping.
Uh so that's beingcommercialized now slowly.
So there are going to be allthese other innovations which
(13:41):
which are derived from fossilfuels but are more efficient,
more effective.
SPEAKER_00 (13:47):
If you compare, I mean, I'm assuming that liquid
natural gas is probably thecleanest or the best of the
fossil fuel options.
Maybe there's something I don'tknow about there, but um it is
certainly one of the cleanest.
Um if you consider LNG and thencompare it with something like
wind or solar, and then you sortof tally up all the
(14:08):
environmental and maybe socialcosts as well, where do you end
up?
I mean, in fact, maybe put thesocial costs aside for a moment
because that makes things evenmore complicated.
But just in terms ofenvironmental costs, when you
take all of these materials andthe different materials that are
required for renewables asopposed to uh fossil fuels,
where do you end up?
I mean, is there a clear winnerin that race, or does it depend
(14:31):
very much on the context?
SPEAKER_02 (14:34):
Well, I mean, natural gas is in itself the key
transition fuel.
LNG is just the way oftransporting it, right?
SPEAKER_01 (14:41):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (14:42):
So um you can have pipelines or you can have LNG.
And pipelines environmentally,in many cases, for shorter
distances are much moreefficient than LNG because LNG
requires energy.
You have to first liquefy it,then you have to deliquefy it.
You know, if you just transportthe gas by pipeline, you don't
(15:03):
have to do that.
So that's one of the argumentsfor you know these pipelines
that were built from Russia toEurope, was they were much more
efficient because you didn'thave to do all this other stuff.
So Nord Stream and all thosewere, and the distance was not
that great, so it made sense.
For the US, they've used LNGbecause they can't build huge
(15:24):
pipelines across the Atlantic.
So that for very largedistances, like US exporting to
Asia, then LNG makes sense.
But uh pipelines should beconsidered.
Unfortunately, the geopoliticsmade pipelines problematic, and
it's a real pity that NordStream 2 was blown up by whoever
(15:46):
did it.
It's clear now the Ukrainianswere involved, though they have
arrested some people also now.
I mean, the Europeans realize itwas a crime, really.
And in fact, the carbonemissions of the Ukraine war, a
very large percentage, like 15%,can be attributed just to that
blowing up of the pipeline, uh,which was a horrible thing.
(16:07):
I mean, it maybe makes ageostrategic thing about Russia
and all that, but uh, you know,we've had these kinds of
blunders that have happened onboth sides of the political
spectrum.
So that's with the natural gas,the transport mechanism linked
to the distance, we have to keepan eye on.
Then there's the biogas, whichis not fossil fuels, but you
(16:29):
know, it's still methane.
It's coming from you findsources like landfills and all
to generate the methane, andthat methane can feed into the
same natural gas supply, butit's coming potentially from a
more circular economy source.
So it's also one to keep an eyeon how much we can generate
through that.
SPEAKER_00 (16:49):
Now, generally speaking, I mean, if you sort of
have a very short time toconvince someone of you know how
we should be focusing on energyproduction, would your point of
view be that you know we shouldkeep going with renewables, but
we shouldn't take other optionsoff the table?
Or would you be saying that youknow some renewables are really
just uh too energy intensive tobe worth considering?
(17:11):
You know, like what what's orare you purely are you just an
energy mix um advocate?
SPEAKER_02 (17:16):
No, I mean I think it you know we we need to uh
keep them in the mix.
And certainly wind power in theUS is astonishing that it is now
the largest source of renewableenergy in America, is wind
power.
Despite uh Trump's opposition towind power, the infrastructure
has already been put in.
It's more than hydro, which isastonishing.
You know, America, which builtthe great dams like the Grand
(17:38):
Coulee and Glen Canyon andHoover, it is now producing more
energy from wind than fromhydro.
And that's pretty good.
10% of the entire country'spower is coming from wind.
So it's already making animpact, and that it should
continue.
But 100% renewable, verydifficult in the foreseeable
future.
Perhaps in United, it's it'sdoable in the long run, but it
(18:01):
will require a massive amount ofinvestment.
It's it is physically possible,it's even financially possible,
but it will require that levelof investment, and we have to
then think about the impact interms of the material extraction
and all for making that work.
And you know, the case for usingnuclear and other sources to
supplement it is quite good.
(18:23):
Plus, you want to diversifybecause you want to have
resilience, you know.
The more the resilience of thedifferent sources, then the
better it is for you also in thelong run.
SPEAKER_01 (18:32):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (18:32):
And looking at mining in particular, as you
alluded to earlier, the the kindof mining required for coal
production, for example, is verydifferent to what is needed for
renewable energy production.
And I guess, very simply put,from a lay person's point of
view, when you dig for coal, um,I mean, it's almost 100% coal,
right?
That you're taking out of theground.
(18:53):
When you're mining forrenewables, uh including
batteries, assuming you don'thave the infrastructure and the
topography to do the hydropumping that you spoke about,
uh, you're probably going to bemining all sorts of different
chemicals, lithium, cobalt,nickel from different parts of
the world.
So how how does the I guess interms of quantity, the coal must
be far larger.
(19:13):
But then the type of mining andthe and the quality of mining,
is that so disproportionatelyharmful when it comes to
renewables compared to coal?
SPEAKER_02 (19:23):
You know, some of these metals have been mined
historically, like nickel, along history of mining nickel
for steel production.
Now we would be using the nickelmore for battery production.
So some of these are existingmines with new usage.
Uh, you know, we can have now amuch better circular economy
around iron and steel.
(19:46):
So maybe we don't need as muchmining for some of those other
kinds of materials.
And so we are able to, uh, andwe're also moving to composites
and other kinds of materials, sowe have less demand for certain
kinds of steel as a result.
So, you know, those mines whichwere producing nickel for those
sources could be used for this.
(20:06):
Um, the main new metal, whichhas not been mined before as
much, is lithium.
And because lithium is arelatively new metal in terms of
its massive usage, the way weare using it now for uh lithium
ion batteries.
And so for that, there has beena totally new industry
developing.
And um, there are different waysto mine lithium, some are more
(20:30):
problematic than others.
You know, in the the lithiummined in the Yatacama Desert, a
lot of opposition has come tothat because you need large
tracts of land, you have need alot of water in areas where
water is scarce, you have toevaporate these basins to get
the lithium.
But you have also some moreefficient ways of mining
lithium, like we have thegeothermal brines in Germany,
(20:53):
they've done a great job.
They're producing geothermalenergy and they're mining
lithium from you knowsubterranean sources.
So uh you have the salt and seain the US where there are
lithium deposits which can bemined in a much more
environmentally conscious way.
So there's a lot of good news onsome of these metals and mining
them efficiently.
(21:14):
Um, the rare earths are achallenge because the rare
earths are found in very lowconcentrations and they require
a lot of chemicals to make themuh available uh in economically
viable form.
And the there the concentrationin recycled products is lower
than in the ore.
So there's a very low economicincentive to recycle, to get to
(21:35):
get rare earths from recycledmaterials.
That may change.
It may require subsidies fromgovernments to encourage more
circular economy extraction ofsome of these metals, and then
you need less mining, so it'sless damaging.
Uh so I think we we need astrategy which considers all of
these aspects to it.
Uh, it can be done, it's notcompletely out of the question.
(21:57):
Plus, there's also thedevelopment imperative of
mining.
You know, that it does createjobs in places where you may not
have them.
So in Congo, you have cobalt.
Often people talk about all theproblems with cobalt in Congo
with child labor and so on.
But it is, you know, 60% of theworld's cobalt is coming from
there.
And it's a source of hugelivelihoods in a very poor
(22:18):
country.
So you have to think about alsothe livelihood opportunities
that are created by mining incertain areas where they don't
have many other alternatives.
And maybe it can kick startanother economy.
Certainly, your country oforigin, South Africa, is a
classic case.
There's no doubt South Africa'shuge development profile now
would not be there withoutmining.
(22:40):
You know, it has a servicesector economy, it has so much
else.
But the origin of the wealth,the capital generation came from
mining.
So the same is true in manyother places too, where it can
happen.
Botswana, your neighbor, is aclassic case, too.
You know, it is a country whichprovides free healthcare, free
education, all of that.
And there's no question it isbecause of diamonds, you know.
(23:02):
So mining can play a reallyimportant development role where
the case for it is more thedevelopment side, even if
there's an environmental costassociated with it.
And the biggest example of thatis gold.
I mean, there's from anecological point of view, we
shouldn't be mining gold.
We have more gold above groundthan is in economically viable
(23:24):
reserves, and it is actuallyeminently recyclable.
You know, it's lying in bankvaults, we don't even use it.
It's just an asset.
So we don't really need to minegold for utilitarian purposes,
but we do it largely because ofthe livelihood imperative.
There are so many countrieswhich depend on it.
And if we we if we use the goldin the bank supply, but the bank
(23:47):
vaults which is there, where wedon't even have a gold standard,
we don't necessarily need it inmany cases, it would still
create a huge problem forcountries like Ghana, whose
entire budgets are dependent ongold taxation revenue.
So these are other factors wehave to keep in mind.
SPEAKER_00 (24:07):
Does seeing as you mentioned gold, does gold have
any role in renewablesproduction?
Very minor, very minor.
SPEAKER_02 (24:13):
I mean, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:14):
Platinum is quite important, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02 (24:16):
Platinum is more important for hydrogen fuel
cells, the platinum groupmetals, the PGMs as we call
them, and South Africa is thelargest producer by far of the
platinum group metals.
So yes, uh, they are used morein catalysts and also in these
uh fuel cells.
But gold, very little in termsof you know, uh the most gold is
(24:39):
used in jewelry.
You know, 80% of gold is used injewelry.
Small amounts are used, yes, incertain medical equipment
devices, but that amount caneasily come from recycled
sources.
There's no mining imperative forit.
SPEAKER_00 (24:53):
Yeah.
Pardon my ignorance, but youknow, you mentioned rare earths,
and then you're talking aboutmetals like like lithium and
cobalt and nickel.
Uh, what is the difference?
SPEAKER_02 (25:02):
Yeah, so the rare earth elements, if you look at
the periodic table, you know,usually we refer to them as
those elements at the bottom ofthe periodic table, what we call
the lanthanides and actinides,the top uh row is the
lanthanides.
A lot of those are the rareearths, and sometimes people add
a few other metals which havesimilar characteristics also in
(25:23):
the periodic table, but withinthe transition metals, we call
those the transition metals.
Uh so the rare earths fallwithin that.
Lithium is totally different,it's the lightest metal on the
periodic table.
It is uh right under hydrogen,so it's very light.
It's in the same group aspotassium and sodium, so it's
not a rare earth, it's verydifferent in its uh chemistry.
(25:46):
Uh so rare earth, when we talkabout we're talking about
neodymium, dysprosium, europium,these kinds of metals which are
in that group.
SPEAKER_00 (25:54):
Okay.
And then just quickly to pick upon something else that you
mentioned, you know, about uhlithium mining in particular,
you said was a relatively newform of mining, or at least at
the scale that it's being donenow.
Is there still, I mean, I guessone form of mining can learn
lessons from other forms ofmining, but is it true that you
know a new form of mining isgoing to always be a little bit
more destructive to start offwith before they refine the way
(26:18):
of doing it and then it kind ofbecomes better, more efficient
over time?
Is that is that kind of part ofthe issue that you know maybe in
future lithium will become lessless of a destructive practice,
lithium mining?
SPEAKER_02 (26:29):
Well, you know, no, some of these new techniques
have been devised completely fornew deposits, like the German
ones I told you about thegeothermal brines, where they're
uh that's a very clean process,relatively speaking.
And it's new and it's a newdeposit.
Uh of course there's continuousimprovement with extraction
techniques, even withconventional mining.
(26:50):
But uh some of it has to do withthe kind of deposit that you
find, and then you you innovateto use the right technique to
extract from that.
SPEAKER_01 (26:59):
Right.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (27:00):
Then just to kind of move to kind of a different
topic, my perception is thatmany environmentalists are
relentless critics of fossilfuel and also nuclear fuel, so
uranium and and like and uhplutonium, I guess.
And yet they're very quiet whenit comes to, and maybe even
defensive when it comes tosimilar or worse impacts of
green mining.
And we've spoken a bit aboutthose impacts now.
(27:23):
But where do you think that sortof selective focus comes from?
You know, what's what's behindthat?
SPEAKER_02 (27:29):
Yeah, I mean, I think part of it comes from the
fact that they're looking at itas a planetary problem.
And, you know, climate changeand carbon emissions are
considered that kind ofmeta-level planetary problem.
Whereas these other issues we'retalking about extraction are
more at the site level.
(27:49):
And the environmentalists arecorrect that if you want to
compare extraction impacts, Imean, oil and gas extraction, if
you're comparing green miningimpacts, oil and gas extraction
has its impact too.
I mean, look at Nigeria and theNiger Delta.
It's a total disaster zone interms of the environmental and
social impact because it wasn'twell regulated at all.
You can have clean, cleaner waysof oil extraction, like Norway
(28:13):
has shown, and even in theocean, which is you know a very
delicate environment, but mostof Norway's oil comes from the
marine environment, and they'vedone a very good job in
extracting it responsibly.
So, both uh cases you can findways to do it right.
But at the same time, you havethis bigger problem that uh
(28:33):
you're there's a planetarychallenge of climate change.
And so, fossil fuels not onlyare they causing the extraction
problem, but they're causing theemissions problem.
And so, whereas with the greenmining, yes, there's the
extraction problem, but at leastyou are moving towards a
solution in the uh and in thelong run, you have once you have
that infrastructure, then youcan recycle it, you can
(28:54):
hopefully not need to go on andon extracting.
So there is this feeling that alot of times, you know, the
fossil fuel industry wants to uhstigmatize uh renewables through
this label of, well, they'remining and there's child labor
and all that.
But all of that also exists withwith the extra the oil and gas
(29:15):
industry.
So it's not like they'recompletely clean on that.
Um, but that leads me to thequestion of deep sea mining,
which is an interesting onebecause there you don't have as
many social problems because youdon't have communities being
displaced, but you have thisissue of biodiversity and
conservation, which is anunknown in terms of what the
(29:36):
impact will be.
But then again, it's all aboutthe trade-offs.
Then, you know, is it nickelmining in Indonesia and the
Coral Triangle, where you haveall this potential impact on the
marine and the terrestrialenvironment, versus nodules in
the deep sea, where you may haveunknown impact on these
ecosystems we don't know muchabout, but there's clearly not
(29:56):
any direct social impact.
Um, so you know, those are alsointeresting trade-offs we'll
have to consider moving forwarduh with reference to the green
transition matter uh elements.
SPEAKER_00 (30:09):
And and also, I guess, you know, purely from an
extraction point of view, andnever mind emissions, but from
an extraction point of view,I've got to imagine that the
number of holes in the ground,you know, sizes of holes in the
ground are required for coal, atleast for coal.
I guess oil and gas are a littlebit more tricky here, but at
least for coal is going to beyou know, orders of magnitude
(30:30):
larger than for for all of theuh materials required for
renewable energy, right?
SPEAKER_02 (30:35):
Well, you know, it's hard to say, you know, because
some of these metals are insmaller concentrations, so you
still have to extract a lot ofmaterial, process it.
You have tailings, you havewaste rock.
So, you know, the actual wastefootprint of certain kinds of
metal mining is can beconsiderable.
And with coal, you know, manycases we have high-grade coal,
(30:56):
you just start extracting a lotof coal mining is underground,
so you don't have necessarilyalways holes in the ground or
like open pit mines.
That's some of it is stripmining, but a lot of it has been
historically underground.
So, I mean, the bigger problemwith coal is occupational safety
and hazards because coal miningcan lead to combustible, very
(31:18):
dangerous situations, uh,similar to oil and gas
extraction.
Uh, and you don't have that withcritical metals, you know.
So you have, you know, t townsin Pennsylvania like
Centerville, which have beenburning for 30 years because
they just there's no way to onceyou have these coal gases that
have started ignition, you can'tput them out.
(31:39):
Uh, you know, those kinds ofchallenges you don't have with
the metal mining.
SPEAKER_00 (31:44):
Salim, in your in your work and your kind of
public outreach, you know, tothe extent that you do public
outreach related to your work,you're kind of taking a, I
suppose you could say, heterodoxor an introspective look at,
among other things, uhrenewables, mining, and the use
of renewables.
Do you get any kind of pushbackagainst that from the point of
(32:05):
view that, you know, youshouldn't be criticizing
something which is heading inthe right direction?
You know, we should all bepushing this renewables machine
forward and not uh, you know,not putting any pebbles in the
way.
SPEAKER_02 (32:17):
Yeah, no, I mean, you know, I I just present
myself as a system scientist andI say, look, let's look at the
pros and cons.
We do an analysis, we havetechniques like life cycle
analysis, and you compare theimpacts and you make decisions
accordingly.
And I do say there's alwaystrade-offs.
It's a matter of whichtrade-offs you want to accept.
(32:39):
So I think if you approach itthat way rather than in a
dogmatic way, then people areunderstanding of it.
And uh that's how I'veapproached it.
You know, I do get pushback,especially on deep sea mining,
because that right now that is akind of campaign which the
environmentalists have that issimilar to the anti-nuclear
campaign.
(33:00):
So it is like a non-negotiableissue.
They won't even hear anythingfavorable about it.
That's the only area where I doget some pushback because I'm
what I'm willing to say, well,wait a minute, let's just give
it a chance uh and see what therelative impacts are.
Let's consider the fact that ifthese metals are extracted from
the ocean, then we don't have tomaybe mine it in other
(33:23):
vulnerable ecosystems.
And we do have an internationalgovernance mechanism for deep
sea mining, which we do not havefor terrestrial mining.
We have no international legalmechanism to regulate
terrestrial mining, it's allnational laws.
Here you have an internationalgovernance mechanism through the
law of the sea convention.
So, you know, at least it givesan opportunity for uh standard
(33:47):
setting with greaterenforceability if we went
through that process.
And one of my concerns has beenthe environmentalists have
opposed deep sea mining andundermined the international
seabed authority and the law ofthe sea convention to the point
where countries like the US havesaid we'll just unilaterally go
ahead and do it.
(34:08):
And so, you know, they've kindof won the battle and lost the
war because then you have aworse situation.
Because if then any country sayswe'll just go ahead and do it in
the high seas, technicallythey're allowed to do it because
there's no international lawthat would prevent them.
But if they play by the rules,then you have a greater chance
(34:28):
to do it properly.
SPEAKER_00 (34:30):
So yeah, I I often find it is that unyielding, all
or nothing sort of attitude ofextreme environmentalism, which
does very often shoot itself inthe foot and uh just sort of
closes itself off to all sortsof solutions as well.
Uh so it can be verycounterproductive.
SPEAKER_02 (34:47):
Yeah, there's this moral hazard argument that
environmentalists use, which isa problem because it prevents
innovation.
A moral hazard argument beinglike, oh, if you present a
solution, then you won't solvethe original problem.
But the reality is you can'tjust solve the original problem
through reduction inconsumption, which is what
(35:08):
they're trying to do.
Uh in many cases, if you live ina free society, there are limits
to what you can curtail peoplefrom consuming.
And so then you have to figureout some other technological
options because otherwise you'relike you're you you are in a
losing proposition.
If you can't change behaviorcompletely, much as you wish to,
(35:29):
and you don't have a solution,then you're really lost.
So finding a solution shouldn'talways this moral hazard
argument shouldn't, it kind ofleads to paralysis, then you
don't move forward.
That is unfortunately what'shappened with some environmental
activism.
SPEAKER_00 (35:44):
Right.
That actually brings me verynicely to the last question that
I wanted to ask you, which waskind of what this means going
forward.
You know, given everything thatyou've seen, where do you think
we should be putting theemphasis to minimize harm
without losing progress?
I guess.
You know, should it bedramatically better recycling
and urban mining, substitutionof materials, technological
(36:05):
efficiency, tighter regulation,which is a very different kind
of approach?
Um the bigger role for nuclear,you know, uh or what kind of
combination?
You've already hinted that weshould be keeping all the
options on the table.
But what are the highestleverage moves right now, do you
think?
SPEAKER_02 (36:21):
Well, I mean, I think, you know, we have this.
I'm serving on the UN SecretaryGeneral's uh advisory board on
zero waste.
And in the zero waste movement,even though it's
thermodynamically impossible tohave zero waste, it's a good
aspirational goal.
We have this thing called thezero waste hierarchy, where you
you you go with that, you know,it's like, okay, you start off
(36:42):
with the fact that you want todesign products to reduce the
amount of material usage overallin consumption, but then you go
down the hierarchy and seeeventually it's like you want to
be able to then recycle, re-re,you know, refurbish.
You you have different ways indoing it.
And then the last one, which wetry not to even include in zero
(37:03):
waste, is then you you burn thewaste and make energy out of it.
But generally speaking, zerowaste people say don't do that
because that creates thatincentive.
But there's a lot of incentiveto just produce waste.
If you create make waste anasset then and to burn it, then
you were using it in the wrongway.
If you use it as waste as anasset, as a material asset, then
(37:24):
that's a positive.
Um so uh that's how that's thekind of approach I would try to
bring in.
Same with nuclear energy, youknow.
So, nuclear energy, we have nowreally good opportunities to use
nuclear waste to generate, youknow, reprocessing nuclear
waste.
And that's France has shownthere are two companies now
which are actually doing that.
(37:46):
So that's the best win-winoutcome you can have.
You can deal with uh, you know,nuclear waste and you can have a
circular economy around nuclearwaste and energy generation.
We'll have that potentially withthorium reactors if we develop
them and so on.
Same kind of approach beingapplied to nuclear energy as
well.
It has been expensive to make itwork initially, but uh I think
(38:10):
once it is upscaled, uh it'sit's a very good prospect moving
forward.
SPEAKER_00 (38:15):
What you said now reminds me of that reduce,
reuse, recycle slogan, you know,first first reduce, then reuse,
then recycle in that order, youknow, so going down the
hierarchy as you mentioned.
SPEAKER_02 (38:26):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And then in between we have someof these other ways of you know,
remanufacturing, alsoredesigning and all that as
well.
So that fits into the hierarchy.
SPEAKER_00 (38:37):
Right, right.
But it sounds like uh you are abit of a techno-optimist.
I mean, would you describeyourself uh that way?
SPEAKER_02 (38:44):
Yeah, I mean the you know the term techno-optimist
has acquired a negative labelalso in environmental circles.
I would say I'm atechno-pragmatist, you know.
I don't uh I don't say thattechnology is going to solve all
our problems, but at the sametime, I think technology is
essential to invest in becausewe cannot rely just on
(39:06):
consumption reduction, giventhat we live in often in liberal
societies where people have somelevel of individual choice.
You can educate them, you canregulate them, but there are
going to be limits to that, youknow.
And so in that context, we wehave to find some technologies
to be able to then address whenconsumption is continuing to
(39:27):
increase.
SPEAKER_01 (39:28):
Right.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (39:30):
Salimi, do you think there's anything that I should
have asked you that we didn'tget around to?
I mean, from my point of view,my sort of limited knowledge
point of view, I think wecovered a lot there, and that
was pretty comprehensive.
But do you think there's anymajor gaps there?
SPEAKER_02 (39:42):
Well, one thing I would mention to you is that,
you know, I've been advocatingfor a global governance system
around minerals.
And uh recently, actually, wepublished a paper in science,
and it was about the idea of aminerals trust for the green
transition.
That given we have all theseproblems and controversies about
minerals, and we have this raceto the bottom often occurring
(40:04):
between countries that aretrying to be self-reliant, but
then doing it by using veryecologically inefficient uh
deposits.
We should have a trust for thegreen transition of minerals,
where countries are feelingconfident that if they need
minerals for green technologies,that no one is going to
(40:24):
weaponize the supply.
So you have assurance.
So we argued for this, and itwas also published as a policy
brief with the United NationsUniversity, which you can have a
look at.
I think that's something that weare now working on to move that
forward as a policy innovationto prevent this conflict between
the US and the West and China,particularly on green uh mineral
(40:48):
sourcing, so that if there is atrust and you have both the
trustees would be both supplyingand consuming countries.
So there's more security aroundsupply for the green transition.
And we don't end up using newmines, opening new mines just
because people want to bemineral secure, but we use the
(41:08):
existing ones efficiently aslong as there's assurance on
trade that there will be supplysecurity through this trust
mechanism.
And there would also then be astockpile.
You could use the trust to leasemetals so that you have more
product takeback.
Uh, so metals which may be usedtemporarily for certain uses,
(41:29):
you could uh you know, releasethem back into the trust.
So it would be also a muchbetter way to have a circular
economy.
So that's something we've beenworking on.
I just present myself as a system scientist and
I say, look, let's look at thepros and cons.
We do an analysis, we havetechniques like life cycle
analysis, and you compare theimpacts and you make decisions
accordingly.
And I do say there's alwaystrade-offs.
It's a matter of whichtrade-offs you want to accept.
So I think if you approach itthat way rather than in a
(00:23):
dogmatic way, then people areunderstanding of it.
SPEAKER_00 (00:33):
Welcome to the Case for Conservation podcast, where
we make the case for conservingnature and its biodiversity by
building a robust, credibleargument, one that sometimes
requires us to re-examineconventional wisdom.
I'm your host, Andre Moto.
This episode does not argueagainst renewable energy, and
this should be stated up front.
Renewables are essential todecarbonization.
(00:56):
But it does ask what thetransition looks like when you
account for materials,extraction, and infrastructure.
The clean energy transition isoften framed as a
straightforward swap.
Renewables replace fossil fuels,emissions fall, problem solved.
But beneath that story sits aharder set of questions.
How material intensive is arenewables lead grid really?
(01:17):
What happens when you accountfor the steel, concrete, and
critical minerals that makewind, solar, and battery storage
possible?
And if mining expandsdramatically to enable
decarbonization, what are theenvironmental and social
trade-offs?
To explain these questions, Ispoke with Salim Ali, a systems
scientist and industrialecologist who studies the
(01:39):
materials energy nexus, the ideathat energy systems are
constrained not only by fuelsand emissions, but by
infrastructure, extraction, andsupply chains.
We talk about why wind and solarcan be surprisingly material
heavy upfront, how storageoptions like pumped hydro
compare with large batteryfarms, why nuclear and biofuels
(02:00):
remain part of the conversation,and what a more pragmatic
approach looks like when everyoption carries trade-offs.
I began by asking Salim how hisattention was drawn to this
topic in the first place.
SPEAKER_02 (02:19):
The the scale of the infrastructure investment around
wind power, particularly, Ithink that really made me very
conscious.
I remembered seeing one day thismassive um wind um tower being
transported, just the the toweritself.
And uh, you know, that was asmall one.
(02:41):
And then I was like, this isunbelievable.
The amount of infrastructurewhich we will need to actually
generate the kind of energy thatwe want requires a lot of
materials.
And I'm not even talking aboutthe critical minerals for the
magnets and all, just the steeland the aluminium and the
physical materials, concretethat's needed in many cases for
(03:03):
wind, particularly offshorewind.
It's phenomenal.
So then uh, you know, the rareearths uh crisis in 2012, that
really alerted the world to theimportance of these minerals for
the green transition.
This was when China clamped downon its supply of these minerals.
(03:25):
And at the time, a lot of theconcerns were around defense,
but in terms of volume, thematerials are needed far more
for green infrastructure,batteries and uh magnets, solar
panels themselves, and so on.
So, yeah, I mean, I think 2012was a real inflection point in
(03:46):
terms of global awareness.
And for me, I mean, as someonewho studies materials and as and
works on an industrial ecologyperspective around minerals,
I've always been interested inwhat we call the material energy
nexus.
You know, how much material doyou need to generate
electricity, not just from thepoint of view of fuel, but the
infrastructure you need toharness it?
(04:08):
So that's how I became veryinterested in this.
You know, and we also publisheda paper in 2022, which was
around the material needs uh foruh energy generation, and we
looked at the amount ofmaterials needed per terawatt
hour of electricity generation,and wind and solar are
(04:32):
astonishingly high in thatregard.
If you compare that to uh uh andhydropower also is pretty high,
but most of it is concrete.
And we, you know, that paper wasreally focused on that aspect of
this question.
But also in terms of uh fuelusage, of course, you do not
need fuel for wind and solar.
(04:53):
So you have the massiveinfrastructure cost up front,
but then you don't have the fuelcost, which you do have with
fossil fuels and for nuclearenergy, you also need fuel.
So, in terms of infrastructureper unit energy generation,
nuclear comes out really good interms of the amount of material
needed, uh, but you do need thefuel.
SPEAKER_00 (05:14):
Yeah, I guess I mean, just to kind of jump
straight into the the bigquestion, and I realize that
it's a really big one that youyou won't be able to answer
simply, but um, maybe we cansort of start digging at it.
And that question is like, whatis the true impact of renewables
versus fossil fuels versusnuclear?
I mean, this is kind of the bigquestion, right?
But I, you know, despite I mean,I'm a biodiversity guy, so I
(05:36):
don't really spend a huge amountof my time looking into this
specifically, but you know, uhchecking the news every now and
again and listening in onconversations among
renewables-oriented colleagues,I never really hear that
question answered.
Or if it is, then it'll be justsort of tiny little hints here
and there.
So you mentioned the fuel issue.
Renewables don't require fuel,and nuclear requires very small
(05:59):
amounts of fuel, but then thereare all these other material
costs that you spoke about.
And I'm particularly well, onething I'm particularly
interested in is batteries, youknow, and how they factor into
all of this because renewablesbeing non-baseload power, unless
they have an entire backupsystem, they're more or less
worthless without batteries,right?
So I'm sorry, I've crammed a lotin there, but the main question
(06:21):
is what is the true impact ofrenewables versus these other uh
traditional sources of energy?
SPEAKER_02 (06:27):
Yeah, I mean, you know, the battery uh storage
aspect is this major materialusage issue, except for if you
use a pumped hydro as a battery,you know, and that is possible.
Uh it depends on the topographyof where you are, then you don't
need the batteries which requireall these metals and so on.
SPEAKER_00 (06:48):
So, what you mean by pumped hydro is sort of on a
very large scale pumping riverwater back into a dam and
letting it run throughgenerators again?
SPEAKER_02 (06:56):
Essentially, what it means is like if you have solar
and wind being generated at acertain time when you can't use
it, instead of then putting itin a battery, you just use it to
pump water up uh a hill or youknow at a higher elevation where
it has potential energy, andthen uh it becomes like a
battery.
And when you need it, you justrun it down the turbine.
SPEAKER_01 (07:19):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (07:19):
So uh pumped hydro, I mean, overall, if you think
about energy storage capacity,you know, that is the largest
way in which we store energy.
It is true.
Hydro storing it in that way.
SPEAKER_00 (07:32):
So quite common, is it is that a common way of sort
of compensating for thenon-baseload nature of of wind
and solar?
SPEAKER_02 (07:40):
Yeah, it it is in certain areas where you have the
topography to do it.
Yeah, it's much more so at alarger scale, you know, you you
use it in that form.
Um, but um uh you don't havethat ability to do it in flat
areas, and you know, you yourbatteries give you far more
versatility.
(08:00):
So there is going to be thataspect of the importance of
these large battery farms for uhrenewable energy grids to be
effective uh down the road.
I think the role of uh naturalgas or biofuels particularly uh
is still going to be important.
(08:21):
I don't think that wind andsolar can on their own manage
this situation.
Uh and certainly nuclear canplay a role, but nuclear also
has its constraints because ofcost in many cases.
I think cost will go down, andnuclear certainly has many
carbon advantages.
So nuclear, I think, has afuture, definitely, and one
(08:42):
which needs to be explored, bothfission and fusion.
I mean, fusion until recentlywas very much pie in the sky,
but now it's becoming much morerealistic.
And even countries which areopposed to nuclear fission
energy, like Germany, they arevery amenable to nuclear fusion
energy research.
So that's one to keep an eye on.
And it's now much closer toreality than we would have
(09:05):
thought even five years ago.
But that too will have materialneeds, you know.
Like some of these companieswhich are developing nuclear
fusion reactors, they requireseveral critical metals of all
kinds.
You know, so so that they'rejust for the mechanisms by which
they'll generate the power.
In some cases, they're magnets,in some other cases, they're
(09:27):
different kinds of catalysts.
And so we'll have to keep an eyeon this.
But uh overall, when it comes tocoal, I think coal is definitely
on the exit.
You know, just the cost factorsare clear.
Uh, but natural gas and oil,we'll see, you know, how many
more years of transition weneed.
(09:49):
I think um we should keep an eyeon biofuels also.
I know for environmentalists andconservationists they have been
an ethema to them, but they haveversatility.
I mean, they do have it, theyhave the same advantages that
oil and gas have.
So for mobile fuels, for whenyou're talking about aircraft,
you know, you're talking aboutuh uh even some kinds of cars uh
(10:12):
where you may find them to bequite uh efficient.
So I think we we need to keepthat option open.
SPEAKER_00 (10:19):
Especially from a waste crop point of view, right?
I mean, if there are way, Idon't really know what the
figures are here, but I don'tknow.
There are basically twodifferent ways of using
biofuels.
SPEAKER_02 (10:28):
Either you grow a crop for the purpose of biofuel
or you use an existing crop withthe residue from an existing
crop for cellulose ethanol,yeah, you know, using the waste
material of plants more so, andthen using that to develop it
rather than using cash cropslike corn.
I mean, the bigger concern withbiofuels was when we were using
(10:50):
large amounts of land togenerate them and having
deforestation as a result andyou know, food security issues
so that the crops are beingreplaced.
But if you're using wastematerial cellulose, which is a
byproduct of the food cropproduction, you know, you have a
win-win, and there is much moregreat.
And then there's algae, ofcourse, which has a lot of
(11:11):
potential.
And we've seen massiveinvestment in algae for
biofuels, even with companieslike Boeing, you know, for
aviation fuel.
So I think part of the problemwith environmentalism is it
tends to become very nihilisticat certain levels, you know,
where like you can't do that,you can't do that.
It's like you can't do anything,and you just have to hunker down
(11:32):
and reduce consumption.
Well, the reality is, much as wemay want to, and yes, we should
try to aim to conserve andreduce consumption.
Uh, you have plenty of uh ofpeople in the world who are
already consuming too little.
You know, there's there's still800 million people without
electricity uh connections.
You can't expect them to consumeless.
(11:53):
So at some level, you will haveto consume more, and we have to
plan for these better, smarterways to do it.
SPEAKER_00 (11:59):
Right.
And I guess a big part ofsolving the future is to just be
open to all the possibilities,right?
You know, to keep all of thesecards on the table so that none
of them are ruled out umentirely.
Even the ones that are morepolluting, I guess, you know.
I mean, I guess the one thatcomes to mind there is, as
you've mentioned, is liquidnatural gas, which is, as far as
(12:21):
I understand, been responsiblefor incredible reductions in
emissions in the US inparticular.
And yet the more extremeenvironmentalists would want to
take that off the table entirelyin favor of renewables.
SPEAKER_02 (12:34):
Yeah, I mean, that was the big debate at COP30 was
you know, they could not getthrough, they wanted a complete
fossil fuel phase outcommitment, and they weren't
able to get that because of theconcerns that some kinds of
natural gas particularly will benecessary for the foreseeable
future uh to meet some of thesekinds of needs for fuels where
(12:58):
you don't have um flexibility uhfor the variety of reasons we've
talked about.
And hydrogen is going to bepotentially playing a role, but
right now a lot of the hydrogencomes from natural gas.
So then, you know, we have tothink about other sources.
Ammonia is the similarly the wayforward, potentially for
(13:19):
shipping.
You know, a lot of people arenow focusing on ammonia instead
of diesel, which is much betterthan diesel for shipping, but
most of the ammonia is producedfrom natural gas currently.
So, how do we get green ammonia?
And then that's going to be usedfor shipping.
Uh so that's beingcommercialized now slowly.
So there are going to be allthese other innovations which
(13:41):
which are derived from fossilfuels but are more efficient,
more effective.
SPEAKER_00 (13:47):
If you compare, I mean, I'm assuming that liquid
natural gas is probably thecleanest or the best of the
fossil fuel options.
Maybe there's something I don'tknow about there, but um it is
certainly one of the cleanest.
Um if you consider LNG and thencompare it with something like
wind or solar, and then you sortof tally up all the
(14:08):
environmental and maybe socialcosts as well, where do you end
up?
I mean, in fact, maybe put thesocial costs aside for a moment
because that makes things evenmore complicated.
But just in terms ofenvironmental costs, when you
take all of these materials andthe different materials that are
required for renewables asopposed to uh fossil fuels,
where do you end up?
I mean, is there a clear winnerin that race, or does it depend
(14:31):
very much on the context?
SPEAKER_02 (14:34):
Well, I mean, natural gas is in itself the key
transition fuel.
LNG is just the way oftransporting it, right?
SPEAKER_01 (14:41):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (14:42):
So um you can have pipelines or you can have LNG.
And pipelines environmentally,in many cases, for shorter
distances are much moreefficient than LNG because LNG
requires energy.
You have to first liquefy it,then you have to deliquefy it.
You know, if you just transportthe gas by pipeline, you don't
(15:03):
have to do that.
So that's one of the argumentsfor you know these pipelines
that were built from Russia toEurope, was they were much more
efficient because you didn'thave to do all this other stuff.
So Nord Stream and all thosewere, and the distance was not
that great, so it made sense.
For the US, they've used LNGbecause they can't build huge
(15:24):
pipelines across the Atlantic.
So that for very largedistances, like US exporting to
Asia, then LNG makes sense.
But uh pipelines should beconsidered.
Unfortunately, the geopoliticsmade pipelines problematic, and
it's a real pity that NordStream 2 was blown up by whoever
(15:46):
did it.
It's clear now the Ukrainianswere involved, though they have
arrested some people also now.
I mean, the Europeans realize itwas a crime, really.
And in fact, the carbonemissions of the Ukraine war, a
very large percentage, like 15%,can be attributed just to that
blowing up of the pipeline, uh,which was a horrible thing.
(16:07):
I mean, it maybe makes ageostrategic thing about Russia
and all that, but uh, you know,we've had these kinds of
blunders that have happened onboth sides of the political
spectrum.
So that's with the natural gas,the transport mechanism linked
to the distance, we have to keepan eye on.
Then there's the biogas, whichis not fossil fuels, but you
(16:29):
know, it's still methane.
It's coming from you findsources like landfills and all
to generate the methane, andthat methane can feed into the
same natural gas supply, butit's coming potentially from a
more circular economy source.
So it's also one to keep an eyeon how much we can generate
through that.
SPEAKER_00 (16:49):
Now, generally speaking, I mean, if you sort of
have a very short time toconvince someone of you know how
we should be focusing on energyproduction, would your point of
view be that you know we shouldkeep going with renewables, but
we shouldn't take other optionsoff the table?
Or would you be saying that youknow some renewables are really
just uh too energy intensive tobe worth considering?
(17:11):
You know, like what what's orare you purely are you just an
energy mix um advocate?
SPEAKER_02 (17:16):
No, I mean I think it you know we we need to uh
keep them in the mix.
And certainly wind power in theUS is astonishing that it is now
the largest source of renewableenergy in America, is wind
power.
Despite uh Trump's opposition towind power, the infrastructure
has already been put in.
It's more than hydro, which isastonishing.
You know, America, which builtthe great dams like the Grand
(17:38):
Coulee and Glen Canyon andHoover, it is now producing more
energy from wind than fromhydro.
And that's pretty good.
10% of the entire country'spower is coming from wind.
So it's already making animpact, and that it should
continue.
But 100% renewable, verydifficult in the foreseeable
future.
Perhaps in United, it's it'sdoable in the long run, but it
(18:01):
will require a massive amount ofinvestment.
It's it is physically possible,it's even financially possible,
but it will require that levelof investment, and we have to
then think about the impact interms of the material extraction
and all for making that work.
And you know, the case for usingnuclear and other sources to
supplement it is quite good.
(18:23):
Plus, you want to diversifybecause you want to have
resilience, you know.
The more the resilience of thedifferent sources, then the
better it is for you also in thelong run.
SPEAKER_01 (18:32):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (18:32):
And looking at mining in particular, as you
alluded to earlier, the the kindof mining required for coal
production, for example, is verydifferent to what is needed for
renewable energy production.
And I guess, very simply put,from a lay person's point of
view, when you dig for coal, um,I mean, it's almost 100% coal,
right?
That you're taking out of theground.
(18:53):
When you're mining forrenewables, uh including
batteries, assuming you don'thave the infrastructure and the
topography to do the hydropumping that you spoke about,
uh, you're probably going to bemining all sorts of different
chemicals, lithium, cobalt,nickel from different parts of
the world.
So how how does the I guess interms of quantity, the coal must
be far larger.
(19:13):
But then the type of mining andthe and the quality of mining,
is that so disproportionatelyharmful when it comes to
renewables compared to coal?
SPEAKER_02 (19:23):
You know, some of these metals have been mined
historically, like nickel, along history of mining nickel
for steel production.
Now we would be using the nickelmore for battery production.
So some of these are existingmines with new usage.
Uh, you know, we can have now amuch better circular economy
around iron and steel.
(19:46):
So maybe we don't need as muchmining for some of those other
kinds of materials.
And so we are able to, uh, andwe're also moving to composites
and other kinds of materials, sowe have less demand for certain
kinds of steel as a result.
So, you know, those mines whichwere producing nickel for those
sources could be used for this.
(20:06):
Um, the main new metal, whichhas not been mined before as
much, is lithium.
And because lithium is arelatively new metal in terms of
its massive usage, the way weare using it now for uh lithium
ion batteries.
And so for that, there has beena totally new industry
developing.
And um, there are different waysto mine lithium, some are more
(20:30):
problematic than others.
You know, in the the lithiummined in the Yatacama Desert, a
lot of opposition has come tothat because you need large
tracts of land, you have need alot of water in areas where
water is scarce, you have toevaporate these basins to get
the lithium.
But you have also some moreefficient ways of mining
lithium, like we have thegeothermal brines in Germany,
(20:53):
they've done a great job.
They're producing geothermalenergy and they're mining
lithium from you knowsubterranean sources.
So uh you have the salt and seain the US where there are
lithium deposits which can bemined in a much more
environmentally conscious way.
So there's a lot of good news onsome of these metals and mining
them efficiently.
(21:14):
Um, the rare earths are achallenge because the rare
earths are found in very lowconcentrations and they require
a lot of chemicals to make themuh available uh in economically
viable form.
And the there the concentrationin recycled products is lower
than in the ore.
So there's a very low economicincentive to recycle, to get to
(21:35):
get rare earths from recycledmaterials.
That may change.
It may require subsidies fromgovernments to encourage more
circular economy extraction ofsome of these metals, and then
you need less mining, so it'sless damaging.
Uh so I think we we need astrategy which considers all of
these aspects to it.
Uh, it can be done, it's notcompletely out of the question.
(21:57):
Plus, there's also thedevelopment imperative of
mining.
You know, that it does createjobs in places where you may not
have them.
So in Congo, you have cobalt.
Often people talk about all theproblems with cobalt in Congo
with child labor and so on.
But it is, you know, 60% of theworld's cobalt is coming from
there.
And it's a source of hugelivelihoods in a very poor
(22:18):
country.
So you have to think about alsothe livelihood opportunities
that are created by mining incertain areas where they don't
have many other alternatives.
And maybe it can kick startanother economy.
Certainly, your country oforigin, South Africa, is a
classic case.
There's no doubt South Africa'shuge development profile now
would not be there withoutmining.
(22:40):
You know, it has a servicesector economy, it has so much
else.
But the origin of the wealth,the capital generation came from
mining.
So the same is true in manyother places too, where it can
happen.
Botswana, your neighbor, is aclassic case, too.
You know, it is a country whichprovides free healthcare, free
education, all of that.
And there's no question it isbecause of diamonds, you know.
(23:02):
So mining can play a reallyimportant development role where
the case for it is more thedevelopment side, even if
there's an environmental costassociated with it.
And the biggest example of thatis gold.
I mean, there's from anecological point of view, we
shouldn't be mining gold.
We have more gold above groundthan is in economically viable
(23:24):
reserves, and it is actuallyeminently recyclable.
You know, it's lying in bankvaults, we don't even use it.
It's just an asset.
So we don't really need to minegold for utilitarian purposes,
but we do it largely because ofthe livelihood imperative.
There are so many countrieswhich depend on it.
And if we we if we use the goldin the bank supply, but the bank
(23:47):
vaults which is there, where wedon't even have a gold standard,
we don't necessarily need it inmany cases, it would still
create a huge problem forcountries like Ghana, whose
entire budgets are dependent ongold taxation revenue.
So these are other factors wehave to keep in mind.
SPEAKER_00 (24:07):
Does seeing as you mentioned gold, does gold have
any role in renewablesproduction?
Very minor, very minor.
SPEAKER_02 (24:13):
I mean, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:14):
Platinum is quite important, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02 (24:16):
Platinum is more important for hydrogen fuel
cells, the platinum groupmetals, the PGMs as we call
them, and South Africa is thelargest producer by far of the
platinum group metals.
So yes, uh, they are used morein catalysts and also in these
uh fuel cells.
But gold, very little in termsof you know, uh the most gold is
(24:39):
used in jewelry.
You know, 80% of gold is used injewelry.
Small amounts are used, yes, incertain medical equipment
devices, but that amount caneasily come from recycled
sources.
There's no mining imperative forit.
SPEAKER_00 (24:53):
Yeah.
Pardon my ignorance, but youknow, you mentioned rare earths,
and then you're talking aboutmetals like like lithium and
cobalt and nickel.
Uh, what is the difference?
SPEAKER_02 (25:02):
Yeah, so the rare earth elements, if you look at
the periodic table, you know,usually we refer to them as
those elements at the bottom ofthe periodic table, what we call
the lanthanides and actinides,the top uh row is the
lanthanides.
A lot of those are the rareearths, and sometimes people add
a few other metals which havesimilar characteristics also in
(25:23):
the periodic table, but withinthe transition metals, we call
those the transition metals.
Uh so the rare earths fallwithin that.
Lithium is totally different,it's the lightest metal on the
periodic table.
It is uh right under hydrogen,so it's very light.
It's in the same group aspotassium and sodium, so it's
not a rare earth, it's verydifferent in its uh chemistry.
(25:46):
Uh so rare earth, when we talkabout we're talking about
neodymium, dysprosium, europium,these kinds of metals which are
in that group.
SPEAKER_00 (25:54):
Okay.
And then just quickly to pick upon something else that you
mentioned, you know, about uhlithium mining in particular,
you said was a relatively newform of mining, or at least at
the scale that it's being donenow.
Is there still, I mean, I guessone form of mining can learn
lessons from other forms ofmining, but is it true that you
know a new form of mining isgoing to always be a little bit
more destructive to start offwith before they refine the way
(26:18):
of doing it and then it kind ofbecomes better, more efficient
over time?
Is that is that kind of part ofthe issue that you know maybe in
future lithium will become lessless of a destructive practice,
lithium mining?
SPEAKER_02 (26:29):
Well, you know, no, some of these new techniques
have been devised completely fornew deposits, like the German
ones I told you about thegeothermal brines, where they're
uh that's a very clean process,relatively speaking.
And it's new and it's a newdeposit.
Uh of course there's continuousimprovement with extraction
techniques, even withconventional mining.
(26:50):
But uh some of it has to do withthe kind of deposit that you
find, and then you you innovateto use the right technique to
extract from that.
SPEAKER_01 (26:59):
Right.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (27:00):
Then just to kind of move to kind of a different
topic, my perception is thatmany environmentalists are
relentless critics of fossilfuel and also nuclear fuel, so
uranium and and like and uhplutonium, I guess.
And yet they're very quiet whenit comes to, and maybe even
defensive when it comes tosimilar or worse impacts of
green mining.
And we've spoken a bit aboutthose impacts now.
(27:23):
But where do you think that sortof selective focus comes from?
You know, what's what's behindthat?
SPEAKER_02 (27:29):
Yeah, I mean, I think part of it comes from the
fact that they're looking at itas a planetary problem.
And, you know, climate changeand carbon emissions are
considered that kind ofmeta-level planetary problem.
Whereas these other issues we'retalking about extraction are
more at the site level.
(27:49):
And the environmentalists arecorrect that if you want to
compare extraction impacts, Imean, oil and gas extraction, if
you're comparing green miningimpacts, oil and gas extraction
has its impact too.
I mean, look at Nigeria and theNiger Delta.
It's a total disaster zone interms of the environmental and
social impact because it wasn'twell regulated at all.
You can have clean, cleaner waysof oil extraction, like Norway
(28:13):
has shown, and even in theocean, which is you know a very
delicate environment, but mostof Norway's oil comes from the
marine environment, and they'vedone a very good job in
extracting it responsibly.
So, both uh cases you can findways to do it right.
But at the same time, you havethis bigger problem that uh
(28:33):
you're there's a planetarychallenge of climate change.
And so, fossil fuels not onlyare they causing the extraction
problem, but they're causing theemissions problem.
And so, whereas with the greenmining, yes, there's the
extraction problem, but at leastyou are moving towards a
solution in the uh and in thelong run, you have once you have
that infrastructure, then youcan recycle it, you can
(28:54):
hopefully not need to go on andon extracting.
So there is this feeling that alot of times, you know, the
fossil fuel industry wants to uhstigmatize uh renewables through
this label of, well, they'remining and there's child labor
and all that.
But all of that also exists withwith the extra the oil and gas
(29:15):
industry.
So it's not like they'recompletely clean on that.
Um, but that leads me to thequestion of deep sea mining,
which is an interesting onebecause there you don't have as
many social problems because youdon't have communities being
displaced, but you have thisissue of biodiversity and
conservation, which is anunknown in terms of what the
(29:36):
impact will be.
But then again, it's all aboutthe trade-offs.
Then, you know, is it nickelmining in Indonesia and the
Coral Triangle, where you haveall this potential impact on the
marine and the terrestrialenvironment, versus nodules in
the deep sea, where you may haveunknown impact on these
ecosystems we don't know muchabout, but there's clearly not
(29:56):
any direct social impact.
Um, so you know, those are alsointeresting trade-offs we'll
have to consider moving forwarduh with reference to the green
transition matter uh elements.
SPEAKER_00 (30:09):
And and also, I guess, you know, purely from an
extraction point of view, andnever mind emissions, but from
an extraction point of view,I've got to imagine that the
number of holes in the ground,you know, sizes of holes in the
ground are required for coal, atleast for coal.
I guess oil and gas are a littlebit more tricky here, but at
least for coal is going to beyou know, orders of magnitude
(30:30):
larger than for for all of theuh materials required for
renewable energy, right?
SPEAKER_02 (30:35):
Well, you know, it's hard to say, you know, because
some of these metals are insmaller concentrations, so you
still have to extract a lot ofmaterial, process it.
You have tailings, you havewaste rock.
So, you know, the actual wastefootprint of certain kinds of
metal mining is can beconsiderable.
And with coal, you know, manycases we have high-grade coal,
(30:56):
you just start extracting a lotof coal mining is underground,
so you don't have necessarilyalways holes in the ground or
like open pit mines.
That's some of it is stripmining, but a lot of it has been
historically underground.
So, I mean, the bigger problemwith coal is occupational safety
and hazards because coal miningcan lead to combustible, very
(31:18):
dangerous situations, uh,similar to oil and gas
extraction.
Uh, and you don't have that withcritical metals, you know.
So you have, you know, t townsin Pennsylvania like
Centerville, which have beenburning for 30 years because
they just there's no way to onceyou have these coal gases that
have started ignition, you can'tput them out.
(31:39):
Uh, you know, those kinds ofchallenges you don't have with
the metal mining.
SPEAKER_00 (31:44):
Salim, in your in your work and your kind of
public outreach, you know, tothe extent that you do public
outreach related to your work,you're kind of taking a, I
suppose you could say, heterodoxor an introspective look at,
among other things, uhrenewables, mining, and the use
of renewables.
Do you get any kind of pushbackagainst that from the point of
(32:05):
view that, you know, youshouldn't be criticizing
something which is heading inthe right direction?
You know, we should all bepushing this renewables machine
forward and not uh, you know,not putting any pebbles in the
way.
SPEAKER_02 (32:17):
Yeah, no, I mean, you know, I I just present
myself as a system scientist andI say, look, let's look at the
pros and cons.
We do an analysis, we havetechniques like life cycle
analysis, and you compare theimpacts and you make decisions
accordingly.
And I do say there's alwaystrade-offs.
It's a matter of whichtrade-offs you want to accept.
(32:39):
So I think if you approach itthat way rather than in a
dogmatic way, then people areunderstanding of it.
And uh that's how I'veapproached it.
You know, I do get pushback,especially on deep sea mining,
because that right now that is akind of campaign which the
environmentalists have that issimilar to the anti-nuclear
campaign.
(33:00):
So it is like a non-negotiableissue.
They won't even hear anythingfavorable about it.
That's the only area where I doget some pushback because I'm
what I'm willing to say, well,wait a minute, let's just give
it a chance uh and see what therelative impacts are.
Let's consider the fact that ifthese metals are extracted from
the ocean, then we don't have tomaybe mine it in other
(33:23):
vulnerable ecosystems.
And we do have an internationalgovernance mechanism for deep
sea mining, which we do not havefor terrestrial mining.
We have no international legalmechanism to regulate
terrestrial mining, it's allnational laws.
Here you have an internationalgovernance mechanism through the
law of the sea convention.
So, you know, at least it givesan opportunity for uh standard
(33:47):
setting with greaterenforceability if we went
through that process.
And one of my concerns has beenthe environmentalists have
opposed deep sea mining andundermined the international
seabed authority and the law ofthe sea convention to the point
where countries like the US havesaid we'll just unilaterally go
ahead and do it.
(34:08):
And so, you know, they've kindof won the battle and lost the
war because then you have aworse situation.
Because if then any country sayswe'll just go ahead and do it in
the high seas, technicallythey're allowed to do it because
there's no international lawthat would prevent them.
But if they play by the rules,then you have a greater chance
(34:28):
to do it properly.
SPEAKER_00 (34:30):
So yeah, I I often find it is that unyielding, all
or nothing sort of attitude ofextreme environmentalism, which
does very often shoot itself inthe foot and uh just sort of
closes itself off to all sortsof solutions as well.
Uh so it can be verycounterproductive.
SPEAKER_02 (34:47):
Yeah, there's this moral hazard argument that
environmentalists use, which isa problem because it prevents
innovation.
A moral hazard argument beinglike, oh, if you present a
solution, then you won't solvethe original problem.
But the reality is you can'tjust solve the original problem
through reduction inconsumption, which is what
(35:08):
they're trying to do.
Uh in many cases, if you live ina free society, there are limits
to what you can curtail peoplefrom consuming.
And so then you have to figureout some other technological
options because otherwise you'relike you're you you are in a
losing proposition.
If you can't change behaviorcompletely, much as you wish to,
(35:29):
and you don't have a solution,then you're really lost.
So finding a solution shouldn'talways this moral hazard
argument shouldn't, it kind ofleads to paralysis, then you
don't move forward.
That is unfortunately what'shappened with some environmental
activism.
SPEAKER_00 (35:44):
Right.
That actually brings me verynicely to the last question that
I wanted to ask you, which waskind of what this means going
forward.
You know, given everything thatyou've seen, where do you think
we should be putting theemphasis to minimize harm
without losing progress?
I guess.
You know, should it bedramatically better recycling
and urban mining, substitutionof materials, technological
(36:05):
efficiency, tighter regulation,which is a very different kind
of approach?
Um the bigger role for nuclear,you know, uh or what kind of
combination?
You've already hinted that weshould be keeping all the
options on the table.
But what are the highestleverage moves right now, do you
think?
SPEAKER_02 (36:21):
Well, I mean, I think, you know, we have this.
I'm serving on the UN SecretaryGeneral's uh advisory board on
zero waste.
And in the zero waste movement,even though it's
thermodynamically impossible tohave zero waste, it's a good
aspirational goal.
We have this thing called thezero waste hierarchy, where you
you you go with that, you know,it's like, okay, you start off
(36:42):
with the fact that you want todesign products to reduce the
amount of material usage overallin consumption, but then you go
down the hierarchy and seeeventually it's like you want to
be able to then recycle, re-re,you know, refurbish.
You you have different ways indoing it.
And then the last one, which wetry not to even include in zero
(37:03):
waste, is then you you burn thewaste and make energy out of it.
But generally speaking, zerowaste people say don't do that
because that creates thatincentive.
But there's a lot of incentiveto just produce waste.
If you create make waste anasset then and to burn it, then
you were using it in the wrongway.
If you use it as waste as anasset, as a material asset, then
(37:24):
that's a positive.
Um so uh that's how that's thekind of approach I would try to
bring in.
Same with nuclear energy, youknow.
So, nuclear energy, we have nowreally good opportunities to use
nuclear waste to generate, youknow, reprocessing nuclear
waste.
And that's France has shownthere are two companies now
which are actually doing that.
(37:46):
So that's the best win-winoutcome you can have.
You can deal with uh, you know,nuclear waste and you can have a
circular economy around nuclearwaste and energy generation.
We'll have that potentially withthorium reactors if we develop
them and so on.
Same kind of approach beingapplied to nuclear energy as
well.
It has been expensive to make itwork initially, but uh I think
(38:10):
once it is upscaled, uh it'sit's a very good prospect moving
forward.
SPEAKER_00 (38:15):
What you said now reminds me of that reduce,
reuse, recycle slogan, you know,first first reduce, then reuse,
then recycle in that order, youknow, so going down the
hierarchy as you mentioned.
SPEAKER_02 (38:26):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And then in between we have someof these other ways of you know,
remanufacturing, alsoredesigning and all that as
well.
So that fits into the hierarchy.
SPEAKER_00 (38:37):
Right, right.
But it sounds like uh you are abit of a techno-optimist.
I mean, would you describeyourself uh that way?
SPEAKER_02 (38:44):
Yeah, I mean the you know the term techno-optimist
has acquired a negative labelalso in environmental circles.
I would say I'm atechno-pragmatist, you know.
I don't uh I don't say thattechnology is going to solve all
our problems, but at the sametime, I think technology is
essential to invest in becausewe cannot rely just on
(39:06):
consumption reduction, giventhat we live in often in liberal
societies where people have somelevel of individual choice.
You can educate them, you canregulate them, but there are
going to be limits to that, youknow.
And so in that context, we wehave to find some technologies
to be able to then address whenconsumption is continuing to
(39:27):
increase.
SPEAKER_01 (39:28):
Right.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (39:30):
Salimi, do you think there's anything that I should
have asked you that we didn'tget around to?
I mean, from my point of view,my sort of limited knowledge
point of view, I think wecovered a lot there, and that
was pretty comprehensive.
But do you think there's anymajor gaps there?
SPEAKER_02 (39:42):
Well, one thing I would mention to you is that,
you know, I've been advocatingfor a global governance system
around minerals.
And uh recently, actually, wepublished a paper in science,
and it was about the idea of aminerals trust for the green
transition.
That given we have all theseproblems and controversies about
minerals, and we have this raceto the bottom often occurring
(40:04):
between countries that aretrying to be self-reliant, but
then doing it by using veryecologically inefficient uh
deposits.
We should have a trust for thegreen transition of minerals,
where countries are feelingconfident that if they need
minerals for green technologies,that no one is going to
(40:24):
weaponize the supply.
So you have assurance.
So we argued for this, and itwas also published as a policy
brief with the United NationsUniversity, which you can have a
look at.
I think that's something that weare now working on to move that
forward as a policy innovationto prevent this conflict between
the US and the West and China,particularly on green uh mineral
(40:48):
sourcing, so that if there is atrust and you have both the
trustees would be both supplyingand consuming countries.
So there's more security aroundsupply for the green transition.
And we don't end up using newmines, opening new mines just
because people want to bemineral secure, but we use the
(41:08):
existing ones efficiently aslong as there's assurance on
trade that there will be supplysecurity through this trust
mechanism.
And there would also then be astockpile.
You could use the trust to leasemetals so that you have more
product takeback.
Uh, so metals which may be usedtemporarily for certain uses,
(41:29):
you could uh you know, releasethem back into the trust.
So it would be also a muchbetter way to have a circular
economy.
So that's something we've beenworking on.
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Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com