Out of the blue, this video of someone I’d never heard of before came up on my feed. It sure looked interesting, and by the time I was half way through, I thought, “this guy is on the money, he’s even on Simon’s page”! But I was wrong….. How anyone smart enough to show the best explanation of climate change and its repercussion on the food supply I’ve ever seen could not know about peak oil is really amazing…
Adam Simon is an associate professor of mineral resources with the University of Michigan‘s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. When you google him with oil or peak oil as search terms, you get nothing. Bizarre…
He’s also wrong about American mining safety. https://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/13/us/u-s-mine-disasters-fast-facts/index.html
And as I suspected, he’s also wrong about renewable energy being cheaper. Everywhere I have looked, the deeper the penetration of renewable energy, the costlier electricity is, and Texas is no exception.
Damn the Matrix 
Yes. Weird. Seems that academics get a name by honing in on a specialised little niche of knowledge that gives them professional standing, but that niche need not relate to total systems.
That’s precisely why I love guys like William Rees, Alice Friedemann and Charles Hall, they know how to think in systems. I’m still amazed by the fact that Charlie Hall is an ecologist that created the concept of EROEI. I thought he was an engineer.
Mike, on this topic of minerals and for you to have more material to debunk ecomodernists, I would also recommend the work of Dr. Alicia Valero from Zaragoza University, a chemical engineer and one of the foremost experts in her field. She reached similar conclusions on mineral limits and the impossibilities of a circular economy as Michaux.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alicia-Valero
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-78533-8
I found him to be quite a good speaker and presenter. Great use of graphics. Really brings the message home re climate change. (And resulting crop failures from that) . Maybe you should email him, Mike, attaching YouTube talks and articles from Simon and the others you mentioned above – in addition, maybe, to an article from the Do the Maths physics professor – all showing the great difficulty of ‘electrifying’ everything.
It would be interesting to get his response.
Actually I think I had been looking at another talk of his – where he shows the impact on crops by climate change. (No mention of the impact on crops by peak oil though).
Anyway, in this video, his bottom line is basically that because of the huge amount of minerals and metals needed to transition to alternative energy, it’s necessary to significantly expand mining in the US – where he claims, there are abundant resources. No mention of the conventional energy (especially oil) that it will take to do all this mining. No mention of where other smaller countries might get all the minerals required.
He also seems to dismiss the environmental and social impacts of extensive mining. Personally, I’d rather be dead than live next to a mine and deal with its effects on air and water quality, flora and fauna die off and noise pollution. Of course, the rich captains of industry will always have their green oases to retreat to.
Like most commentators he also has nothing to say about the need for less consumption and simpler lifestyles. Maybe that’s because he knows that a great many people in the developed world will strongly resist that…
I reckon that the only thing that might save our planet, including the remaining biodiversity on it, is a big human population crash – which is on the cards anyway because of likely food, water and oil shortages in the near future.
This dude forgot to tell that all this mining megalomania of his will only support one generation of renewable energy and one generation of electrical vehicles . And thats only passenger cars . And of course no problem with interference with aolar and wind farms with crops since some dude just was leasing some land out and it worked out fine . This dude is not a completely clueless just 50% moronic but thats what exactly makes him dangerous deluding himself and others
To be honest, he (and many like him) probably have to partake in Hopium because he teaches at University. Look what happened to Guy McPherson when he tried to tell his students the awful truth.
And, let’s face it, the majority of people won’t accept the truth (at this time). I follow Reddit Collapse from time to time and people have commented how even close relatives simply don’t want to know.
It’s the same reason why religion has always existed – to have the hope and peace of mind that comes with a belief in an afterlife and not have to deal with the end of existence.
Here’s the counter arguments which I always try to look at. (But I confess that I haven’t read it yet – but it looks interesting)
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/eenews/f/eenews/?id=00000185-e562-de44-a7bf-ed7751a00000
Just for those who might need a dash of hopium….
Besides Any lecture wich doesn’t allows to comments arguments on its you tube video stream can’t be taken seriously since somebody who wont take questions and engages in a discussion on his or her subject matter already excercise an imperialist censorship and with that becomes highly suspect of the validity of its claims of the subject matter