Unless I missed it, there is not a single essay here about actually building something of scale other than technological-intellectual-sociological constructs. Nothing about actually building future infrastructure or extracting materials to satisfy the demands of future infrastructure - real construction. To accomplish any one of the goal…
Unless I missed it, there is not a single essay here about actually building something of scale other than technological-intellectual-sociological constructs. Nothing about actually building future infrastructure or extracting materials to satisfy the demands of future infrastructure - real construction. To accomplish any one of the goals laid out by this essay series, we have to have a robust natural resource development environment. That is the very foundation of all of our other industries. You can't have an electronics industry without tin. Tin is the solder or glue that holds all electrical components together. Tin comes from gigantic holes in the Earth where huge mining machines and ore mills and refineries are necessary. All of this requires a tremendous amount of energy to power and make it move. If you're not willing to do all of this then you can't have the electrical/electronic part.
People are flip these days about popular themes like "the electrification of everything" or "no more oil" without putting a second's worth of thought into where all of this stuff that will be needed to "electrify" everything or replace petroleum is going to come from. When Biden reeled off his declaration that by 2030, half of vehicles on America's highways will be EVs, he wasn't giving permission to our mining industry to produce five times as much copper as we're producing today in order to meet his 2030 mandate. Instead, he's killing copper mining projects in America. His very first act as POTUS was to place a 100-day moratorium on review of all development projects on federal lands. It's been a slow drip of approvals since then. A federal court had to actually order the Biden admin to conduct a lease sale, that it had been sitting on, thereby obstructing law. Government dysfunction has never been worse.
Unless I missed it, there is not a single essay here about actually building something of scale other than technological-intellectual-sociological constructs. Nothing about actually building future infrastructure or extracting materials to satisfy the demands of future infrastructure - real construction. To accomplish any one of the goals laid out by this essay series, we have to have a robust natural resource development environment. That is the very foundation of all of our other industries. You can't have an electronics industry without tin. Tin is the solder or glue that holds all electrical components together. Tin comes from gigantic holes in the Earth where huge mining machines and ore mills and refineries are necessary. All of this requires a tremendous amount of energy to power and make it move. If you're not willing to do all of this then you can't have the electrical/electronic part.
People are flip these days about popular themes like "the electrification of everything" or "no more oil" without putting a second's worth of thought into where all of this stuff that will be needed to "electrify" everything or replace petroleum is going to come from. When Biden reeled off his declaration that by 2030, half of vehicles on America's highways will be EVs, he wasn't giving permission to our mining industry to produce five times as much copper as we're producing today in order to meet his 2030 mandate. Instead, he's killing copper mining projects in America. His very first act as POTUS was to place a 100-day moratorium on review of all development projects on federal lands. It's been a slow drip of approvals since then. A federal court had to actually order the Biden admin to conduct a lease sale, that it had been sitting on, thereby obstructing law. Government dysfunction has never been worse.
Hear, Hear!