Basic business

We are hurtling towards net zero but there are obstacles on the course. Pretty big ones.

Last year, wind and solar installations generated a record 22% of the European Union’s total electricity output. How cool is that, right? I’ll tell you — it’s not as cool as the fact that these two overtook coal and gas in the process. And they helped deal with the gap left by hydro because of the summer droughts. Well, they and some demand destruction.

Demand destruction aside, 2022 in Europe was basically the year of wind and solar. Don’t worry if you’re hearing it for the first time. I was kind of surprised, too. I mean, if wind and solar were the single (twin?) biggest source of electricity generation in Europe what was all the gas and coal fuss about?

Anyway, fuss or no fuss, we are “hurtling towards a clean, electrified economy,” in the words of the head data cruncher for Ember, which produced the report, and “this will be on full display in 2023.” Happy days are a-coming, then. Or not, because some people seem to worry about whether we have enough metals and minerals to make these happy days happen.

Take the London Metal Exchange, for example. Reuters earlier this month reported that LME’s inventories are depleted. That’s exactly the word they used — a scary, alarming word. Or probably alarmist. Because, according to a new study, we totally have all the metals and minerals we need for the transition to net zero. Yes, you read that right, we have the metals. There’s just one little problem and that’s getting them out of the ground.