Critical issues
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) report titled Uyghurs for Sale: ‘Re-education’, forced labour and surveillance beyond Xinjiang claims that the Chinese government had facilitated the mass transfer of Uyghur and other ethnic minority citizens from the far western region of Xinjiang to factories across the country.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo some 40,000 children as young as four toil with their parents for less than $2 a day up to 12 hours a day. https://www.cfact.org/2020/08/09/renewable-energys-staggering-human-costs/
The Commonwealth of Australia – Modern Slavery Act No 153, 2018 Act requires entities based, or operating, in Australia, which have an annual consolidated revenue of more than $100 million, to report annually on the risks of modern slavery in their operations and supply chains, and actions to address those risks. Other entities based, or operating, in Australia may report voluntarily.
The Commonwealth is required to report on behalf of non-corporate Commonwealth entities, and the reporting requirements also apply to Commonwealth corporate entities and companies with an annual consolidated revenue of more than $100 million.”
(Commonwealth of Australia – Modern Slavery Act No 153, 2018 Clause 3)
SUPPORTING INFORMATION
More information can be found in a paper by Bill Stinson that can be accessed at this location. https://www.flickerpower.com/index.php/search/categories/renewables/21-2-environment-destruction-the-dark-side-to-renewable-energy
The ten phases in the RE cycle of environmental degradation.
Phase 1 – Raw material sourcing – Environment Destruction “A global “gold rush” for energy materials will take miners into remote wilderness areas (that) have maintained high biodiversity
Phase 2 – Raw material mining –
Phase 3 – Raw material processing - Environment Destruction, Human Rights Abuse, Toxic Waste Phase 4 – Approval – Supply Chains – Modern Slavery, Human Rights Abuse
Phase 5 – Fabrication – Large-Scale Environment Destruction
Phase 6 – Transportation Throughout the solar PV manufacturing process all of the materials and products must be shipped to and from more than a dozen countries around the world in large barges, container ships, trains or trucks – all powered by non-renewable oil
Phase 7 – Construction - Environment Destruction, Tenuous Supply Chain, Toxic Waste
Phase 8 – Operation - Environment Destruction, Flora and Fauna Destruction,
Phase 9 – Demolition and Rehabilitation
Phase 10 – Disposal - Environment Destruction, Toxic Waste
Consider copper. A hybrid car requires almost 90 lb (40 kg); a plug-in EV needs 132 lb (60 kg); and a big electric bus can use up to 812 lb (369 kg) of copper. If all 15,000,000 California cars were EVs, they would need almost 1,000,000 tons of copper.
But copper ores average just 0.5% metal by weight. That means 200,000,000 tons of ore would have to be dug up, crushed, processed and refined to get that much copper. Almost every step in that process would require fossil fuels”
(The staggering human costs of “renewable” energy – Paul Driessen - Energy - August 9th 2020, page 1)
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