REVERSE MINING
Mining produces pollution and greenhouse gases, our solution is to offset that with reforestation, tree planting and carbon sequestration.
The Problem
Mining, transportation and electricity production all produce pollution including greenhouse gases. Even windmills and solar panels produce pollution and greenhouse gases.
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Not when they are in place and operating. But to get them to operate needs mining, transportation, fabrication and recycling at the end of their lives and that all needs to be taken into consideration.
Solar requires minerals to be mined and transported, trucks built, dozers built, draglines built, trees cleared, roads built and ships, terminals, rail lines, ports all need to be built. They all use diesel and heavy fuel oil which is burned just for the mining to occur. That is all done before more electricity is used to manufacture them. Even the sheds that are built all need to be mined, transported, manufactured and then transported again and again.
Minerals mined include – aluminium, cadmium, copper, gallium, indium, iron, lead, nickel, silica, silver, tellurium, tin and zinc. Solar PV technology (also known as solar photovoltaic) converts sunlight directly into electricity using a technology known as a semiconductor cell or solar PV cell. The most common form of the solar PV cell is typically encased in glass and an aluminium frame to form a solar panel. It increases the need for energy storage units, both in the form of individual batteries for private use and on a large scale in electrical grids. This leads to demand for the minerals in lithium-ion batteries such as aluminium, cobalt, iron, lead, lithium, manganese, nickel and graphite. One solar panel and battery system require 17 mines to operate, plus an oil well and refinery to operate as well as a coal mine as most of the manufacturing in China used to make the Solar panels uses coal-fired electrical generation plants.
Wind-powered generators add the minerals molybdenum, rare earth oxides, gypsum, cobalt, shale, limestone adding another 6 mines and all the devastation, trucks, dozers, trees cut down and all the diesel and coal used to mine, transport, fabricate and then transport again. Wind turbines are also killing thousands if not millions of bats and birds. That is because they use the design of a propellor.
The old windmills in Australia used to pump water from the arterial basin for hundreds of years do not kill birds. The reason for this is they have many more blades like a jet turbine. The blades are closer together and therefore the birds do not try and fly through them and get hit by the blades. Turbine designs are more efficient and would kill fewer birds. Perhaps that design should be used.
There are thousands of wind generators sitting idly throughout the world and especially in California where they are deemed “not economically viable to repair”. Now it must be questioned as to how they were economically viable to be built in the first place if there were no tax incentives involved to manufacture them when a simple repair is not viable. That is before we must recycle them all and safely deal with all the toxic metals and all the deconstruction, demolition, transport and bringing the areas back to their original natural state. How many machines need to be manufactured and how much diesel do they burn to bring the area back to the way it was before the windmills were in place? Will the wind turbines ever produce enough electricity to offset those greenhouse gases?
Wind and solar also do not produce baseload power, which is needed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. For us to be able to use solar and wind we need other forms of electrical generation, be that gas, hydro, nuclear or coal. If we produce too much electricity at a given time, most of the electricity is lost and simply grounded as we cannot store it effectively.
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The best solar can hope to operate is about 6-hours a day and that is only in the sunnier areas. The best wind can hope to operate is also about 6-hours a day. In the real world, the best result is to produce electricity from solar and wind about 30% of the time. Germany doubled its capacity for solar and wind yet produced less electricity (source: stopthesethings.com) makes you wonder how long it will take to break even from all the pollution caused by mining if you take into consideration, we need other electricity to make up for the shortfalls from solar and wind.
Chemical batteries are not really a viable economic option as they are not able to hold enough to power cities. The largest battery in the world based in South Australia can only run the Tomago Aluminium smelter for about 5 minutes. Plus, we would need tens of millions of them worldwide and the devastation caused by all the mining would not be recouped. Then you still must produce the electricity to be stored in the batteries which are excess to all the electricity we already use.
Pumping water back into hydroelectric dams is about the best option for a battery that we have seen, it is much more efficient than a chemical battery and lasts a lot longer and loses no efficiency over many decades. The water can be released when electricity is needed at a later time, the same can be done with hydrogen which can be burned in generators when it is needed. Converting un-needed electricity into hydrogen production or pumping water back into dams makes a very efficient battery. There are issues with that however, firstly the water may be needed for people or irrigation in times of drought. Another issue is producing so many other electricity generators so that we have enough excess capacity to pump the water or make the hydrogen. No matter what sort of generators are used, their production, recycling, installation, transportation, maintenance all need to be taken into consideration and the greenhouse gases that are generated.
Baseload power is needed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That greenhouse gas production needs to be added into the figures and if that is done, solar and wind may not look as good as we all hope. What do we mean? Coal-fired electricity is used to produce power for the other 70% of the time and is also burning coal to keep the fires running so that we can have power when the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing, then those greenhouse gases or at least a percentage of their needs to be accounted to the solar and wind as they cannot operate without the backup power generation.
If a city needs 100MW as an example, then if the solar and wind are to be in place, we need another 100MW of backup power or double what we need. The issue then is if the solar and wind are producing 100MW what is happening to the backup power. If the backup power is hydro, it might be able to be turned off and used later? If the backup power is gas, it also might be able to be turned off. However it is more likely to be slowed down and just burn less gas, but it is still burning gas. If it is coal power, then it will be throttled back to perhaps 30MW so that it can be ramped up again reasonably quickly when needed. That coal pollution and greenhouse gas need to be added to the solar and wind greenhouse gas production as they cannot operate without the backup power.
Wind and solar also do not produce baseload power, which is needed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. For us to be able to use solar and wind we need other forms of electrical generation, be that gas, hydro, nuclear or coal. If we produce too much electricity at a given time, most of the electricity is lost and simply grounded as we cannot store it effectively.
Learn more
The best solar can hope to operate is about 6-hours a day and that is only in the sunnier areas. The best wind can hope to operate is also about 6-hours a day. In the real world, the best result is to produce electricity from solar and wind about 30% of the time. Germany doubled its capacity for solar and wind yet produced less electricity (source: stopthesethings.com) makes you wonder how long it will take to break even from all the pollution caused by mining if you take into consideration, we need other electricity to make up for the shortfalls from solar and wind.
Chemical batteries are not really a viable economic option as they are not able to hold enough to power cities. The largest battery in the world based in South Australia can only run the Tomago Aluminium smelter for about 5 minutes. Plus, we would need tens of millions of them worldwide and the devastation caused by all the mining would not be recouped. Then you still must produce the electricity to be stored in the batteries which are excess to all the electricity we already use.
Pumping water back into hydroelectric dams is about the best option for a battery that we have seen, it is much more efficient than a chemical battery and lasts a lot longer and loses no efficiency over many decades. The water can be released when electricity is needed at a later time, the same can be done with hydrogen which can be burned in generators when it is needed. Converting un-needed electricity into hydrogen production or pumping water back into dams makes a very efficient battery. There are issues with that however, firstly the water may be needed for people or irrigation in times of drought. Another issue is producing so many other electricity generators so that we have enough excess capacity to pump the water or make the hydrogen. No matter what sort of generators are used, their production, recycling, installation, transportation, maintenance all need to be taken into consideration and the greenhouse gases that are generated.
Baseload power is needed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That greenhouse gas production needs to be added into the figures and if that is done, solar and wind may not look as good as we all hope. What do we mean? Coal-fired electricity is used to produce power for the other 70% of the time and is also burning coal to keep the fires running so that we can have power when the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing, then those greenhouse gases or at least a percentage of their needs to be accounted to the solar and wind as they cannot operate without the backup power generation.
If a city needs 100MW as an example, then if the solar and wind are to be in place, we need another 100MW of backup power or double what we need. The issue then is if the solar and wind are producing 100MW what is happening to the backup power. If the backup power is hydro, it might be able to be turned off and used later? If the backup power is gas, it also might be able to be turned off. However it is more likely to be slowed down and just burn less gas, but it is still burning gas. If it is coal power, then it will be throttled back to perhaps 30MW so that it can be ramped up again reasonably quickly when needed. That coal pollution and greenhouse gas need to be added to the solar and wind greenhouse gas production as they cannot operate without the backup power.
We are all about solutions, but we need real solutions that stop pollution and greenhouse gas production, not merely window dressing and for that to happen we need to look at all aspects.
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Think of it this way, if a coal-fired power station burns 10,000 tonnes of coal per week to supply electricity, ideally, we need to be able to burn no coal or as little as possible to prevent pollution and greenhouse gas production. If the power station burns less coal because of solar and wind, say down to 6,000 tonnes, then we have saved 4,000 tonne of coal which is fantastic, but it still needs to burn 6,000 tonnes of coal, which is not zero.
Some electricity producers want to turn off coal so that they can sell their gas electricity at the highest possible prices to increase their profits, which will mean massive increases in power bills which will affect the less affluent people within our community. Clearly not the ideal solution. Some of the 6,000 tonnes of coal being burned will be being burned to produce waste electricity when the solar and wind are at full production. That coal needs to be added to the balance sheet of the solar and wind because the solar and wind plants need the coal to be able to ensure electricity is available 24/7. Only when we can turn the coal plants off and get electricity 24/7 can we take that burned coal out of the equation which is what our aim is with the Rewards4Earth Foundation clean energy technology mandate.
Reverse Mining
Mining means taking something out of the ground and using it. If we use coal as an example, we take the coal out of the ground and burn it to make electricity. Coal produces greenhouse gases and mostly Carbon Dioxide which stays in our atmosphere. With our Reverse Mining strategy, we put resources via the Erth Point system into taking that Carbon Dioxide back out of the atmosphere. We either do that by planting trees, which breathe in Carbon Dioxide and hold that in their wood, or we scrape Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere and put that into a slurry and pump it into disused mines thereby completing the process of REVERSE MINING.
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Mining Coal and oil may be the most intensive way of producing Greenhouse gases, but every mine produces greenhouse gases. From cutting down trees for the mine to start production, to building mining trucks, scrapers, dozers and draglines. Then we have all the trucks, trains and ships which transport it from the mine to the port to the next port and then from the port, to where it is used. If those minerals are then used to build something like a smartphone or a solar panel, electricity is used and then you have more transport from other factories and then out to stores and then perhaps even delivered to your home. All of that uses diesel, heavy fuel oil, coal or gas in one way or another.
Even mining Bitcoin causes greenhouse gases to be produced as mining Bitcoin consumes massive amounts of electricity. Mining usually occurs in China where they use coal to produce electricity. Please be aware that not all cryptocurrency is mined like Bitcoin and especially Erth Points which use almost no electricity with the initial production of Erth Points.
Reverse Mining
Mining means taking something out of the ground and using it. If we use coal as an example, we take the coal out of the ground and burn it to make electricity. Coal produces greenhouse gases and mostly Carbon Dioxide which stays in our atmosphere. With our Reverse Mining strategy, we put resources via the Erth Point System into taking that Carbon Dioxide back out of the atmosphere. We either do that by planting trees, which breathe in Carbon Dioxide and hold that in their wood, or we scrape Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere and put that into a slurry and pump it into disused mines thereby completing the process of REVERSE MINING.
Learn more
Mining Coal and oil may be the most intensive way of producing Greenhouse gases, but every mine produces greenhouse gases. From cutting down trees for the mine to start production, to building mining trucks, scrapers, dozers and draglines. Then we have all the trucks, trains and ships which transport it from the mine to the port to the next port and then from the port, to where it is used. If those minerals are then used to build something like a smartphone or a solar panel, electricity is used and then you have more transport from other factories and then out to stores and then perhaps even delivered to your home. All of that uses diesel, heavy fuel oil, coal or gas in one way or another.
Even mining Bitcoin causes greenhouse gases to be produced as mining Bitcoin consumes massive amounts of electricity. Mining usually occurs in China where they use coal to produce electricity. Please be aware that not all cryptocurrency is mined like Bitcoin and especially Erth Points which use almost no electricity with the initial production of Erth Points.
Erth Point Solution
Some say “leave the coal in the ground”. We should also, therefore, leave all the oil, iron ore and all the other minerals in the ground as mining them and manufacturing them into products such as smartphones also produces massive amounts of greenhouse gases and pollution. Some articles suggest that a smartphone will create about 30% of the pollution caused by manufacturing a new small car – scary stuff.
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No mining is a wonderful dream, but also not possible if we want to produce solar and wind electricity or indeed have electricity, not to mention having our lights on and our jobs. If we are to have modern conveniences and the electricity to run them, we need to mine.
The Erth Point Solution is not for companies to stop mining or for us all to stop using electricity, but for those businesses to purchase Erth Points and those are used to plant trees, create reforestation and sequestrate carbon. We realise that this is not the perfect solution, but it is the best solution that we have, and the more people that start to influence or dare we, say pressure businesses to be part of the Erth Point System, the more we can do to combat the effects of mining, transportation and electricity production.
We also believe that the larger the carbon footprint the more trees they should plant and the more carbon they should be required to sequester.
The Erth Point System works with buying a cup of coffee where maybe $0.10 goes to save the planet or when you spend $200 on buying groceries where at least $2.20 goes to save the planet and it works with all other shopping. It also works when an Iron Ore or other mine sells a shipload of 400,000 tonnes at $200 per ton for a total of $80,000,000 and they purchase Erth Points so that perhaps $1,000,000 goes to help save the planet. That adds up to a lot of money and a lot that can be done to help save the planet. It can work with the shipping company where they charge $5,000,000 per shipload to transport mined minerals, where a percentage of that is used to purchase Erth Points to help save the planet.
It can work with Air Travel where an airline could sell a $1,000 ticket and $18 went to offset the fuel used in the travel, and the flyer collected $18 worth of Erth Points that have a real value that fluctuates, which means it can increase in value rather than just decreasing in value like Frequent Flyer (FF) points. Thousand of Frequent Flyers every day currently pay perhaps $100 extra to earn FF points that expire and go down in value. Imagine how many people would want to earn Erth Points, which can go up in value, support their favourite ECO – Environmental and/or Community Organisations and also help to save the Planet.
The customer can still earn their FF points or other loyalty points, plus our Erth Points. They could earn FlyBuys points from shopping at Coles, plus their Qantas FF points from using their credit card, plus the Erth Points, which would be triple the points. The same can be done with Electricity, every time we pay an electricity bill. From $2,000 per year, perhaps $60 can be used to reward customers, support ECO – Environmental and/or Community Organisation and help save the planet.
Imagine how much we can do to help save the planet if every time we spent money at any business, and every time a plane flew, and every time a mine sold some minerals, a small percentage went to save the Planet. Imagine how many businesses would want to be part of the system to attract new customers, to keep all customers coming back, to support ECOs and to help save the Planet.
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Imagine if all the extinction rebellion people started influencing businesses to do something productive and be part of the Erth Point System rather than simply disrupting everything. Imagine if all the eco-warriors from Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd joined with every other environmental organisation’s supporters to influence businesses to be part of the Erth Point System how many businesses would contribute.
Imagine if all the environmental supporters teamed up with all the supporters of the football, basketball, baseball, soccer, cricket, rugby league and every sport, with the religious followers and the charity supporters, to influence and pressure businesses to be part of the Erth Point System. This would add up to be Trillions of dollars per year going to help save the planet worldwide.
By having consumers be able to collect Erth Points, those consumers also get to see which businesses are doing their bit to help save planet Earth by being part of the Erth Point System. If customers see that a business that they are a patron of is not carrying its weight and is not part of the Erth Point System, they can subtly suggest that they would be much happier if the business was helping to save the Planet. If that doesn’t work, they can suggest they will be taking their patronage and therefore money to a business that does contribute to saving the Planet.
Businesses currently spend hundreds of billions trying to attract customers. Losing a customer is perhaps even more costly. Imagine if the supporters of every Charity, every Church, every Club member, every sports supporter and every person that has ever helped a Not-for-profit banded together to influence, or even demand that every business be part of the Erth Point System. That would mean every business would have to be part of the system and that would mean that part of every transaction from every business in the world would go towards helping save the Planet.
Imagine how much we can do to help save the planet if every time we spent money at any business, and every time a plane flew, and every time a mine sold some minerals, a small percentage went to save the Planet. Imagine how many businesses would want to be part of the system to attract new customers, to keep all customers coming back, to support ECOs and to help save the Planet.
Learn more
Imagine if all the extinction rebellion people started influencing businesses to do something productive and be part of the Erth Point System rather than simply disrupting everything. Imagine if all the eco-warriors from Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd joined with every other environmental organisation’s supporters to influence businesses to be part of the Erth Point System how many businesses would contribute.
Imagine if all the environmental supporters teamed up with all the supporters of the football, basketball, baseball, soccer, cricket, rugby league and every sport, with the religious followers and the charity supporters, to influence and pressure businesses to be part of the Erth ™ point system. This would add up to be Trillions of dollars per year going to help save the planet worldwide.
By having consumers be able to collect Erth Points, those consumers also get to see which businesses are doing their bit to help save planet Earth by being part of the Erth Point System. If customers see that a business that they are a patron of is not carrying its weight and is not part of the Erth Point System, they can subtly suggest that they would be much happier if the business was helping to save the Planet. If that doesn’t work, they can suggest they will be taking their patronage and therefore money to a business that does contribute to saving the Planet.
Businesses currently spend hundreds of billions trying to attract customers. Losing a customer is perhaps even more costly. Imagine if the supporters of every Charity, every Church, every Club member, every sports supporter and every person that has ever helped a Not-for-profit banded together to influence, or even demand that every business be part of the Erth Point System. That would mean every business would have to be part of the system and that would mean that part of every transaction from every business in the world would go towards helping save the Planet.