In his latest blog article, minerals industry veteran, Prof. Barry Wills shines a light upon the vast quantities of energy and raw materials that will be required to ‘fuel’ and deliver the UK’s “Green Industrial Revolution” – something which is perhaps overlooked, by many.
At the moment, the mining, processing/extraction and refining sectors (which consume vast amounts of energy, largely relying upon fossil fuels) are suffering greatly, at the hands of unsustainable practices, historically and still ongoing overseas. Many companies, a number in the UK, are setting out to change/modernise these practices, in order for them to become more sustainable. However, capital investment is scarce and their ‘social licence to operate’ is on the line – inevitably, there will be long-term repercussions for supply. Yet, the fact remains – these industries are needed to deliver the huge quantities of materials (including copper, neodymium and lithium) needed to construct wind turbines. These are not small quantities either, as the article points out.
Much of the same can be said of the natural gas sector, which can be extracted from a number of sources, each with its own unique set of environmental implications. Unsustainable practices are still widespread (flaring, venting, fugitive emissions, low efficiency operations, to name a few) but many companies, including Gas2Wire Ventures in the UK, are setting out to modernise these practices, in order for them to become more sustainable (‘cleaner’). We intend to use our cleaner ‘Gas2Wire’ projects to accelerate the transition process, whilst putting in place the infrastructure that is needed to pilot and roll-out greener technologies – hence our motto, ‘cleaner2greener’.
In summary, sustainable (‘cleaner’) minerals and natural gas will play a key role in delivering the transition process – sourced and used responsibly (minimising their environmental footprint), they will accelerate the UK (and by virtue global) transition towards a sustainable energy future and carbon neutrality.