[Loco101]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

I did a huge amount of electrical work in my house over the last few years and I can definitely confirm that wiring has gotten insanely expensive.

Changes to the building code (at least here in ON) in the last few years hasn't helped with electrical costs either; safety requirements have gotten a lot more stringent so GFCI and tamper-proof outlets are required in a lot more places than they used to be which cost a lot more. I wouldn't be surprised if the combination of code-flation and copper inflation have together increased the electrical component of residential construction costs by as much as 5x in the last 5 years.

As for the batteries, lithium is actually pretty abundant, but it's often in very low concentrations whenever it is found which makes mining it expensive & energy intensive and generates lots of rock waste. "Rare earth metals" are the same way; they're everywhere but in miniscule concentrations.

One challenge of course with mining is that we need a lot of these minerals for electrification and decarbonization but environmentalists tend to oppose new mining projects; a lot has been said on this topic already.

I follow developments in space very closely and there's a surprising number of experts who believe that mining in space isn't actually that far off. Last year, the US launched the DART mission to experiment with deliberately altering an asteroid's trajectory, ostensibly for planetary defense research. Dr. Pippa Malmgren speculates that one of the real objectives of this concept is actually to direct near-earth asteroids to crash into the moon, where automated refineries could refine ores from the crashed asteroids and export the metals to Earth. Supposedly a lot of refining and metallurgy processes are actually a lot cheaper/more energy efficient in low gravity, and environmental regulations are obviously far less of an issue. Sounds far fetched to me, but maybe that's how we're going to satsify our copper needs this century!

I find that mining gets largely ignored by many environmental interests. I haven't seen opposition to the new mines that have opened in this area. Some First Nations will oppose some projects which will delay something like big the Ring of Fire which involves a number of FNs who don't all agree on everything but most First Nations actually want mines for economic and employment opportunities.