The President's Daily Brief - September 14th, 2022. Dirty Green Energy: Part 3 of an Exploration Into the Corrupt and Dishonest Nature of Green Energy.

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

It’s September 14th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now. ------ Joe Biden is slated to be in Michigan today, celebrating electric vehicles and green energy. But what he probably won’t be celebrating are all the Dirty Green secrets buried inside those cars, secrets that the PDB is sharing all this week. Today we’re talking about perhaps the dirtiest secret of all: mining for the minerals that go into the batteries that fuel the dirty green revolution. That’s coming up. As always, I’m keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. We’ve got a potential rail-road strike to talk about, and it could make our bad inflation much, much worse. And finally, the last thing before I let you go. A personal message about the ads you hear on the PDB, and what they say about me. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's September 14th. You're listening to the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA Officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. First up, Joe Biden is slated to be in Michigan today celebrating electric vehicles and green energy. But what he probably won't be celebrating are all the dirty green secrets buried inside those cars, secrets that the PDB is sharing all this week. Today we are talking about probably the most dirty secret of all. mining for the minerals that go into the batteries, all that fuel the dirty green revolution. That's coming up. As always, I'm keeping an eye out for developing stories.

Put this one on your radar. We've got a potential railroad strike to talk about, and it could make our bad inflation much, much worse. And finally, the last thing before I let you go, a personal message about the ads that you hear on the PDB and what they say about me. But first, let's get started with today's main brief. Joe Biden will be in Detroit today to help kick off the North American International Auto Show. He's expected to highlight how his $380 billion climate change bill is driving what the White House is calling, quote,

an electric vehicle manufacturing boom. And what a perfect opportunity then for us to talk about dirty green. That is this week's series here on the PDB about the hidden costs of the renewable energy revolution. As listeners note, the goal here isn't to degrade solar and wind and electric vehicles. Rather, it's to treat these dirty industries no different than oil and gas and coal. On Monday, we tackled dirty solar. Yesterday was dirty wind. And today, we are going to talk dirty minerals from mining.

So let's dive into it. I want you to imagine that you've got a big battery sitting in your backyard. I don't mean the little ones like in your electronics gear. or even the larger ones in your gas-powered car. Instead, I want you to imagine the really specialized batteries that run electric vehicles for hundreds of miles or store the energy from solar panels and wind turbines. These are generally called lithium-ion batteries.

And without these special batteries, the dirty green industry is dead on arrival. Why is that? Well, the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow, so we need those batteries to offset. the slow days. All right, so looking at our big battery in our backyard, I want you to imagine that we take it apart and really dig deep all the way down to the minerals inside that make it work. Now, there's some chemistry involved here, different types of batteries, and frankly, it can

kind of be a little bit confusing. But what you really need to know is that there are a few important minerals buried inside that specialized battery. And the two minerals that we are going to talk about this morning are lithium and cobalt. So where do those come from? Well, the earth. We have to mine them. And by simple reasoning, we know that the mining process is a dirty process, massive amounts of electricity, normally created by coal, and some really big earth-moving equipment powered by diesel. Plus, there can sometimes be a release of pollutants that were otherwise buried in the ground. And also, during the refining process, process we can pollute or overuse groundwater. Finally, we also know that mines, well, are not

especially pretty to look at. That's why most of us would rather not live next to one, just like an oil rig or a coal mine. And that takes us to our first big, dirty green problem, focused on mining lithium. So America has lots of this mineral, actually, the fourth largest reserves in the world, about 9.1 million tons, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But oddly, we only have one lithium mine just outside of Silver Peak Nevada. But we have other potential locations too in California, Arkansas, and North Carolina. But unfortunately, plans to exploit those areas are under attack by environmentalists and indigenous groups and Democrats, all because of the reasons that I just mentioned.

They're just too dirty. Let me give you a specific example. America's largest known lithium deposit is along the border of Nevada. and Oregon. It's called the Thacker Pass. In 2021, the Trump administration approved plans for a $1 billion mine at that site, but it's facing fierce resistance. Environmental groups and local indigenous tribes are claiming that the mine would threaten local wildlife and could potentially contaminate local water sources. If all of this sounds familiar, it should. Remember when we talked about NIMBY, it's an acronym that stands for Not in My Backyard.

And that's how people feel with solar panel farms and windmills for miles. Well, the NIMBY effect is true for dirty green minerals too, which creates a real pickle. The greenies want us to use lithium, all for the batteries and their green revolution, but they don't want us to mine lithium, at least not in their backyard. So where do our green friends want us to go? Well, two places. Australia and South America. Now, Australia is a good friend of ours, at least for now, and that's good because they are the largest lithium-producing country in the world.

Around 55,000 metric tons of the stuff, double that of its closest competitor. But it's not going to be enough. As Joe Biden and states like California want more solar and wind and electric vehicles, well, that means that the world will need dramatically more lithium. Experts project a six-fold increase in demand by 2030. And since the Greenies won't let us mine here in the U.S., we have to go somewhere else beyond Australia, and that is South America. The vast majority of lithium in that continent is found in an area that is fittingly referred to as the lithium triangle. It's a region that straddles Chile, in Argentina and Bolivia. Now, here is something that you might not know.

This area is one of the driest on earth. They get about a quarter inch or so of moisture each year. That presents a major problem because lithium mining requires a considerable amount of water. About 500,000 gallons needed to produce just a single ton. Now, as you might guess, the locals, especially the indigenous people in that area, are upset about efforts to open and expand lithium mines in the region. It's estimated that mining activities have already consumed about 65% of the region's water, and they don't want to use anymore.

Now, in addition to the stress on the water supply, there are also concerns about contamination, especially in this isolated area. Lithium utilizes a number of toxic chemicals like hydrochloric acid in the mining process, and there have been some horrific mining accidents when folks weren't exceptionally careful. You can explore the Upper Tibet disaster in 2016 if you want to see what that looks like. But the bottom line, this is a dirty green process. Okay, let's pause for a moment and transport ourselves back to our yards. I want us to look down at that battery that we dug into to explore those two minerals.

One, of course, was lithium that we just discussed. The other is cobalt. So let's explore what we know about cobalt. And I've got a warning. This one is not just dirty. It is infuriating and it is heartbreaking. When it comes to cobalt, there are two countries that have an iron grip on the market. One is China.

More on that in a second. But the real kingmaker of cobalt is in Africa. And smart PDB listeners know it well because I briefed you on it before regarding violence with neighboring country Rwanda. Do you remember the country? That's right. The Democratic Republic of the Congo or DRC. The DRC has long been known for its natural wealth. My goodness, they've got diamonds and gold, copper, tin, uranium, and lots.

Lots of lithium. In fact, DRC is to lithium as Saudi Arabia is to oil. DRC alone produces more than 70% of the world's cobalt. But actually, that analogy doesn't quite grasp how important DRC is. So consider this. The top three producers of oil on the planet are the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. So combined, they only produce about 40% of the world's oil, while DRC has 70% of the world's cobalt.

So how is the DRC getting this mineral out of the ground? Well, the majority of it is coming from large-scale commercial mining operations. And the problem here is that over half of these DRC mines are owned, controlled, or financed by, you guessed it, China. But the real heartbreaker here is when we look at what are referred to as artisanal mines. These are small-scale operations that account for about 15 to 30% of DRC's total cobalt production, and they are subject to virtually no regulation and no oversight. And that's turned things into a wild west fight of who controls what. Frequent conflicts, sometimes armed and violent, and sometimes between tribes and local businessmen.

Well, the workers are often caught in the middle. And here is the very sad part. the workers are often children. According to an estimate from the Wilson Center, of the 255,000 Congolese people mining for cobalt, 40,000 are children, some as young as six years old. They're simply lowered into the mines,

and they use their hands to claw at the dirt. Sometimes they've got a rudimentary shovel or a pick, but mostly their hands, all to extract. the cobalt. As you can imagine, this practice has led to many injuries and deaths, kids falling and breaking limbs inside the mines, or, I'm sorry to say, buried alive when the mines cave in. And for their efforts, they earn less than $2 a day. And you know what, folks, that's not just dirty green. That's horrifying. And that is what is going into the electric vehicles that Joe Biden will likely highlight to you today. And it's also in the batteries that collect the solar power and the wind

power. Now, of course, Joe Biden and the environmental community know all of this. They know where the world's cobalt comes from. And they know that this problem is only going to get worse. Cobalt demand is expected to nearly double in the next five years. And 70% of that growth will come from the electric vehicle sector that Joe Biden is so proud of. You may want to keep that in mind today, I suspect that he won't mention it. And that folks ends the presentation of data and facts this morning, and it puts us into analysis. So what do we make of all of this, the lithium and the cobalt? Well, here's what I would encourage you to consider. Yesterday I mentioned that there's no such thing as cost-free energy. And I hope you are seeing

how much that is true of dirty solar and dirty wind. And as of this brief, dirty minerals. And so we are seeing two profound costs with these dirty minerals. First, for decades, America has battled for energy independence. We have sent generations of our young people to wars in the Middle East for oil. And finally, through the advent of fracking for oil, we became energy independent. We became the world's largest oil producer. And now we're trading it away for both lithium and cobalt. we are putting our country's future in the hands of Australia and China, DRC, and some nations in South America.

And if you think that we won't be sending our kids to wars and some of those countries at some point to secure what is the new oil, just like we did in the Middle East, well, frankly, I think that that is wishful thinking indeed. Look, I defer to you all on how you feel about that, but as someone who's lost friends and a war on terror in the Middle East, which was frankly for oil, I'll tell you that I think Joe Biden's dirty green revolution is an outrage when it comes to national security and protecting our young people, especially those in uniform. But what's equally awful, disgusting actually, is that we have these minerals in America, lithium especially, but some cobalt too in Idaho, actually. But what Democrats and environmentalists have said is, no thanks, don't mind it. It's too dirty, they say. Not in my backyard, they say. Instead, just get it from the Congo, knowing full well that China controls half of those mines,

while part of the other half, well, they're full of children, six years old, making $2 a day. That's quite something for a group of Americans on the left who fancy themselves as humanitarian and environmentalists. Folks, as always I defer to you, but I think you can hear the passion in my voice on this brief. Because I am tired of people and movements holding themselves up like they are wiser and more anointed than the rest of us when in fact they are not, when in fact they are very, very dirty people pushing a very dirty cause and they don't want you to know about it. Now, I hope I'm proven wrong. I hope that Joe Biden talks about how dirty the Green Revolution

is and the folks on Capitol Hill too and all the journalists in America. But I'd bet a month's paycheck that they won't. But I'll tell you what, I will. And we will. Because whatever you decide to think or do about this dirty green problem, it will be based on a set of fair and brutal facts. Because that's what the actual president's daily brief is all about. The president has to know the full story. And that's what this podcast is about too, the full story, no matter how dirty it gets. Coming up, ladies and gentlemen, a closer look at what's on my radar. We have got a brewing railroad strike that could cripple the nation. We'll be right back.

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Tap the banner or visit usaa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. Welcome back to the PDB. As always, I'm watching a few other stories this morning. Put this one on your radar. Last Friday, I briefed you on a potential devastating railroad strike. This morning, we've got an update. To refresh our memories on this one,

America's railroad companies and the unions have for two years been negotiating a new labor deal. And it hasn't gone well. And that's a problem because the current deal ends this Friday at midnight. If negotiations fail, we could have a strike that would be an economic tsunami, costing this country at least $2 billion per day, according to estimates. So here is what has happened since last Friday's brief. On Monday, Amtrak canceled some long-distance trips because they share tracks with the freight trains.

So now they are offline. No service from Antrack between Chicago and Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco. The route between Los Angeles and San Antonio, that's closed too. Next, the railroad company Norfolk Southern has said that it would begin limiting what are called intermodal transports, which is a really big deal because these are shipping containers and truck trailers, usually used by large retailers that right now are stocking up on goods for the holiday season.

Also shut down hazardous materials shipments, specifically chemicals used in farming and manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries. And I want to emphasize one chemical in particular, ammonia. It's an important component of about three quarters of all fertilizer, which of course farmers and ranchers need to prep their fall crops. And without fertilizer, we have smaller crops, smaller yields, and in turn, much bigger grocery bills. Speaking of farmers and ranchers and food, starting tomorrow, at least one railroad has

announced that it will no longer ship certain crops. including corn and soy meal, all of which chicken producers need to feed their flocks. In other words, folks, preparations for a strike have begun. So what comes next? Well, negotiations will continue through Friday at the latest. Expect to see more shutdowns of more rail lines and fewer products being shipped between now and Friday. If there's an agreement hashed out between the railroads and the unions, well, that's definitely good news, but it's not the end of the story.

Rank and file union workers have to vote on the deal. Well, which way will they go? We're not sure. Lots of rumors out there, but nobody knows for sure. If workers vote down the deal, we are looking at a strike. Congress could step in to force arbitration and keep folks on the job. They did that actually back in 1986 and 1991. But workers could still launch an illegal strike.

And, of course, all bets would be off if they did so. so. Manufacturers and other buyers who normally rely on rail are scrambling to secure alternatives like pipelines and barges and trucks. But according to virtually every analyst and industry expert watching this, those modes of transportation might nibble around the edges of this crisis, but they're not going to do much to stop it. So hold your hat, folks. The next few days will be very important for the country. And with that, one more thing before I let you go. Today, it is a personal message. We'll be right back. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's

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I've got one more thing before I let you go this morning. Since my team and I started this podcast, we have gotten lots and lots of emails about ads. Some of you like them and some of you don't. And some of you like Wayne in Eureka, Missouri, asked, quote, do you really like those sheets that you're selling us? Or are you pulling our leg?

Well, Wayne and everybody who's been asking about ads, I want to tell you something. Not about the ads, really. more about me. You all know that I grew up in a farming and ranching family. Unfortunately, our ground has more rock than soil. So that meant that we weren't really the rich farmers or ranchers that you might have seen on the TV show Yellowstone.

When I was about five, my folks split up, and times were really tough for my mom and my siblings and I. Now, I had a great supportive father, thank God. We were very blessed for that. Still, those were lean years. My mom went to a beauty school to learn how to cut hair, and we lived in a very modest duplex. My siblings and I had to oftentimes look after ourselves while mom was learning and making a living. And those were really important years for me.

We weren't poor, but we struggled, like a lot of folks, maybe like you and your family. And maybe that's why I'm frankly more comfortable in a trailer house than the White House. Anyway, I tell you this because now that I'm doing a podcast, I have a lot of people back home that are really proud of me. And a lot of these folks want to support me however they can, like buying the sheets that I talk about or other products that I've read for. And that means when I go home and I spend time with friends and family who, well, they don't live in a White House, they live in the trailer house. Well, I have to be able to look at them in the eye and say, you bet, I like those sheets and I use them. I love them. Because these folks back home

spend their very limited resources on some pretty expensive stuff because they love me and they're cheering for me. It's their way of helping. That's what small town people do. So when companies contact me or my awesome marketing folks, I don't say yes right away. And it frankly, it drives my marketing teams bonkers. Instead of saying yes right away, I research these companies. I use the products and I ask other people that I know who use the products too. like the sheets. I was not going to support a company that used Chinese cotton. So I had to research that.

And I wasn't going to pitch those sheets until I actually slept in them. And so while all that's great, but the cost of that approach is that it slows down the process of paying for my own bills, paying for the show. But you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way. Because if I just said yes and became a salesman for any old thing, then I can't go home and look my friends and family in the eyes and be proud. that they spent their limited money on something fancy when they shouldn't have. And I don't want to walk away from those conversations ashamed and embarrassed. So to Wayne and everybody else, especially my loving but frustrated and sometimes

impatient marketing team, if you hear me read for a product or a service, I mean every word of what I'm saying to you. One final related note. Some of you get a little upset because you hear other kinds of ads on this podcast. that I don't read for. And I want you to know that those are largely chosen by your podcast platforms like Iheart and Spotify. I don't control those.

But if you hear my voice telling you about a product or a service, I hope that you know that I put some work into it. Now, you don't have to buy anything, of course, but if you do, well, I appreciate it. Meanwhile, you might want to say a prayer for my marketing team because I'm a little slower than they would like. But, you know, honestly, this is the only way that I know how to be. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief. As always, we close out the show reminding each other of why we are here, talking about our country and our world. It's the creed of every good spy and every smart American. It's from John, chapter 8, verse 32. And you shall know

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