The President's Daily Brief - September 15th, 2022. Dirty Green Energy: Part 4 of an Exploration Into the Corrupt and Dishonest Nature of Green Energy.

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

It’s September 15th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now. ------ We’ve got the final brief today on Dirty Green — that’s this week’s series on whether renewable energy is as green as proponents say or, instead, if it’s full of dirty secrets.  Today we’re talking batteries. And I mean everything from the refiners, the manufacturers, and what happens when these specialized batteries stop working. Here’s a hint: they’re starting fires and causing over a $1B dollars in damages. That’s coming up. As always, I’m keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. The pending rail-road strike is one day closer to happening. It’s an hour by hour cliff hanger, and I’ve got the latest, including how Queen Elizabeth’s funeral could throw a monkey wrench into solving the crisis. ------ 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 15th. 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, we've got the final brief today on Dirty Green. That's this week's series on whether renewable energy is as green as proponents say, or if instead it's full of dirty secrets. Today we are talking batteries, and I mean everything from the refiners, the manufacturers, and what happens when these specialized batteries stop working? Well, here's a hint. They're starting fires and causing over a billion dollars in damages. That's coming up. As always, I'm keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. The pending railroad strike is one day closer to happening. It's an hour-by-hour

cliffhanger, and I've got the latest, including how Queen Elizabeth's funeral could throw a monkey wrench to solving the crisis. But first, let's get started with today's main brief. Today is the fourth and final part of our series, Dirty Green, which has explored the environmental, humanitarian, and national security costs of renewable energy. The goal, as always, is not to degrade solar and wind resources, but to hold them to the same standard as other forms of energy, like oil and gas and coal. Well, yesterday we talked about dirty minerals, the stuff that goes inside the batteries that are so critical to renewable energy and electric vehicles. And as you all heard yesterday, those minerals, lithium and cobalt in particular, are really

dirty for America. They have to be mined in other countries. And in some cases, the miners are little children, some only six years of age. When we kicked off our conversation yesterday, we did it by imagining that we had a battery in our backyard. And we tore it apart to find those two key minerals inside. But today we are going to put that battery back together again. Because the process of doing so, the refining of the minerals, the manufacturing of the battery cells and the battery packs, and then the recycling of the dead batteries, well, that entire life cycle involves a whole new set of dirty problems. So let's get started. As we put our battery pack back together again, the first challenge is to get those minerals back inside.

Mostly lithium, some cobalt, a bit of nickel, depending on the chemistry of the battery. The problem is we can't just jam some lithium or cobalt rocks into our battery. We have to refine those minerals, make them more pure, just like you have to refine oil to get gas. But unfortunately, refining lithium and cobalt is a very difficult and specialized process. We have to remove other minerals that we don't want mixed in. For instance, lithium tends to be found with deposits of magnesium and calcium, so we have to strip that stuff out all at a refinery. And boy, is that an expensive and dirty process.

Huge amounts of energy required, plus lots of different kinds of chemicals, which means that you need to have some very cheap energy and lots of cheap labor to do it. So, where in the world do you think as a combination of those two things? Well, I've got a hint. Remember when we talked about the Xinjiang province and the enslaved Uyghur people. That's right, China. China has lots of cheap energy and lots of cheap labor. And the energy is all powered by coal. And that's why Beijing controls 80% of the world's refining for raw materials like cobalt and lithium. Even if those minerals are mined in places like the Congo, they still get shipped to China to refine them. And just to underline the point here, China accounts for about 65% of global refined

cobalt. The next closest country is Finland at 10%. Here in the United States, cobalt refinement is basically zero. Now, to be fair, there are efforts to fix this, at least with lithium. Tesla has announced recently that they want to build a lithium refinery in Texas. There are also other announced plans for refineries in Tennessee plus a couple of other southern states. But these will likely take years to permit and construct if environmental groups and others don't successfully sue to stop them just like they have elsewhere in America. Okay, let's go back to our imaginary battery. Let's say that we have bought some of that refined lithium and cobalt and nickel all from China. Our next step is manufacturing the physical battery itself, requiring over a dozen plus parts and pieces plus new materials.

So the details here get a little bit technical. You'll hear words like cathode and anode, terminals and anti-exposure valves. But the real thing that you need to know is that there is one country who dominates the manufacturing process. Guess which one? Yeah, it's China. And all because of that cheap energy. and the cheap labor. Last year, about 80% of all lithium-ion batteries that enter the global marketplace came from China. But once again, to be fair, there are lots of big companies jumping into

the market here in America to try to build American-made capacity. In July, for instance, Panasonic announced a battery factory in Oklahoma, with another one possibly in Kansas. LG Energy is looking at a factory in Ohio. We can expect more of these kinds of announcements in no small part because of Joe Biden's $380 billion climate change bill. It had lots of incentives to build out this battery capacity. And that means that over time we could have more domestic battery supply to work with, well, pending all the lawsuits. But remember, China and other countries like the Congo still control the lithium and cobalt mines, just like we talked about yesterday.

They control the new oil, to say it a bit differently, and China still controls the refining process, as I just mentioned. So that means that even if we build more manufacturing capacity of batteries here at home, well, we still have a very dirty problem. For years to come, we will still be reliant on foreign dirty green energy. All right, folks, the brief up until now has addressed the mining, the refining, and the manufacturing of our batteries. But there's one more thing that we need to talk about.

Man, it's pretty dirty. Batteries degrade over time, and eventually they give out. And we all know that. But just how long these lithium ion batteries last? Well, that's going to depend on a number of factors. But as a baseline, Elon Musk of Tesla has said that his car's batteries will last around 1,500 charge cycles, or between 300 and 500,000 miles. For the average American driver, that's about 25 years.

Although, there are a lot of social media posts from Tesla drivers saying that Elon Musk is full of it. There is one very famous report of a Tesla driver in Finland, actually blowing up his car when he was told that a new battery pack would cost him $26,000 after only 10 years of use. But either way, what happens to these batteries after they have served their purpose? Well, the answer is, we don't really know yet. Many countries are beginning to develop recycling programs, but that's already proving to be very problematic.

A lithium ion battery isn't recyclable in the same way that paper or glass might be. Most of the batteries that are recycled undergo a very high-temperature smelting process, and that requires a lot of energy. and that's why at present, the world only recycles around 5% of these batteries. And even when we do, only around half of the materials can be extracted and repurposed. Much of the rest is ending up in landfills. And that poses a major health risk because the materials could be toxic. For example, cobalt is a possible carcinogen that causes cancer.

It can also cause asthma and pneumonia. Meanwhile, another component in batteries, nickel, has been here. shown to cause lung and nasal cancers, reduced lung function, and bronchitis. In other words, this stuff leeches into the ground or it gets burned into the air, and it can lead to very serious environmental and health concerns. By the way, if you're wondering who on earth would burn a battery, well, you might be surprised. Batteries don't need an arsonist to set them a fire. The chemistry inside batteries actually causes them to burst into flames,

all on their own. According to a study out of California, 65% of all fires at waste facilities in that state were started by batteries, and 40% of those were started by lithium ion batteries. We've also seen fires in garbage trucks and in landfills across the country. We have estimates that in the U.S. and Canada, the fires from lithium ion batteries are costing operators over $1.2 billion annually. Now, as always, to be fair, the renewable energy industry knows that it has a dirty battery problem. Two weeks ago, the Department of Energy issued a request for information to ask for public input on how to spend over $300 million for ideas on how to recycle batteries. The private sector is actually trying to figure this out too. There's a company called Ascend

that's got a recycling facility in Covington, Georgia that promises that it's got a great fix for this problem. And it's actually attracting some investors, but we just don't know yet if it's going to work out on a big enough scale. But no matter what, we are going to find out. And that's because the dirty green industry, from solar to wind, from mining to batteries, well, folks, it is here to stay, whether we like it or not. And that, folks, ends this way. morning's presentation of data and facts around batteries. And it wraps up this week's special series on Dirty Green Energy. Coming up next, we are going to dive into some analysis of this week's series. I'll give you my views, but as always, it'll be up to you to decide. We'll be right

back. Own it all. Pay off your home. Travel for life. Drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino and San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29. Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary.

You win? Details at yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right. So I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin.

Way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. Welcome back to the PDB.

And what an awesome week it's been. A week full of dirty green knowledge. It's been a fair but tough look at the renewable energy industry. It's so often described as green and, without cost or no consequence, certainly as compared to oil and gas and coal. But as you've hopefully seen these past four days, that's just not true. It has profound environmental, humanitarian, and national security costs, rarely discussed, sadly.

So all in all, what do we make of this? Well, if you were in the White House this morning, my final and wrap-up opinion would be this. All forms of energy come with a cost. and that means that we have to make hard choices based on facts. But it doesn't seem like this conversation is especially balanced or fair or based on, frankly, many facts at all. Proponents of dirty green energy like solar and wind rarely, if ever, acknowledge their shortcomings. So why is that? Well, as you answer that question, here's my response.

I think we're caught in a panic, a hysteria. And I mean that in the clinical sense. So many of our politicians and pundits and activists are so profoundly convinced that climate change is both real and existential that our solutions don't really need to be based about science or reason or facts anymore. We're just in the middle of anxiety and panic. And we just need to do something, anything. And so we are. We're buying solar panels that are almost exclusively made by coal plants. and slave labor in China with no plan on how to recycle them. That's actually the solution that

people are proposing. We're putting up wind turbines that kill upwards of a half a million birds each year with the blades the size of football fields that have to be buried in the backyards of poor communities around the country. That's actually the solution that people are proposing. And finally, we are swapping out our energy independence for lithium. cobalt mines in Chile and the Congo, mines that are owned and operated by the Chinese or staffed by six-year-old kids working in the mine shafts. That is actually the solution that people are proposing. Now, I think that reasonable folks can disagree about all of this, but earnestly, tell me if those sound like smart policies, or rather those made by a people caught in a panic.

Now there is one thing that this series this week didn't touch on, and it is so very critical to this debate. How reliable is this dirty green technology? Because you know what? Maybe all these horrible things about using slave labor and paying child miners and destroying the environment, well, maybe they're all worth it if we can both solve the climate crisis and still manage to have enough electricity to switch on our lights and run our economy. But is that true? Will renewable energy be able to consistently and reliably run modern life, plus solve the climate issue? Well, we actually have part of the answer. For years, Europe has been the world's leader in switching from traditional energy to renewables.

Back in 2010, the German government embraced something called the energy turnaround program. It promised to shut down the coal and the gas and the nuclear plants and build solar. and wind in their place. And that's exactly what they did. So, where is Europe now? Where is Germany and France right at this very moment 12 years later? Well, as I have briefed you for months, Europe's economy is collapsing into a recession. And that's because they don't have enough cheap electricity. We are watching energy-heavy industries like aluminum and glass and fertilizer all shut down. Coal plants, on the other hand, are five. firing back up. People are being asked to take shorter showers, turn down their thermostats.

It is a disaster. And let me just underline the point here. Remember when I said that I would keep you posted when Paris shut off the lights to the Eiffel Tower? I got some emails from listeners saying that I was being a little bit over the top. Well, yesterday, the mayor of Paris announced that starting September 23rd, the Eiffel Tower's lights will go dark at a lot. 1145 p.m. Normally, it's 1 a.m. The mayor said that she made this decision to conserve electricity because the tower has 20,000 lights and France is running short of energy. My point, folks, is this. You are being sold dirty green energy as both clean and reliable. This week's series has hopefully shown you that it's certainly not the former. It is not purely clean. There are

profound dirty costs from environmental, humanitarian, and national security. And now what we see from our friends in Europe is that it's not reliable either. After 10 plus years of deep commitment to renewable investments in solar and wind, industries throughout Europe are shutting down. Lights are shutting off. And I will tell you sadly, folks, you will read about people freezing to death this winter in Europe because they don't have a number. energy. So if you were president, my energy recommendation to you would be this. Let's learn from Europe.

Stick with traditional energy. Now, I know that that will be upsetting to some people, but remember, all energy sources have costs. None of them are without risks or problems. And when it comes to traditional energy, it has become much cleaner over the years. In fact, our carbon dioxide emissions have actually gone down. You know, and maybe at some point, we can make renewable energy less dirty, more reliable, and built here in America. And I earnestly hope that we can make that happen.

Personally, I would love to see no more exhaust from cars just as one example. But until then, it's just not worth the gamble. Just ask the people of Paris at 1146 p.m. and a week's time. Just bring a flashlight. when you do. Because when the mayor throws off the lights, it's going to be awful dark. And with that, we are going to skip listener questions today for an important update on the possible railroad strike. But I would ask you, if you liked this week's series or if you

have feedback, send me an email. The address, as always, is PDB at thefirsttv.com. Again, that's PDB, like the show's initials, at thefirsttv.com. We'll be right back. This is a Bose moment. You've been there. Small talks going nowhere, but then the Bose speaker kicks in. Music you can feel fills the room. And no more chat with Danny from accounts.

Your life deserves music. Your music deserves Bose. Find your perfect product at Bose.com. Welcome back to the PDB, ladies and gentlemen. got one more thing before I let you go this morning. It's a quick update on the impending railroad strike that could cause over $2 billion damage a day to the American economy and cause a massive spike in inflation. This potential strike is a concern that I first raised for you last week and again this week. But to refresh our memories, railroad workers and rail companies have been

negotiating for two years on a new labor deal, but no resolution yet. And that means that a strike could be launched this Friday if the two sides can't reach an agreement. Well, I've got a couple of very important updates. First, some sort of good news. Two unions representing 11,000 members ratified a preliminary deal yesterday. But bad news, members of another union just rejected the same deal despite their union leadership accepting it. So a bit of a mess. Conserns are absolutely growing that we could in fact see a strike. Though this is, absolutely an hour-by-hour situation. Regardless in preparation, management at Union Pacific informed workers yesterday that if they are in the middle of a trip when the strike begins at midnight on Friday,

they should park the train, secure it, and wait for transportation. So this comes on top of the Amtrak folks canceling all cross-country routes, plus cancellations of all hazardous material shipments like chemicals for fertilizer. We are also seeing a spike in natural gas. gas prices, since its alternative coal is largely shipped by rail. And that could mean even higher electricity prices for citizens around the country, which would be horrific for the record one in six households who already can't pay their utility bills. One other very important update. If there is no deal by Friday, Congress could step in and use their legislative powers to prevent a strike. But The Senate is in recess on Friday, and many members of Congress are actually flying to London

to attend Queen Elizabeth's funeral. One final piece here. For what it's worth, I'm being told by rail workers that the fundamental issue is that there aren't enough employees and the railroad system and that the workers that remain are being squeezed to do far too much without enough vacation or especially sick time. Now, no doubt the railroad companies would probably reject. this view, but there is a little bit of data to actually back up this argument. Major freight railroad companies employ 67,000 folks as of the second quarter of this year. That's down, 17% from 2019,

all according to the Surface Transportation Board, which oversees the Interstate Rail System. So, in other words, there are fewer people doing bigger jobs. If you're wondering why, well, here's the main reason. COVID furloughs. The railroads put people out of work when the economy collapsed, and now many just can't or won't come back. Regardless, keep holding your hats on this one, folks, and offer up prayers that we get resolution soon. 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 spot. and every smart American. It's from John chapter 8 verse 32 and you shall know the truth and the

truth shall make you free. Good day.