BAD ENERGY - LIVE at Powell's Books w/ Josh Frank & Abby Martin

Let's talk about what the most obvious thing will be that will be the outcome of the green energy transition, and that's minerals and mining-

Mm-hmm

... for them.

What are these minerals? And, and who's gonna be most impacted by the drilling and mining?

Well, this is really in the same extractive past that we're living with now in the present, right? We know about the fossil fuel, [laughs] the evils of fossil fuel production, extraction.

Uh, but when it comes to critical minerals, we often think, "Oh, well, it's okay," right? Lithium, we need lithium for our batteries.

A lot of people know about lithium, right? We know about Thacker Pass.

Uh, here in Oregon, there's a big lithium find right across the border in Oregon, and there's a push against those mining interests there right now.

Um, but one mineral that I write a lot about, uh, that I think is really key to this whole so-called energy transition is copper.

Mm.

Copper is in every green product that is out there, right? Batteries- Transmission lines everywhere, right? And it's very, very, very profitable.

And the cheapest way to extract copper from hard-to-reach places is through open-pit mining.

Um, I grew up in Montana.

There's the, the legacy of the Butte mine [laughs].

Mm.

The, the Berkeley Pit is now this toxic waste site.

So I actually start the book, the first chapter, in Butte and talk about the legacy of this, this leftover, you know, relic of capitalism's past that's still plaguing Montana today, and connecting that to what's happening all over now, uh, for critical minerals all over the world.

Um, but here in the United States right now, we're opening up Oak Flat, which is outside of Phoenix.

It's a, a sacred pla- a sacred site for the Apache.

It's gonna be a huge open-pit mine.

I talk about that.

I write about, um, other, other places in, in Chile as well.

Other things are happening right now at the, at the headwaters of the Boise River.

They wanna do a copper mine.

There's a copper mine proposed in Minnesota.

Let's talk about what the most obvious thing will be that will be the outcome of the green energy transition, and that's minerals and mining-

Mm-hmm

... for them.

What are these minerals? And, and who's gonna be most impacted by the drilling and mining?

Well, this is really in the same extractive past that we're living with now in the present, right? We know about the fossil fuel, [laughs] the evils of fossil fuel production, extraction.

Uh, but when it comes to critical minerals, we often think, "Oh, well, it's okay," right? Lithium, we need lithium for our batteries.

A lot of people know about lithium, right? We know about Thacker Pass.

Uh, here in Oregon, there's a big lithium find right across the border in Oregon, and there's a push against those mining interests there right now.

Um, but one mineral that I write a lot about, uh, that I think is really key to this whole so-called energy transition is copper.

Mm.

Copper is in every green product that is out there, right? Batteries- Transmission lines everywhere, right? And it's very, very, very profitable.

And the cheapest way to extract copper from hard-to-reach places is through open-pit mining.

Um, I grew up in Montana.

There's the, the legacy of the Butte mine [laughs].

Mm.

The, the Berkeley Pit is now this toxic waste site.

So I actually start the book, the first chapter, in Butte and talk about the legacy of this, this leftover, you know, relic of capitalism's past that's still plaguing Montana today, and connecting that to what's happening all over now, uh, for critical minerals all over the world.

Um, but here in the United States right now, we're opening up Oak Flat, which is outside of Phoenix.

It's a, a sacred pla- a sacred site for the Apache.

It's gonna be a huge open-pit mine.

I talk about that.

I write about, um, other, other places in, in Chile as well.

Other things are happening right now at the, at the headwaters of the Boise River.

They wanna do a copper mine.

There's a copper mine proposed in Minnesota.