Gaye Taylor, The Energy Mix

“Gas-powered cars are three times less efficient than electric vehicles,” [writes the Distilled blog]. “Gas furnaces are three to four times less efficient than heat pumps. Coal, oil, and gas all need to be transported long distances from mine or well to the source of combustion.”

That means “a clean energy transition will help us avoid the worst effects of climate change; it will save millions of lives currently lost to air pollution each year; and, importantly, it will reduce the total amount of environmentally and socially harmful mining each year.”

But organizations like Mining Watch Canada paint a different picture. They argue that ETM mining is already taking a toll on the environment and on communities that are either hosting extraction for lack of economic alternatives or fighting a losing battle against mines they do not want.

Through that lens, the energy transition currently amounts to “capitalism making a minor course correction, switching from fossil fuels to minerals as the primary input for energy,” said Mining Watch Communications and Outreach Coordinator Jamie Kneen.

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