>>13015665>Particular energy sources are not replacableNo, I didn't say that. I mean you cannot maintain an industrial standard of living without a cheap, reliable and versatile chain of production with requires a cheap and reliable energy source. Iron extraction, metalwork and other metal extraction all require coal and fossil fuel, not just for heat but as reducing agents - carbon is one of the best reducing agents because it oxidises so readily to form CO2, which is a gas, which means it doesn't interfer with futher chemical processes- Iron, tin, lead, copper, zinc are all extracted using this method. A majority of electrolysis processes are powered by fossil fuels because eg eak tonne of Al requires 17000 kWh of energy or 5.4x10^10 joules
This march 5,700,000 tonnes of Al were produced
https://www.world-aluminium.org/statistics/so for one year thats 68400000 tonnes
So per year we need
1163 GWh of energy (just to EXTRACT the aluminium, not mine or process or protect or dope it)
What is global wind production, for example?
https://wwindea.org/information-2/statistics-news/So about 800 GWh. Being generous lets say all the other process for Al bring that up to 1600 GWh - So just to produce Aluminium goods, you're talking of doubling the world current wind generation (and thats not accounting for all the problems such as regular current/voltage, energy storage, a consistent supply...)
And aluminium production energy requirements are an order of magnitude lower than that for steel!
https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP12183&dsid=DS3So lets say we need 10000 GWh to produce the worlds steel
Thats 2 elements down; and we need 10-15x the worlds current wind generation to meet it.
