I recently came across The Hidden Face of Green Energies - Documentary on Arte.
Being myself critical of wind, solar, and electric vehicles, I was quite intrigued when I discovered this film.
But if I wanted to agree with the directors in advance, the viewing especially left me with a bitter taste ... I will argue below, but to summarize quickly:
The documentary denounces very well the "dark side" of renewable energies and the disastrous extraction of their rare earths. This point almost justifies the viewing on its own, especially since some of the images are magnificent.
He brings a discourse that is not very present in the media (I think), whether we are for or against it, to be informed of the negative aspects seems necessary to me: we cannot just base ourselves on the positive to form an opinion. And I have the impression that you hardly ever hear this kind of criticism, as if the debate did not exist.
The documentary does not aim for objectivity (or else, it really hurts, I will give examples below). Of course, it doesn't have to be perfectly neutral, but here we settle too broadly with the facts, citing only the bad sides, omitting the general context [climate change is hardly ever mentioned] , and sometimes, we gently demean those who do not think the same, like these green 'prophets'.
In my opinion, the documentary uses the dark side of the argument, certain methods should not be used, loose: truncating a quote to make it appear that a study is in our direction (when it says exactly the opposite ... .), play on emotions to convince with dramatic music or the very repeated evocation of industrial lobbies who want to make lots of money (not that this is false, but here I have the impression that we want especially playing with my emotions so that I agree). There are also plenty of false and unsupported claims, confusions, omissions, and so on.
In summary of the summary, I sincerely recommend this documentary if the theme of rare earths in green energies interests you (and more particularly, if you have hardly ever heard of it). But, keeping in mind that this is dependent journalism, that it will try to play with your emotions, and that it is better to carefully check each statement ...
By the way, that's what I'll do below! I will also raise the tone of certain passages when it disturbed me.
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[Disclaimer]
• I am not a specialist, I only quickly checked the statements which seemed to me the most surprising.
• As this is a fact-checking exercise, I will skip the many passages where I agree with the directors to focus only on the negative, feel free to watch it to see its more positive points.
• Level of ideological conflicts of interest, if we caricature a little: I am in favor of nuclear energy, against wind power and renewables in France, but on the contrary for in other countries. And I'm pretty much in favor of electric cars although I think it's really not great and it's not going to help us much. I also have a fairly positive outlook on directors (but less now).
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"People were convinced that if they drove an electric car, all the CO2 problems would be solved"
It's one of the opening lines of the film, and even if it's not really bad, what is the basis for making people like that? We can also think that electric vehicles are good for the climate without imagining that it is a miraculous solution.
This is not much, but it is already helping to unnecessarily divide the debate: the people opposite are naive, they make grotesque remarks when in reality we do not know what the majority of people think, it's too easy to make other people say nonsense to laugh at it.
An alternative could have been: "The French have a very good opinion of electric vehicles, in particular to reduce their environmental impact, but is this really confirmed by the facts?"
1. It's not divisive, no one is ridiculed
2. The statements made are testable, it is not just a wet finger opinion [1] [2].
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"Isn't the cure likely to be worse than the fossil fuel disease?"
This claim sounds a lot more disturbing to me, so yes it's a mainstream documentary, yes you probably have to sell it with a good, intriguing phrase at first, but comparing the flaws of renewables with fossils is very daring.
If we reason in years of lost life (for each electrical TWh produced), we see that fossil fuels have a very high impact, in particular with coal (122 years [3]) and to a lesser extent gas (32 years [3 ]). Fuel oil too, but it is hardly used in practice.
On the other hand, wind turbines / photovoltaic panels do not follow the same orders of magnitude (6 and 12 years "only" [3]). It will be noted all the same that the case of renewable biomass is ambiguous with 77 years [3], it is true that this energy is indeed debated, at least in certain forms, but:
1. It's downright complicated.
2. The report does not denounce it.
If we think in terms of death (always by TWh), we find here the same orders of magnitude with disastrous coal (24,5 deaths [4]), dubious gas (2,8 deaths [4]), and nuclear more modest (0,052 deaths [4]). Renewables are not taken into account here, but the disproportion of coal compared to other energies makes it difficult to imagine that wind turbines / photovoltaic panels could do worse.
And this reasoning applies without even talking about climate change caused by fossil fuels. So, no, the solutions offered here are * not * worse than the initial problem. On certain criteria, this is the case of course (the report shows it well!) But overall, no.
My alternative: "Despite the need for renewable energies in the fight against climate change and their advantages often put forward, are these solutions irreproachable?"
1. We put the context back like that, of course wind turbines will be expensive in our report, but we remind you that fossil fuels which poison people and disrupt the climate, it's still worse.
2. We avoid sensationalism, yes there are downsides, yes it is frustrating that it is little known to the general public, but no need to do too much, we may risk encouraging a certain form relativism since all energies are horrible, even worse than fossils, you might as well do nothing what.
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"Whenever we need magnets, for wind turbine motors, or metals for photovoltaic cells, there is a need for rare metals."
This quote from an expert helps bridge the gap between renewable energies on the one hand, and the catastrophic consequences of rare earth mining on the other. And again this is very well shown in the movie with the footage in China, but:
If some wind turbines do indeed need rare metals (neodymium and dysprosium) for their magnets, the documentary fails to mention that there are also some that work without. We could very well criticize the wind turbines concerned (in particular those at sea) while explaining that others do not represent a problem at this level, it would be more nuanced, because we can criticize the wind turbines without being anti- wind turbine.
All the more so since according to Ademe, wind turbines not concerned, this still represents 94% of the current land fleet [5]! And a priori, for the remaining 6%, there are alternatives to develop.
Still according to Ademe, photovoltaic panels do not seem to use rare earths, but it would be in bad faith I think, since the same document explains that certain metals required are critical (tellurium, indium, silicon) which confirms the 'general idea.
My alternative: not to talk about wind turbines since this is not a relevant criticism. Insist on the other hand on photovoltaic panels.
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"After oil, it is therefore a new dependence that we are in the process of secreting"
I agree: an addiction to rare metals even contradicts one of the promises of renewable energies, that of beings as unlimited as the wind and the sun. On the other hand, in principle it is not comparable to oil either, which disrupts the climate of the entire planet and threatens most species, including ours. Yes, addiction is disturbing, but one might also wonder:
1. How dependent does it make us?
2. Are we more dependent here than on the alternatives?
3. Is dependence the priority criterion?
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The Middle Kingdom is the world's leading producer of rare metals, it supplies in particular ⅔ of graphite [images of polluted landscapes in China]
Here again, I agree (it is even also denounced by Ademe [6]) but in principle, it bothers me a little:
This only points to the faults of graphite mining in China, without necessarily calling into question the exploitation itself. Are “cleaner” mines possible? (What about graphite in Canada for example?) The logical conclusion of these drifts is not necessarily “let's stop making renewables” but could also be “let's improve renewables.” For example by encouraging exploitation mining in the West.
This is not a fundamental criticism, I know that it is even the position publicly defended by at least one of the two directors [7], but the construction of the documentary gives a more binary and cliché vision of the debate I find.
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There, I don't have a specific quote, but there is a whole part of the documentary which denounces the exploitation of coal in a town in Chile, making the air unbreathable.
I found this passage very confusing, because we were initially in Chile to denounce copper mining, which is toxic but necessary to support the energy transition. Why then talk about the pollution linked to coal in this city? Coal has no relation to green energies, which is precisely what they allow to fight!
Mixing in this way the negative consequences of green energies, and the negative consequences of fossil fuels, without warning, without any contextual sentence, I found it very disturbing. In fact, we will learn later that it is Engie which develops coal in Chile while defending renewables in France. It's a good argument against Engie, but it's not an argument against renewables.
bonus: I was initially going to write a quick passage to say that denouncing copper [yet used for many uses other than the only ecological transition] seemed to me irrelevant and a little misleading. After quick verification, I was wrong, it is precisely a sensitive subject [8].
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"The Ademe goes further: in a new publication, specialists write that the environmental impacts of the electric vehicle are of the same order of magnitude as for a thermal vehicle [dramatic music]."
The quote is truncated and the image is intentionally blurred (maybe?) As to prevent the viewer from reading the entire text, if this is done, the Ademe explains [9]:
1. Electric vehicles are environmentally friendly (!).
2. In particular to fight against climate change in France.
3. They also improve the air quality in the city.
4. They still have negative impacts during manufacturing on criteria of acidification and eutrophication, but if we relate this to the entire life cycle (not just the manufacture of the car therefore) it is of the same order of magnitude as thermal vehicles, and in addition, it improves by recycling.
The documentary just quotes "it is of the same order of magnitude as thermal vehicles" which completely contradicts the words of Ademe! This is the link [9] on page 3 and 4 to check for yourself, and the passage in the documentary is around the 53rd minute.
This error seems to me too big to be voluntary, but it proves at least a certain bias in the way of documenting directors.
My alternative: "Despite very favorable conclusions for electric vehicles in France, Ademe does not hide certain moderate concerns regarding soil acidification and water eutrophication".
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The voice-over adds "conclusions that the entire political class refuses to take into account"
As noted above, the report states that electric cars are overall positive and lower CO2 emissions despite their shortcomings, is this really at odds with what politicians are saying?
On an official government site intended to promote electric vehicles to the general public, for example, we can clearly read, and quite well highlighted, that the manufacture of batteries for electric cars is very polluting [10], so it does not seem to be such an ignored subject until there is evidence to the contrary.
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"In the majority of cases in the world, electricity is made by fossil fuels like coal, fuel oil and to a lesser extent gas [...] so if you take countries like China, India , the US, Germany, an electric car emits more CO2 than a gasoline or diesel vehicle "
The person quoted in the documentary makes his claims without providing any evidence. If we read his 2008 report, which he mentions, only EDF data are cited, they indicate that electric cars greatly reduce CO2 emissions in France, but only a little in Europe, and not at all in the world [11 ]. The report does not seem to go into this aspect of the debate any further, so it cannot be said that electric cars in India, China, US, and Germany, have a negative impact on the climate, even looking at the data that is most helpful. the person who made these statements.
On the other hand, more recent studies seem to indicate that electric vehicles do have a positive effect even in Germany and the United States [12] (although both are heavily based on coal). Logically, these environmental impacts will decrease even more over time with the construction of new wind turbines (at least when possible).
We can also quote the Ademe: "Whatever the energy mix of the European countries studied, the study shows that at the end of its life, the environmental balance of the electric vehicle will always remain more favorable than the thermal one" [13]
We can also remember that the generalization of electric vehicles in France is always positive for the climate, whatever the scientific source cited. The documentary seems however to leave a certain confusion (not necessarily voluntary) between the positive situation in France, and sometimes ambiguous in certain foreign countries. If electric cars pollute in India but are positive in France, we should not use this argument against electric cars in France.
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"We don't know what to do with [wind] waste, we face the same problem we had with nuclear waste."
Wind turbines are largely recycled [14], their materials: steel, cast iron, copper, aluminum, are 90% recycled. 100% concrete, plastic and fiberglass are incinerated. The rest is buried, it really poses problems, in particular at the level of the magnets and the blades, but to sum up with: “it cannot be recycled” because some parts are not actually recycled, is a misleading shortcut.
Moreover, the parallel with nuclear waste seems out of touch with reality as it is specific and much more complex to deal with (for the small, most radioactive minority at least [15]).
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In short, I think we should be wary of documentaries, especially when they are in our direction.
It is a complicated format to fact-check since the sources are almost never verifiable (we rarely pause the document to look for the .pdf of the study cited on google what). And then, it doesn't make you want to be verified either when you present it in such a divisive way, here for example, they insisted a lot on the fact that they were attacking the powerful industrial lobby, nobody want to be on their side I think.
But above all, La Face Cachée des Energies Vertes is not either Alien Theory or Hold Up (far from it!). It's just a documentary on Arté as there are many I imagine, and yet, if we watch it without being suspicious, I think we risk having a very biased view of the debate in the end.
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I imagine that few people will read [I believe almost no one has seen this report in my contacts ^^ '] but if the subject interested you, do not hesitate to contradict me, I will update in case of mistakes on my part.
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[fixes & remarks]
• I had reversed acidification and eutrophication in a passage. [Ems Riddle]
• We could have specified that rare earths are not rare but weakly concentrated. Other ways to extract them are possible but more expensive than the Chinese methods [Ronan Birrien]
• 6% of French onshore wind turbines contain land and not 3%.