October update: are we heading for another lockdown, and will mining be mentioned at COP26?

Is the pandemic over, or are we just living an illusion?  This was the question we asked this month, with further restrictions lifted even though the UK had one of the highest rates of Covid infection in Europe, and the rates in Cornwall were increasing again to over the UK average. Britain has had no Covid restrictions for 3 months, longer than anywhere else in the developed world and hospital admissions are rising steadily, all the more worrying as England's hospitals are struggling to recruit staff, with tens of thousands of posts unfilled, the situation made particularly bad by a drop in recruits from Europe. 

Health Secretary Sajid Javid held firm against calls for immediate restrictions, and the Government is unlikely to consider enforcing its Plan B before mid-November, after the COP26 conference in Glasgow. Plan B involves the return of compulsory facemasks, working from home and the introduction of vaccine passports.

The Times, 21st October

Towards the end of the month Morocco banned flights to and from the UK because of Britain's rising number of Coronavirus cases, but relaxed travel restrictions earlier allowed Amanda and Richard to spend a week in Crete, and Jon and friends met up for a weekend in Dorset. And back in Cornwall, Barbara and I had our first visitors stay with us since the start of the pandemic. Even Boris Johnson managed to take a week off running the country, to holiday in Marbella.

Amanda and Richard in Crete, Jon and friends at Durdle Door, Dorset,
and visitors to Cornwall's submarine mines

Despite the worrying rise in infections, on the 2nd day of the month there was a crowded bar at the CSM Annual Dinner, the first since March 2019, where it was great to see how more and more women are pursuing careers in the mining industry.

Photo: Silje Lovstad

However, Covid has taken a secondary role this month, as other matters have dominated the news, notably the murder of a prominent Member of Parliament, and the acute shortage and high cost of gas, record fuel prices and cuts in benefits. The Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has promised that Britain will not run out of gas this winter, words that may come back to haunt him. Where is fracking when we need it? The north of England has huge reserves of shale gas, which cannot be exploited because of the "earthquake" fear.

The 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) began yesterday in Glasgow, with around 30,000 delegates, but without the attendance of the leaders of 2 of the top emitters of CO2, China (#1) and Russia (#4). Worrying times, as greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are higher than ever despite a drop in emissions due to coronavirus restrictions. Maybe feedback is kicking in, where the oceans release CO2 as the temperature increases?

Ahead of the meeting, the UK Government revealed its latest strategy to make the move to a virtually zero-carbon economy. The trillion pound green gamble includes grants for purchase of electric cars and for replacement of home gas boilers by heat pumps. Considering that, despite these grants, the purchasing costs will still be prohibitive for those with low incomes, it seems that the poor, via their taxes, will be subsidising the rich.

Johnson announced that all Britain's electricity will come from renewables, mainly wind, by 2035, a significant step towards the government's ambition to hit net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, a goal which I have questioned before:

Critical Metals and the UK's "Green Industrial Revolution" 
Just how energy efficient are wind turbines? 
Is Zero Carbon by 2050 attainable?
The real cost of using neodymium in wind turbines 

Last year 43% of the UK's energy was generated by renewables, 40% by fossil fuels, and the rest by nuclear. The new target will require significant growth, not only in offshore wind generation, but also in nuclear capacity and will mean a minimum quadrupling of offshore wind from the present level over the next decade. Considering how much raw material is needed to manufacture a single wind turbine (posting of 25 August 2019) is this all possible with current mining output? The stocks of copper for instance, one of the most critical metals, are at their lowest on the London Metal Exchange since the 1970s, driving the price to record levels by the middle of the month.

I wonder if mining will even be mentioned at COP26. The goals may be laudable but without investment in mining, not only in primary mining, but also in the the processing of secondary deposits, and the biggest challenge, recycling, it is unlikely that set targets will be achieved. I am sure that there will be calls to ban the use of fossil fuels, but the reality is that wind turbines need not only huge amounts of metals, they also require a great deal of energy to build them and to extract the raw materials, so in the transition period to 100% renewables fossil fuels will be needed, in the absence of sufficient nuclear energy.

There are many other potential sources of renewable energy apart from wind, for instance should more emphasis be placed on geothermal energy, a reliable, continuous source, of which there is much potential down here in Cornwall with its hot granite rocks?

November will be another worrying month, and as we now approach winter and infection and death rates continue to rise the future is still very much uncertain. 

"I'm fixing the obesity crisis via food shortages, the climate crisis via
fuel shortages and sorting the pension deficit by killing all the old people.
I just don't know what more I can do, Laura"
"The public are just ungrateful bastards, Prime Minister"

@barrywills