Epilogue

IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY, WHALE OIL WAS AS ESSENTIAL AS FOSSIL fuels are today. The first industrial revolution in Europe brought the need for better lighting. Lamps using vegetable oils, mineral oils, and animal fat were until then the best way to conquer darkness. Then humans became hooked on whale oil, whose handsome flame would light up households and public streets both effectively and inexpensively. Soon fleets of fortune-seeking whalers were crisscrossing the oceans in search of millions of gallons of the precious fat.

This was the gold rush that created the whaling industry. The sector produced 40 million litres of oil a year, and sparked wars in the Sea of Japan and in the North Pacific over control of prime whaling areas. But so many whales were slaughtered that hunting became increasingly difficult, making oil harder to come by, and hiking the cost of lighting.

Having managed this resource so poorly, would humans learn to do without their precious lighting? Not in the least. In 1853, the Polish pharmacist Ignacy Łukasiewicz developed a lamp that used a lighter, more functional oil: kerosene. Petroleum would become the next ideal fuel, until electricity become commonplace in the twentieth century.

For many historians and economists, there is a lesson to be learned from our reckless quest for whale oil. Rather than reassess our need for lighting, as our short-sightedness should have taught us, we found a way to illuminate our lives even more by way of petroleum, and from the resilience and prosperity it offered. It’s a lesson we need to remember in the twenty-first century as we witness the emergence of many new and abundant energies. Scientists are proposing the implementation of laser and magnetic-confinement fusion, hydrogen-powered and magnetic-levitation vehicles, and even solar power stations placed in the Earth’s orbit.1

Green technologies will also improve: work is underway to replace the silicon in solar panels with much cleaner and more efficient photovoltaic cells made of a mineral compound called perovskite, and to reduce by two-thirds the carbon dioxide emissions generated by the manufacture of electric batteries.2 We will also undoubtedly make significant headway in electricity storage, and develop new materials with revolutionary properties. Myriad innovations may render warnings from environmentalists null and void by proving, yet again, that every time an energy source approaches depletion, we have managed to replace it with another.3 The innovation that saves us from the darkness and confirms the resilience of our species unremittingly wards off what Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw refers to as the ‘tragedy’ of desire.

But we can draw another lesson from whale oil. The crisis resulting from its depletion 150 years ago forced us to rethink the way we consume. Yet little came of this introspection, for history repeats itself as new resources run out with every change in the energy model.

And this cycle is unlikely to end anytime soon. Today’s new energy technologies will also draw on new raw materials, both natural and synthetic. Polymers, nanomaterials, co-products from industrial processes, bio-based products, and fish waste will become part of our daily lives. We will also turn to hydrogen and thorium, in turn generating their share of environmental waste. Third-generation biofuels sourced from the far reaches of arid deserts and the depths of the oceans will be refined, using highly complex chemical processes. Cooking oil, animal fat, and citrus zest will be collected, using energy-intensive logistical networks. Millions of hectares of forest will be felled and transformed in sawmills of titanic proportions.

The resources of the future will bring new, protean challenges. The question we need to ask ourselves now is: what is the logic behind this next technological leap we all embrace? Can we not see the absurdity of leaping into an environmental sea change that could poison us with heavy metals before we have even seen it through? Can we seriously advocate Confucian harmony through material wellbeing if it means the very opposite: new health problems and environmental chaos?

What is the point of ‘progress’ if it does not help humanity progress?

Albert Einstein left us with a powerful statement: ‘We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.’ Only with a revolution of consciousness can an industrial, technical, and social revolution be meaningful.

This book has sketched out sparse evidence of such leaps of consciousness in the rare metals industry: German manufacturers opting for more expensive tungsten to maintain the diversity of their supply; attempts by Chinese authorities to end the rare-earths black market in Jiangxi province so as to protect the resource; and in Tokyo, Professor Okabe’s attempts to recycle metals using salt from the high plains of Bolivia.

For their part, consumers can do more through their own behaviour. The awareness is there, and every one of us already recognise the need to limit our consumption of electronic goods built for obsolescence, to ‘eco-design’ goods for easy recycling and less waste, to opt for short supply loops, and to focus on saving resources.4 While moderate consumption does not necessarily lead to ‘degrowth’, the best energy is that which we use wisely.5

I end on this note with French engineer Christian Thomas, who leaves us with a comment of optimism and common sense: ‘We don’t have a rare material problem; we have a grey matter problem.’6

Will we know how to put our grey matter towards finding the antidote to rare metals?