Bezos, Gates, and Bloomberg Back Greenland Mining Venture for EV Metals

Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, and Bill Gates are backing a joint mining venture that will explore Greenland for materials used in electric vehicles. The exploration project will be undertaken by KoBold mining, backed by the billionaires, and BlueJay Mining.

The effort aims to discover sources of nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum in the northern-flung country, all critical in the manufacture of electric vehicles.

The announcement comes as Democrat Joe Biden, citing the alleged threat of “climate change,” sets ambitious goals for the uptake of electric vehicles — including a goal for half of all U.S. car sales to be “zero-emission” by 2030.

“Zero emission cars” is typically a misnomer, as the production of electric cars — including mining the materials necessary to produce them, processing them, and transporting them — can generate considerable CO2 emissions.

Some scientists are warning that mining in Greenland will disrupt the natural ecosystem. Via the Daily Beast:

Some researchers remain concerned. “Essentially, they’re right on top of the ocean,” says Jeffrey Welker, a professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage who has spent more than two decades studying the Arctic ecosystem of western Greenland. “That creates potentially some environmentally or ecologically dangerous situations with any contamination of that fjord … Any disturbance to that marine system through any activity could be catastrophic for that community.”

Kevin Krajick, senior editor of science news at the Earth Institute, wrote a book called Barren Lands about diamond mining in the Canadian tundra. “Carbon dioxide emissions are a global impact,” he says. “When you open these mines in these really remote places, it’s arguably a more local impact…On the other hand, you are going into these pristine areas that are not going to be the same.”

Even left-wing fact checkers admit that producing electric cars causes considerable CO2 output.

While disputing the notion that production of an EV car battery is the equivalent of eight years of CO2 emissions from a regular gasoline car, PolitiFact acknowledged earlier this year that production of a single lithium-ion battery for an electric car “emits carbon dioxide equivalent to operating a gasoline car for about one or two years.”

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.