James Kennedy explains the dangerous slide in his presentation Critical Materials
The New Tool of Global Hegemony.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.  H/T Mark Krebs

This presentation outlines the vast disconnect between green technology goals and the anticipated compounding economic consequences of finite resources.
♦  Begin by assessing resources and the challenges associated with the Administration’s             limited goal of replacing the internal combustion engine.
♦  Expose who leads in resource production
♦  Reveal who leads in research, IP, control over finished materials and estimated
resource demand
♦  Consider the asymmetric geopolitical consequences
♦  Consider the consequences of compounding renewables (wind & solar), energy                   distribution and grid-storage demand on these limited resources.

♦ Most of the critical technology metals make up less than .003% of the earth’s crust.
♦ They tend to be present in measurements of parts per million.
♦ They tend to be tied up in much more complex mineralization’s.
♦ Extracting them requires mining and refining facilities that cost billions of dollars.
♦ The extraction process requires lots of energy and complex chemical processes.
♦ These processes pose environmental problems of their own.

As you can see from the red arrows,  China controls most of these elements and critical materials at the point of refined materials, metals, alloys and magnets.  Recent production from California’s Mt. Pass mine goes to China for refining and metal / magnet production.

China’s state sponsored subsidies and internal tax advantages make U.S. production of rare earth metals and magnets non-competitive. This is also true for refined cobalt and many other critical materials and components like anodes and cathodes for batteries.

China’s production capacity for these materials and components dwarfs the rest of the world – exceeding global demand in many cases.

Conclusion:

This rush to zero carbon is driven by short term private interests leveraging fears of global warming that conflate with larger ideological agendas.
Things will go wrong, there will be multiple train wrecks.

Potential Winners: China, natural gas producers, mining companies that supply China, flim-flam renewable / green tech / green energy project promoters, 1% or less of the U.S. & EU population.

Potential Losers: 99% of U.S. & EU population, legacy and residual manufacturing industries, the financial system and the U.S. dollar as its status as world reserve currency evaporates.

Potential Black Swan Outcomes
Upside: Material Science Breakthroughs solve the problem
Downside: Forfeiture of Western Economic Relevance

My Comment:

As posted previously, this drive to reduce carbon-based energy is absurd, costly and pointless.

Absurd, because there is no reliable data showing anything in our climate or weather outside historical ranges of variation.

Costly, because proposed remedies including “green energy” and electric vehicles serve only to make affordable reliable energy expensive and intermittent.  In addition  as demonstrated above, the tech depends on the rarest, most precious and environmentally damaging materials.

Pointless, because we do not control the weather anyway.

High time to unplug the EV illusion and back away from the social and economic cliff.

See also: Electric Car Lie Exposed

If That Tesla Battery Could Talk