The End Is Nigh: There is no such thing as an energy transition - It’s a scam

In Papua, Indonesia, there is a Coral Triangle that is home to some of the richest marine biodiversity on Earth.

“Over 1,500 fish species, three-quarters of all known coral species, and countless fragile ecosystems thrive here,” Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhm writes for Fair Observer. “Indigenous Papuans rely on these waters and forests for food, identity, and survival. But this ecological and cultural sanctuary is now under siege.”

Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhm is not lying. Like so many other rare ecosystems around the world, and the Indigenous people who depend on them, the coral triangle is under siege – from ‘renewable’ energy, ‘clean’ tech and the so called ‘Green Transition’.

Why? Because Papua has something that the greedy mining oligarchs, and ‘renewable’ energy missionaries, desperately desire: nickel.

The Hongana Manyawa are one of the last nomadic tribes in Indonesia. Many of them refuse contact with the outside world. They see themselves as the ‘People of the Forest’.

However, the forests that are intrinsic to their culture, and their sense of themselves, have been selected as Green Sacrifice Zones for the ‘Green Transition’, because these forests contain nickel, a substance that is essential to the manufacture of electric cars and solar panels.

Survival International – the global movement for indigenous and tribal people’s rights – describes the Hongana Manyawa:

“They have a profound reverence for their forest and everything in it,” they say. “They believe that trees, like humans, possess souls and feelings. Rather than cut down trees to build houses, they make their dwellings from sticks and leaves. When forest products are used, rituals are performed to ask permission from the plants, and offerings are left out of respect. The Hongana Manyawa root their whole lives to the forest, from birth to death. When a child is born, the family plant a tree in gratitude, and bury the umbilical cord underneath: the tree grows with the child, marking their age. At the end of their lives, their bodies are placed in the trees in a special area of the forest that is reserved for the spirits.”

14,000 FOOTBALL FIELDS

Apologies if I missed something here, but I’m puzzled.

I thought the whole purpose of this Green Transition – and of the ‘renewable’ energy boom – involved saving people like the Hongana Manyawa and their forests; and that it would mean preserving the 1,500-plus fish species in the Coral Triangle? That it was driven by idealism. And that it pointed the way towards a better world.

What do you mean, it’s about replacing dirty coal?

So let me get this right: you’re saying that the Hongana Manyawa must be sacrificed in order to transition to a low carbon economy in the Global North? And that this is a sacrifice they have to make for – for the benefit, not of the Hongana Manyawa, but of the far richer people who live in Europe, the USA and Canada?

While we’re puzzling that one out, let’s talk about replacing coal. Or not as the case may be.

China currently dominates the global electric vehicle market. As a result, it is a key purchaser of Indonesian nickel.

Great news, you might think, for Indonesian industrialists. But here’s what they don’t tell you.

It takes between 2-3 tons of coal to make a Chinese EV. It takes lots of cheap coal to make solar panels too. And so, to meet the demand for coal, China has been building about two new coal plants every week, which is six times more than the rest of the world combined.

The devil, you might say, is in the detail.

Every year, China is also going to its war-torn and destitute neighbour, Myanmar, and extracting 14,000 football fields’ worth of tropical forest wood in the form of charcoal, which is used to smelt its silicon.

Why? Because you need lots of coal, and charcoal, to create the inferno-like conditions needed to smelt the silicon, which is vital to solar panels, and semi-conductor electronics, which underpin the production of smartphone and computers.

Back to nickel, and something else they don’t tell you.

Indonesia has a particularly dirty type of nickel ore. To bring that ore up to the purity and cleanliness demanded of a ‘green’ metal requires a tremendous amount of  high-pressure acid leaching that is, in itself, devastating to the environment.

Are you starting to get the picture? I keep thinking of snake-oil salesmen. It is a massive con job – and we are all the victims. Especially disadvantaged people in the places of greatest economic need.

You seem to still need convincing. Try this. The production of one ton of Indonesian coal-smelted nickel causes about 45 tons of CO2.

These figures may indeed be staggering, but they are real. Writing for Brookings, Lilly Blumenthal and Caitlin Purdy estimated that Indonesian nickel releases two to six times more carbon dioxide emissions than other alternative sources. Despite this, Indonesia has become the world’s leading nickel producer for the ‘clean’ energy ‘Green Transition’.

Deforestation in West Papua, Indonesia

CONSUMPTION PROBLEM

I’m really sorry if this upsets you, but it has to be said: there is no such thing as an energy transition. It’s a scam.

The reality is that as of 2025, we’re digging, and burning, more coal than ever before. In the Global North, we’ve just become better – or sneakier – at hiding these dirty facts by making all the bad shit happen in the poor countries of the Global South.

Renewable energy is about as renewable as a rechargeable battery. The energy may be renewable but the battery is not. Batteries are a concoction of toxic poisons. Researchers from The University of

Manchester carried out an investigation into battery e-waste from solar technologies in Malawi. They found lead pollution there, “Which is equivalent to more than 100 times the lethal oral dose of lead for an adult.”

Lithium batteries are also laced with notorious forever chemicals – cobalt, manganese and graphite, and an entire stew of chemicals. They also contain nickel.

So, what’s the solution? The solution, I’m afraid, is really hard. But it begins with something relatively simple, which is defining what the  real problem is.

We don’t have an energy production problem. What we do have is an energy consumption problem.

We are facing imminent civilizational collapse on a level never before recorded in history, because we consume vastly too much energy and materials. In order to survive, the human race must radically slow down. And we’re not going to do that.

Far from addressing the root problem, with ‘renewable’ energy we’re putting the boot on the accelerator and building, as fast as we can, what should henceforth be described as what they are – brutally exploitative Green Sacrifice Zones – all over the Global South .

When asked by Global Witness how excited his people felt after being chosen as a Green Sacrifice Zone in order to supply nickel for electric vehicles, religious leader John Warmasensounded unimpressed.

“We live on small islands,” he said. “We don’t need electric cars … What do we use here? We use oars.”

We may all need them before very long.