New Scientist 11/10/21

Creating green technologies like batteries and solar panels requires a lot of minerals, and a lot of mining. The challenge now is to extract what we need without destroying the environment

ByGraham Lawton

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25233603-100-will-a-scramble-to-mine-metals-underminethe-clean-energy-revolution/
Opening paragraphs

IF THE unofficial rallying cry of the fossil fuel lobby is “drill, baby, drill”, renewable energy should have one too: “dig, baby, dig”. If we are going tohit our climate targets, the world is going to need a lot of new mines.

“Minerals are essential ingredients of the future clean energy system,” saysFatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA). “If we try to visualise our future clean energy systems – millions of electric vehicles, cars, buses, windmills, solar panels – they need minerals to build. Huge amounts of minerals.”

He isn’t exaggerating. According to arecent IEA report, if the world is…