We like to imagine the energy transition as a move from dirty technologies to clean ones.
Coal mines disappear.
Solar panels appear.
Wind turbines turn silently on the horizon.
And the environmental problem is solved.
Except it is not that simple.
Solar panels and wind turbines do not eliminate mining. They change what we mine, where we mine it and who carries the environmental cost.
Copper, silver, silicon, aluminium and, in some technologies, rare earth elements such as neodymium and praseodymium must be extracted, processed, refined and transported before a single “green” electron reaches the grid.
That does not make renewable energy equivalent to coal.
Their life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions are substantially lower.
But it does expose an uncomfortable truth:
Low-carbon does not mean low-impact.
And pretending otherwise risks repeating one of the oldest mistakes in the energy industry:
solving one environmental problem while pushing another one upstream, out of sight.
The renewable revolution has a mining problem
Wind and solar are no longer marginal technologies.
In 2025, wind and solar together produced approximately 17.3% of global electricity, almost four times their share a decade earlier. Solar generation increased by 30% in a single year, while a record 647 GW of new solar capacity was installed globally.
That expansion represents a remarkable technological transformation.
But every new GW has a physical footprint.
And the International Energy Agency reports that demand for key energy minerals has been growing at close to 10% per year, with energy technologies accounting for around 75% of demand growth in 2025.
The energy transition, therefore, is also a materials transition.
We are moving from an energy system dominated by continuous extraction of fuels toward one that requires enormous quantities of minerals to build generation, transmission, storage and electrification infrastructure.
The question nobody should be afraid to ask is:
What happens at the other end of the solar panel and the wind turbine?
Critical minerals and rare earth elements are not the same thing
Before discussing environmental impacts, we need to clear up one common misconception.
Critical minerals are not synonymous with rare earth elements.
Critical minerals are materials considered strategically or economically important and potentially vulnerable to supply disruption.
Depending on the technology and jurisdiction, they may include copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, gallium, indium and many others.
Rare earth elements, or REEs, are a specific group of 17 metallic elements.
This distinction matters because different renewable technologies require very different materials.
What minerals does solar power require?
Conventional crystalline-silicon photovoltaic technology depends heavily on materials such as silicon, copper, silver and aluminium.
It does not depend heavily on rare earth elements.
Other photovoltaic technologies may use specialty materials such as indium, gallium, tellurium or selenium, but they represent different technological pathways and should not be treated as though every solar panel has the same material composition.
The IEA expects rapid solar deployment to continue increasing demand for minerals such as copper, while technological improvements may reduce the amount of materials such as silver and silicon required per unit of capacity.
What minerals do wind turbines require?
Wind turbines require substantial amounts of conventional materials including steel, concrete, aluminium, zinc and copper.
Certain designs also require rare earth elements.
Permanent-magnet synchronous generators, particularly important in some offshore wind designs, can use neodymium and praseodymium and smaller quantities of dysprosium and terbium.
The IEA has identified wind power as an important driver of future rare-earth demand, particularly as permanent-magnet technologies expand.
So the statement:
“Renewables need rare earths”
is too simplistic.
A more accurate statement is:
the transition toward renewable electricity substantially increases demand for a wide range of mined materials, and some technologies also depend on strategically important rare earth elements.
That argument is strong enough without exaggeration.
The pollution did not disappear. We moved part of it upstream.
When a solar panel is generating electricity, there is no smoke coming from it.
When a wind turbine rotates, there is no combustion stack.
That is an enormous advantage.
But it can also create an optical illusion.
The environmental impact occurred earlier.
Before the equipment arrived.
Before the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Before the project started generating its first MWh.
Mining, ore concentration, chemical separation, refining, component manufacturing, transportation and construction all happened somewhere else.
Often very far away from the consumer admiring the “clean” technology.
This is why evaluating energy only at the point of generation gives us an incomplete environmental balance.
Mining can disturb ecosystems on a massive scale
Minerals exist inside geological formations.
Extracting them may require removing vegetation, excavating large quantities of material, building roads, managing waste rock and constructing processing infrastructure.
Those activities can cause land-use change, habitat loss and biodiversity impacts.
The IEA recognizes land-use change as one of the most immediate environmental impacts associated with mineral development and identifies biodiversity, water use, waste generation and pollution among the central sustainability challenges facing critical-mineral supply chains.
But here we need an important technical discipline.
It would be tempting to say:
“critical mineral mining is worse than coal mining.”
That cannot be stated responsibly without defining what “worse” means.
Are we comparing hectares disturbed?
Water consumed?
Tailings generated?
Toxicity?
Worker fatalities?
CO₂ emissions?
Biodiversity?
Environmental impact per MWh produced?
Depending on the metric, mineral, mine, geography and technology, the answer can change.
Polarization becomes much stronger when the argument survives scrutiny.
So the correct challenge is not:
“renewable mining is worse.”
It is:
“why do we describe one supply chain as green while rarely showing the mining footprint behind it?”
The waste problem nobody sees from a solar farm
The mineral we want is usually only one fraction of the material extracted.
The rest does not vanish.
Mining can generate enormous quantities of waste rock and tailings.
And as ore grades decline, more material can be required to recover the same quantity of useful metal.
This matters particularly for minerals such as copper, which is fundamental not only to wind and solar but also to grids, transformers, electric vehicles and almost every major electrification strategy.
The mineral transition therefore has an uncomfortable physical reality:
electrifying more of the economy requires moving more material.
The International Energy Agency expects energy technologies to remain the dominant driver of future mineral-demand growth, with demand across critical minerals almost doubling by 2040 under stated policies.
There is nothing virtual about that transition.
Someone has to mine it.
Water may become one of the great contradictions of the transition
Many mining and processing operations require significant quantities of water.
That can become particularly controversial where mines compete for water in already stressed regions.
Copper and lithium projects, for example, are frequently located in regions where water availability can become a major environmental and social constraint.
The IEA identifies water stewardship as one of the key sustainability challenges for critical-mineral development and warns that poor management can generate conflict with surrounding communities.
Think about that contradiction.
We may deploy technology specifically to reduce climate-related environmental risks while simultaneously increasing pressure on water resources in vulnerable mining regions.
That does not mean we should stop the transition.
It means the word green should never replace environmental due diligence.
Rare earths have another complication: chemistry
Rare earth ores can require complex separation processes.
Different elements have very similar chemical characteristics, making separation technically demanding.
Processing may require substantial amounts of chemicals and energy.
Some deposits are also associated with naturally occurring radioactive elements such as thorium and uranium.
This means mining and processing waste can require careful management to prevent contamination of soil, water and surrounding ecosystems.
Research has documented environmental pollution associated with long-term exploitation and processing of rare earth resources, although the magnitude of impacts depends heavily on geology, technology, environmental regulation and waste-management practices.
So no, rare earths are not automatically radioactive.
But certain rare-earth deposits can bring radioactive materials into the waste-management equation.
That nuance matters.
“Green technology” can still depend on fossil energy
There is another contradiction hiding upstream.
Mining machinery needs energy.
Crushing needs energy.
Grinding needs energy.
Separation needs energy.
Refining needs energy.
Manufacturing needs energy.
And the carbon footprint of that process depends partly on the energy system supplying it.
If mineral processing takes place in a coal-intensive electricity system, then some of the carbon footprint of the final renewable technology was effectively created before the panel or turbine was installed.
This does not erase the life-cycle carbon advantage of wind and solar.
But it reminds us that decarbonization cannot stop at the final product.
A truly low-carbon supply chain must also address the energy used to manufacture low-carbon technologies.
No, solar and wind are not “as dirty as coal”—but that is not a free pass
This is where the conversation often collapses into two ideological camps.
One side says:
“Renewables are clean.”
The other responds:
“But mining is dirty, therefore renewables are no better than coal.”
Neither statement is technically sufficient.
Solar and wind have mining, manufacturing and construction impacts.
Coal requires mining too—and then requires continuous fuel extraction because the fuel is destroyed during combustion.
That distinction matters.
Life-cycle assessments consistently find substantially lower greenhouse-gas emissions for wind and solar electricity than for fossil-fuel generation.
Most fossil-generation emissions occur continuously during fuel combustion.
For solar and wind, a much larger proportion occurs before operation, during material production, manufacturing and construction.
So acknowledging the mining footprint of renewables does not create a scientific equivalence with coal.
But neither should lower CO₂ emissions become permission to ignore other environmental costs.
A lower-carbon technology can still have water, waste, biodiversity, toxicological and human-rights problems.
That is the uncomfortable middle ground where serious energy policy belongs.
The human body does not care whether a mineral is “green”
The environmental footprint is only half of the discussion.
Mining, refining and manufacturing can expose workers and surrounding communities to dust, metals, chemical reagents and other hazardous materials.
Calling the final technology sustainable does not change the toxicology of the substances used to produce it.
Indium: when a strategic material reaches the lungs
Indium is used in electronics and in certain photovoltaic technologies.
Occupational exposure to indium compounds—particularly indium-tin oxide—has been linked to serious lung disease.
NIOSH research has described indium lung disease as a potentially severe and sometimes fatal occupational condition and has found relationships between workplace exposure, blood indium concentrations and indicators of lung damage.
That does not mean solar panels themselves are poisoning people during normal operation.
It means that part of the manufacturing supply chain contains hazards that need to be controlled.
And those workers deserve to be part of our sustainability conversation too.
Gallium: another example where chemistry matters
Gallium is increasingly strategically important for semiconductors and advanced technologies.
But again, saying simply that “gallium is toxic” is too crude.
One important occupational concern relates to gallium arsenide.
NIOSH has warned that gallium arsenide particles can provide biologically available inorganic arsenic and should be controlled as a potential carcinogenic hazard in occupational environments.
The danger therefore depends on the chemical compound and exposure route.
This is precisely why discussing “critical minerals” as if every element presents the same health risk leads to poor science.
What do we actually know about rare earths and human health?
The evidence is growing, but there are still substantial knowledge gaps.
A 2024 review found evidence that rare earth elements can enter the body through inhalation, ingestion and other exposure pathways and may affect respiratory, neurological, cardiovascular and other biological systems.
At the same time, researchers emphasized that toxicological understanding remains incomplete and that exposure-response relationships need further investigation.
More recent research continues to examine respiratory exposure to fine and ultrafine particles containing rare earth elements, particularly in mining and industrial environments.
The responsible conclusion is therefore not:
“rare earths cause cancer.”
It is:
rapid expansion of these supply chains requires occupational monitoring, environmental controls and much better understanding of long-term exposure.
The demand can grow faster than the science.
That should concern us.
Who pays the real price of the energy transition?
The geography of mining matters.
The consumer using electricity from a solar farm may live thousands of kilometres away from the mine that supplied its metals.
The environmental benefit is enjoyed in one place.
Some of the environmental and social burden may occur somewhere else.
Mining projects can create jobs, tax revenue, infrastructure and economic opportunities.
They can also generate disputes over water, land rights, displacement, Indigenous territories, labour conditions and the distribution of economic benefits.
The IEA recognizes that growing critical-mineral production can put pressure on communities and Indigenous Peoples and explicitly identifies human rights, biodiversity, water and community relations as major issues for responsible mineral supply chains.
Researchers studying the new rush for critical minerals have raised a related question:
Will the energy transition create a genuinely different model of mineral development?
Or will we simply reproduce old extractive problems under a new green label?
That may be one of the most uncomfortable questions in the entire transition.
The green transition also has a geopolitical problem
There is another side of critical minerals that is neither environmental nor medical.
It is strategic.
Mining and especially refining are highly concentrated geographically.
The IEA reports that, excluding rare earths, the average share held by the leading refining country increased to 72% in 2025.
For gallium, graphite, manganese and rare earths, China accounts for more than 90% of refining supply.
This creates an interesting paradox.
Countries seeking energy independence from imported fossil fuels may simultaneously become dependent on highly concentrated mineral and processing supply chains.
We may reduce one type of energy-security vulnerability while creating another.
In 2025, export restrictions on several heavy rare earth elements demonstrated that this risk was not theoretical; the restrictions disrupted downstream industries and exposed vulnerabilities in manufacturing supply chains.
So the energy transition is not only about emissions.
It is also about who controls the materials required to build the new energy system.
Can deep-sea mining solve the mineral problem?
As pressure on terrestrial mineral resources grows, deep-sea deposits are sometimes presented as an alternative source.
But that simply moves the debate into another ecosystem.
Deep-ocean mineral extraction may avoid some of the overburden removal associated with conventional land mining, but it introduces serious uncertainty about impacts on poorly understood marine environments.
Research into unconventional mineral resources has warned for years that moving from conventional deposits toward deep-ocean and other alternative resources creates new environmental and technical trade-offs.
Again, the environmental bill does not disappear.
It changes address.
Recycling changes the equation—but it cannot replace mining yet
Here is one of the biggest differences between fossil fuels and many critical minerals.
When coal is burned, the fuel is consumed.
When copper carries electricity through a cable, the copper remains.
When neodymium performs inside a permanent magnet, the element does not disappear.
That creates an enormous opportunity for recycling.
The IEA estimates that stronger recycling could reduce the need for new mine development by 25% to 40% for several key transition minerals by 2050 under stronger climate-policy scenarios. Recycled nickel, cobalt and lithium can also have, on average, around 80% lower greenhouse-gas emissions than equivalent primary materials from mining.
And yet recycling is not a magic solution either.
The world is installing renewable technologies faster than large quantities of first-generation equipment are reaching the end of their useful life.
That means there is not yet enough secondary material available to satisfy rapidly growing demand.
New mines will still be required.
The IEA expects average recycling rates across key energy minerals to rise from roughly 10% today toward 20% by 2040 under existing policy settings.
Recycling can reduce extraction.
It cannot eliminate it—at least not for decades.
The cleanest mine may be the mine we do not need to open
There is another part of this discussion that deserves much more attention.
Energy efficiency.
The energy debate often focuses on how we will produce additional electricity.
More solar.
More wind.
More gas.
More nuclear.
More transmission.
More batteries.
More minerals.
But before building more of everything, there is another question:
How much energy are we already wasting?
Every MWh that a factory, power plant, building or industrial system avoids wasting reduces pressure somewhere else in the system.
Less generation may be required.
Less transmission.
Less storage.
Less fuel.
And potentially fewer materials.
That is why I continue to see energy efficiency as one of the most powerful tools available to us.
It does not belong to coal.
It does not belong to solar.
It does not belong to wind.
Efficiency reduces the environmental burden of every energy system.
Before asking how many new GW we need, perhaps we should also ask how many GW-equivalent we are throwing away through inefficient equipment, poor operating practices and unnecessary consumption.
Frequently asked questions about critical minerals and renewable energy
Do solar panels contain rare earth elements?
Most conventional crystalline-silicon solar panels do not rely heavily on rare earth elements. Important materials include silicon, aluminium, copper and silver. Some specialized photovoltaic technologies use other strategic materials such as indium, gallium or tellurium.
Do wind turbines require rare earth elements?
Some wind turbines do.
Permanent-magnet turbine designs may use neodymium, praseodymium and smaller amounts of dysprosium or terbium. Other generator configurations can use far fewer rare earth materials or avoid permanent magnets entirely.
Are rare earth elements radioactive?
Rare earth elements should not generally be described as radioactive.
However, some geological deposits containing rare earths are associated with naturally occurring thorium or uranium, meaning radioactive materials may become concentrated in certain mining and processing waste streams.
Is critical-mineral mining environmentally damaging?
It can be.
Potential impacts include land disturbance, biodiversity loss, high water use, tailings, contamination, energy consumption and emissions. The magnitude depends on the mineral, ore body, extraction method, processing technology, regulation and environmental management.
Are solar and wind really cleaner than coal?
From a life-cycle greenhouse-gas perspective, solar and wind have substantially lower emissions than coal-fired electricity.
But “lower carbon” does not mean “no environmental impact.”
Mining, manufacturing, land use, waste and supply-chain impacts still need to be managed.
Can critical-mineral recycling eliminate the need for new mining?
Not yet.
Recycling can substantially reduce future primary-mineral demand, but rapid expansion of renewable generation, grids and electrification means new mining will still be required for the foreseeable future.
Green does not mean harmless
The energy transition needs solar.
It needs wind.
It needs grids, storage, electrification and technological innovation.
But it also needs something the energy conversation often prefers not to show:
mines.
A lot of them.
Calling a technology “green” should not give us permission to ignore what happened before that technology started generating electricity.
Wind and solar already supplied 17.3% of global electricity in 2025, and demand for the minerals supporting electrification continues to rise rapidly.
That makes the mining question central, not marginal.
Coal has impacts.
Oil has impacts.
Gas has impacts.
Solar has impacts.
Wind has impacts.
Mining has impacts.
There is no energy source without consequences.
The intellectually honest question is not:
Which technology is clean?
It is:
Which combination of technologies gives society the energy it needs with the lowest total environmental, economic and human cost?
And that calculation must include the entire value chain.
Not just the attractive part we see when the solar panel starts producing electricity or the turbine begins to turn.
This does not justify slowing renewable deployment simply because mining has impacts.
But neither should the urgency of decarbonization become an excuse to accept irresponsible mining, unsafe working conditions, damaged ecosystems or communities forced to absorb costs that consumers thousands of kilometres away never see.
We should demand more from the energy transition.
Responsible mining.
Cleaner processing.
Traceable supply chains.
Better worker protection.
More recycling.
Higher material efficiency.
And much greater energy efficiency.
Because the objective should not be merely to change the technology that produces our electricity.
It should be to reduce the total environmental burden of producing the energy society needs.
So yes, we need an energy transition.
But we also need the courage to look directly at its dark side.
Because changing the color of the technology does not automatically make the entire supply chain green.