Sovacoo, and six co-authors, reported in 2020 that climate change mitigation will create new natural-resource and supply-chain opportunities and dilemmas, because substantial amounts of raw materials will be required to build new low-carbon energy devices and infrastructure. However, despite attempts at improved governance and better corporate management, procurement of many mineral and metal resources occurs in areas generally acknowledged for mismanagement, remains environmentally capricious, and, in some cases, is a source of conflict at the sites of resource extraction. These extractive and smelting industries have thus left a legacy in many parts of the world of environmental degradation, adverse impacts to public health, marginalized communities and workers, and biodiversity damage.
The authors attempt to identify key sustainability challenges with practices used in industries that will supply the metals and minerals—including cobalt, copper, lithium, cadmium, and rare earth elements (REEs) ... needed for technologies such as solar photovoltaics, batteries, electric vehicle (EV) motors, wind turbines, fuel cells, and nuclear reactors. The authors then propose four holistic recommendations to make mining and metal processing more sustainable and just and to make the mining and extractive industries more efficient and resilient. Between 2015 and 2050, the global EV stock needs to jump from 1.2 million light-duty passenger cars to 965 million passenger cars, battery storage capacity needs to climb from 0.5 gigawatt-hour (GWh) to 12,380 GWh, and the amount of installed solar photovoltaic capacity must rise from 223 GW to more than 7100 GW.
The materials and metals demanded by a low-carbon economy will be immense. One recent assessment concluded that expected demand for 14 metals—such as copper, cobalt, nickel, and lithium—central to the manufacturing of renewable energy, EV, fuel cell, and storage technologies will grow substantially in the next few decades. Another study projected increases in demand for materials between 2015 and 2060 of 87,000% for EV batteries, 1000% for wind power, and 3000% for solar cells and photovoltaics. Although they are only projections and subject to uncertainty, the World Bank put it concisely that “the clean energy transition will be significantly mineral intensive”.
Many of the minerals and metals needed for low-carbon technologies are considered “critical raw materials” or “technologically critical elements,” terms meant to capture the fact that they are not only of strategic or economic importance but also at higher risk of supply shortage or price volatility. But their mining can produce grave social risks. A majority of the world’s cobalt, used in the most common battery chemistries for EVs and stationary electricity storage, is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a country struggling to recover from years of armed conflict. There, women and sometimes children often work in or around mines for less pay or status than their male and adult counterparts, without basic safety equipment. Owing to a lack of preventative strategies and measures such as drilling with water and proper exhaust ventilation, many cobalt miners have extremely high levels of toxic metals in their body and a re at risk of developing respiratory illness, heart disease, or cancer. In addition, mining frequently results in severe environmental impacts and community dislocation. Moreover, metal production itself is energy intensive and difficult to decarbonize. Mining for copper, needed for electric wires and circuits and thin-film solar cells, and mining for lithium, used in batteries, has been criticized in Chile for depleting local groundwater resources across the Atacama Desert, destroying fragile ecosystems, and converting meadows and lagoons into salt flats.
The extraction, crushing, refining, and processing of cadmium, a by-product of zinc mining, into compounds for rechargeable nickel cadmium batteries and thin-film photovoltaic modules that use cadmium telluride (CdTe) or cadmium sulfide semiconductors can pose risks such as groundwater or food contamination or worker exposure to hazardous chemicals, especially in the supply chains where elemental cadmium exposures are greatest. REEs, such as neodymium and the less common dysprosium, are needed for magnets in electric generators in wind turbines and motors in EVs, control rods for nuclear reactors, and the fluid catalysts for shale gas fracking. But REE extraction in China has resulted in chemical pollution from ammonium sulfate and ammonium chloride and tailings pollution that now threaten rural groundwater aquifers as well as rivers and streams. Several metals for green technologies are found as “companions” to other ores with differential value and unsustainable supply chains.
The Ethical Conundrum
Mineral and metal supplies are geologically determined, yet socially mediated. Even if supplies are enhanced through coproducts of other industries, new resource streams, and considerable expansion of recycling and increased recovery rates, there are likely to be bottlenecks across metal supply chains. This is exacerbated by poorly functioning markets, as least for the minor metals. Hence, trade policy will need to become more deftly aligned with mineral supply in ways which are both economically and ecologically more efficient. Furthermore, more robust reporting and emissions data will be required across the supply chain. For example, although the U.S. government strategy for mineral supply security released in June 2019 highlights the importance of trade with allies and partners, it does not consider where it is most ecologically efficient to source minerals. Pursuing decarbonization simultaneously with principles of a circular economy, coupled with increased market transparency mechanisms and full lifecycle reporting, could yield important social and environmental benefits.
Consideration should also be given to where mining is most likely to have a positive development footprint while also having more manageable environmental impacts. Utilizing tools such as the Responsible Mining Index and platforms such as the Responsible Minerals Initiative or the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development may be a way forward. Although there may be treaty fatigue among policy-makers, an inter-treaty protocol on mineral supply chains to ensure that the goals of existing treaties are met could enhance effective governance. Conversations in this vein should be attempted among the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, through the UN Environment Assembly, as well as more focused mechanisms such as the U.S. government’s recently launched Energy Resource Governance Initiative, the World Bank’s Climate-Smart Mining Facility, or the European Institute of Innovation and Technology for Raw Materials.
Having just marked the 150th anniversary of the formulation of the periodic table, the authors suggest that it is time that society realizes that the elements, and the minerals in which they are embedded, are essential to society's attainment of low-carbon goals. There is an ethical conundrum to addressing climate change only by aggravating other social and ecological problems related to unsustainable mineral and metal supply chains. But done sustainably, an impending mining boom could help lift communities out of poverty, accelerate technical innovation for decarbonization, and further the realization of energy and climate targets. Which direction it takes will depend considerably on how metal and mineral supply chains are governed over the next few critical years.
For supplementary materials supporting the above article, see: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2019/12/30/367.6473.30.DC1
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