The Clean Energy Dilemma: Mining's Impact on Nature
- Date: 13 May 2025
Accelerating the use of clean energy technologies like solar panels and electric vehicles is essential to meet global climate goals. But doing so will require dramatically increasing the global supply of copper, cobalt, lithium and graphite that play critical roles in the production of solar cells, magnets for turbines, and EV batteries. And a significant way to get those materials is through mining. That poses a potential risk to nature.
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In order to better understand that risk and develop strategies to balance the deployment of renewable energy infrastructure with the conservation of natural habitats, WWF commissioned a new study on the impact of mining for energy transition minerals on nature globally.
In this episode of Nature Breaking, host Seth Larson interviews Colin Meehan, WWF’s senior director for renewable energy transitions. Colin led the development of this new study, and he shares key insights about the choices we need to make to meet global climate goals while also keeping nature intact and protecting communities.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Seth Larson: Welcome to Nature Breaking, a World Wildlife Fund podcast, focused on the news and trends affecting our natural world and the people and species who call it home. I'm Seth Larson. And we've talked before on the show about the urgent need for the world to accelerate the use of clean energy technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles in order to meet global climate goals.
Doing so will require dramatically increase in the global supply of copper, cobalt, lithium, and graphite that play critical roles in the production of things like solar cells and magnets for turbines and EV batteries. And a significant way to get those materials is through mining. That poses a risk for nature.
So, what strategies can help us balance the deployment of renewable energy infrastructure with the conservation of natural habitats? It's an important question, particularly for an organization like WWF that's committed to reducing emissions but is also rooted in a mission to save wildlife and ecosystems.
So, WWF commissioned a study on the impact of mining for energy transition materials, or ETMs, on nature globally to help us get to the bottom of it. And joining me today to talk about that study is Colin Meehan WWF's, Senior Director for Renewable Energy Transitions. Colin led the development of this study, and he'll walk us through its key findings and what they tell us about the choices we need to make to meet global climate goals while also keeping nature intact and protecting communities.
If you enjoy this podcast, please like this episode on YouTube and subscribe to our channel wherever you're listening to this. Those likes and subscripts really help boost our show in the algorithms of different apps and help us reach more people. So, thank you for listening, and here's my conversation with Colin.
Colin, welcome to Nature Breaking. It's so great to have you here.
Colin Meehan: Thanks for having me, Seth.
Seth Larson: Yeah, really my pleasure, this is a really interesting topic. It seems like it is on and off in the headlines all the time last few years, so I'm really glad that I’m tackling it today.
Before we get into this report on critical minerals, I wanted to ask you to tell us a little about yourself. And I understand a lot of your passion for these topics comes from your background growing up in Appalachia, right?
Colin Meehan: Yeah, that's right. I grew up in western Maryland and spent a lot of time driving through West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. And spent a lot of time out in the woods on the Appalachian Trail, but also saw a lot of mountaintop removal mining, and that had a really big impact on me and how I view our interactions as humans with the world, but also how we use energy. And that's really what drew me to working in energy in the first place.
Seth Larson: Do you have any early memories of seeing your first mountaintop removal project and how that struck you?
Colin Meehan: Yes, I do. I couldn't say where it was, but I just remember asking my parents why that mountain was flat, and it was odd, and this was a project that had been quote-unquote reclaimed. But it was just a... really stuck out in the middle of probably western Pennsylvania. And it just had an impact on me as, not a, just not looking like it belonged.
Seth Larson: Yeah, yeah. So, before we dive further into the report, I did want to just put a little context around this conversation and I wanted to just ask you to explain how much mining currently takes place for copper and these other critical energy transition minerals, and how much more would we need to fuel a net zero future? I'd love for you to just parse out how those mining activities compare and what we might expect to see.
Colin Meehan: Yeah, it's really important to understand where we are today and where we need to go. A big part of this from my perspective is to achieve our decarbonization goals, but also this is just the clean energy transition that's happening based purely on economics as well. What... one of the studies that we used as a reference point for our report came from the International Energy Agency, and what they found was that to meet what the Paris Climate Accord goals, essentially keeping global warming well below two degrees Celsius, we would need to quadruple the minerals that are used that are being used for the energy transition. Yeah, by 2040. Yeah, if we just continue along our business-as-usual course, which is, some expansion of clean energy, but also transmission and energy storage, we will roughly double the inputs.
But I think taking even further a step back and getting some more context is important because those numbers sound really big, quadrupling by 2040. Even doubling sounds like a lot. One of the things that we did in our report was to look at what our current energy use is, how our current energy use impacts mining and mineral demand.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Colin Meehan: And what we found is, I think the latest number that we could find was from 2022. And in 2022 globally, we consumed 8.4 billion tons of coal and that's just one source of energy. Of course, there's oil and gas, and other sources of energy as well. But we consumed 8.4 billion tons of just coal in one year. Based on those IEA projections, the mineral demand for energy transition minerals would be 25 million tons. So just three tenths of a percent, in 2040 of what we consumed in coal just a few years ago.
Seth Larson: Yeah. This is super interesting, I think there's so much conversation around how much rare earth minerals and all these materials we're going to need to power electric vehicle batteries and all these different new technologies. I definitely think there's an impression that some people may have that this is going to be on the same scale as the type of mining we've seen more historically for coal and other resources. And it seems like that's not the case, right?
Colin Meehan: That's correct. It's really not the case and this is something WWF has been looking into for some time now. A study that we did a few years ago found that if we succeed in transitioning to a completely clean energy future, we'll reduce mining overall globally across all types of mining, not just energy specific. We will reduce mining by 25% in a fully clean energy economy. So, one of the things that was important for us to understand in this study was what is the relative scale of what we're using today and what we could be using in the future.
And one of the big outcomes from our research is that we can see some clear benefits just from transitioning to a clean energy infrastructure. We can see some clear benefits from the mining perspective. Yeah.
Seth Larson: All right, so that's really interesting and I appreciate you explaining the scale that we're talking about, both for the critical minerals that we'll need for a clean energy future, as well as the type of mining we're already doing and how those compare, but any mining is going to have some impact on nature. And that's a thing that we're really concerned about at WWF. That's part of our mission to conserve ecosystems for wildlife and for people. So, I want to talk about that and let's just start with what kind of impact does your study has towards critical mineral mining, both now and projected out into the future?
Colin Meehan: Yeah, that's really the question at the heart of our study, so I'm happy to talk about that. What we focused on in our study was looking at a group of areas called key biodiversity areas, and that's important to understand. I want to spend just a second on that.
Seth Larson: Please define that.
Colin Meehan: Okay. Yeah, so it's a publicly available data set, and it's composed of sites all around the globe. We focus exclusively on terrestrial sites, just land-based sites. It's assembled by a number of different, global conservation organizations, including WWF, Bird Life International and others. And these are sites that significantly contribute to the global conservation of nature. That's the shortest, most concise way of saying it. But these are some of the most important sites that we want to conserve and preserve for the future.
Seth Larson: I'm guessing rainforests and places like that, that we think of as really important for biodiversity and for carbon absorption and all sorts of ecosystem services, right?
Colin Meehan: Exactly, that's exactly right. Yeah. So, we looked at how many energy transition mines, and we focused on a subset of what are called critical minerals. And I can't yet rattle the full list, but it's about 27 different minerals that we looked at, including the rare earth minerals, which is its own group. But these are minerals that people have probably heard about, lithium and cobalt. But as you mentioned, copper and aluminum, one of my favorites is molybdenum, just because I learned to say it at some point, and I can get it to roll off the tongue. But we looked at these minerals and what we saw was that about 7% of mines for those minerals currently in existence overlap with key biodiversity areas. That's around 980 miners. That's a lot of mines.
Seth Larson: Yeah. On the one hand, 7%, it's... against a hundred percent that's a low number, but that 7% is having an impact.
Colin Meehan: It really is having an impact. And that stays relatively consistent based on what we know today. Going out into the future because what we're looking at is a combination of existing mines and planned mines or mines that are currently being explored. And what we found was for existing mines, the percentage currently operating is a little bit higher. It's around 9%. For those mines that are currently being explored, there is an owner for those mines, they're considering either expanding or beginning mining operations, that's around 7%. It gives us a relatively good perspective on what the scale of the impact is. And as you said, these are very sensitive areas and that 7% may not sound like a lot but the impact to those areas is very real.
The encouraging thing for us is because that 7% is a relatively small number relative to a hundred. That means there are, there are, what is it, 93% of the mines that suppliers can choose from that don't overlap, that have that risk. And so that's something that we really want to highlight for all of the different investors throughout the supply chain to understand that there are a lot of good options for them to source their minerals in ways that aren't impacting key biodiversity areas.
I do want to emphasize for folks though: this is just one of the impacts to the natural environment. Key biodiversity areas are very important, but there are a lot of different ways of looking at how the natural environment is impacted. So, one of the things that we emphasize in our study is how much we still need to learn. And there's still a real need for additional research to understand what the impact is on specific species, specific areas of the globe and community. So, this is something we really hope to dig into over the coming years with more reporting.
Seth Larson: I want to go back to what you just said about trying to communicate to companies that there's a 93% of mines that they can source from that aren't having this impact on key biodiversity areas.
That kind of picks at a question that was in the back of my mind of, so what do we do to mitigate the impact on nature and how do we strive toward best outcomes? And so, are the companies that are sourcing these materials the biggest lever that we can work with to pull there in the right direction? Are there other partners or other strategies that we should be pursuing to try to mitigate as much as possible the impact on nature?
Colin Meehan: It's a great question. It's one of the ones that we speak to in the report a little bit, but we hope to expand on. I think the short answer to your fundamental question is, working with the companies that are buying the end-use products, is something that WWF has been doing for a long time across our portfolio. And we see a lot of opportunities there to work with renewable energy developers as well as the renewable energy manufacturers. And I actually, earlier in my career I worked for a long time for a solar manufacturer and developer, and that's really what has brought me to this place today. To focus on these issues. I know that the way that renewable energy developers source their materials, their solar panels, their wind turbines, their towers, their racking. They order them in large chunks based on their projected demand for the next few years. They have the ability to place different requirements on those purchases. They do that regularly, “Made in the USA” is a really common one nowadays. But also requiring certain labor standards requiring different types of standards.
One of the things that we've been talking with developers about is that there's a lot of interest. There's actually one developer already that is working with a group called the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurances. And this is a group that includes communities that are impacted by mining, civil society, so NGOs across the globe, as well as mining companies and just setting a very transparent, very high standard for, for the impacts to community and the environment from mining sites. So, trying to drive them in that direction is one of the key things that we focus on. We also focus on circularity, there are a lot of different opportunities to mitigate this. Again, this 7% feels like it's manageable and we have solutions for it.
Seth Larson: Circularity is a, I'm glad you mentioned that because that is another characteristic that sets these materials that are being mined apart from traditional fossil fuel resources that get mined. Because those are things that get used once and they get burned and they get, they create electricity and then they've served their purpose. Whereas lithium that goes into a battery can, that battery can then be recycled and turned into another product afterwards. And I know it’s still some of that's in its early phases and we're still figuring out the logistics of that, a lot of it still ends up in landfills, but there's at least a potential to be reusing some of those materials.
Colin Meehan: Yeah, there's a high potential. It's a very good point that I think often gets missed is that, when we talk about clean energy, in particular renewable energy like solar and wind, that renewable energy is doing the work of the circularity, right? It is not a single use of this mineral that's been mined. It is a use that extends for 30, 40 years or more.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Colin Meehan: And so, there's some inherent circularity already. But really what we're seeing is there's an opportunity for substantial growth in circularity. For lithium, you highlighted. I think it’s one of my favorite examples. There's a recycling opportunity, there's also a simple second life opportunity. So, for electric vehicle batteries, that are beyond their useful life, they maybe don't have enough power to power an electric vehicle anymore. They still absolutely have enough power to serve as a resource to the electric grid. So, providing different kinds of, they're called essential grid services or ancillary services, is something that these batteries can continue to do for decades after their use in an EV. And then at some point they will need to be recycled. Again, with lithium, in particular with cobalt, with some of these minerals that are specifically for energy storage or other kinds of clean energy resources. We need to build up the recycling capacity. For other minerals, copper and aluminum part in particular, that capacity already exists. We know that we can recycle them, we just need to expand it, and we know we need to expand it, and that there really needs to be a focus on that.
Seth Larson: Yeah, so you are really an expert on this stuff. I know you've been following these issues for a long time. As you put this report together, were there any findings that jumped out and surprised you?
Colin Meehan: Yeah, they were, and I should note here, just to give credit where it's due, my colleague Hannah Rouse played a major role in pulling together a lot of the information for this report. She couldn't be here today, but she did play a big role in this, and she has a lot of expertise to bring to it as well. However, the things that really stood out for me, I think, the first thing, there are probably two major things. The first is in looking through this and understanding the minerals that are most impactful for the energy transition, it really surprised me that it was copper and aluminum. We hear all about lithium, cobalt, zinc, those are very important. They play key roles for a number of different technologies. But the amount of material that is needed, primarily for transmission and distribution lines, from copper and aluminum is around, is projected to be around 25 million tons by 2040 for the next largest kind of, technology. So, for batteries, the number of materials projected to be around 12 million tons. And then for, wind and solar, it's an order of magnitude lower. So that was a really surprising takeaway because I think when we hear about them, the kind of mineral usage. We think that a lot of it goes into solar panels or to wind turbines or things like that. Frankly, most of this, based on this IEA study of the 25 million tons of copper and aluminum, that's going to be used by 2040, about 20 of it is already baked in. It's just material that we are going to need to grow the use of electricity around the globe. Yeah. and I think that's really important for folks to understand.
Seth Larson: Super interesting and that, as you just said that those transmission lines are going to be, need to be built regardless of how that electricity is generated.
Colin Meehan: Yeah. I think I did want to say, I think, yeah, that's exactly right. It they, we all need transmission to power our homes, to power our offices and for some of us to power our cars. The other really interesting takeaway that surprised me once you realize that copper and aluminum are the big players in the energy transition, it also becomes quickly apparent that in the context of global demand for copper and aluminum, energy is not a dominant factor. So, when we talked about it, you were asking earlier about how we can best leverage our relationships with corporate partners, to improve supply chains, that's a little more challenging with copper and aluminum because the market is so much broader. By 2040, the IEA projects that copper at least will, about 40% of the copper developed or mined in them, in across the globe will go towards energy usage, so that's not nothing.
Seth Larson: Yeah. 40%?
Colin Meehan: Yeah. But right now, I think it's around 20% and it's just not going to move the market. And part of what we want to do is, again, where we have an existing footprint and existing capability that's been well established, like recycling copper and aluminum, to just find ways to grow that and to emphasize that, but also to seek out alternative technology. So, there's a lot of, I had the opportunity to work in the Department of Energy and the grid deployment office, and there's a lot of innovative materials now in both energy storage and transmission that don't rely on aluminum or copper quite as much. And so, finding those alternatives creates another opportunity to just reduce the overall demand for these minerals. Yeah. So
Seth Larson: So, I have one last question for you as we wrap this up, and I just pulling back and reflecting on all the effects of climate change that we're all seeing in our lives. I think as we all see things happening to our friends, neighbors, family, communities, there is a natural urge to have a mindset of we need to fix these things now as fast as possible, no matter what the costs might be. And so, if that means mining for clean energy, raw materials, that might end up having a negative impact on some fuzzy animal. I'm going to accept that loss because the problem of climate change is so big that we're going to just have to accept some of those losses to nature or other things and just plow ahead. And I wanted to just ask you to address that mindset and talk a little bit about how you’re thinking of this and why it's important to keep nature in mind as we are also at the same time driving towards this clean energy future.
Colin Meehan: It's a really tough question. I actually, I have some personal experience. I lived through winter storm Uri in Texas, so we had for about four days the temperature never got above 10 degrees where I was, my home was not insulated. I was a single parent, I had to move my 2-year-old son two times to find a place to be safe, and that sticks with me. And I have a lot of appreciation for people who are forced to make literal life or death decisions for people whose lives are impacted.
Maybe not in a life-or-death manner, but in a very real manner. I think that it is, it can be challenging when you're in the middle of that to really think beyond your immediate needs. And I think we have to understand that fact. That is just a fact. People have to take care of themselves. They have to be able to. What we have to keep in mind as people that are working more broadly to solve systemic issues is that these issues are interlinked, right? It's not about a few fuzzy animals. Biodiversity is about what feeds us, what gives us clean water, what gives us medicine. It is because these ecosystems that we live in are so complex and interlinked. The heat wave that leads to significant impacts for people might be exacerbated by deforestation, from a mine site, potentially, locally. There are a lot of different ways that the natural environment plays a very direct role in those impacts, and I think it's important and helpful for people to talk about that fact and, we need to communicate to folks how those impacts are actually really quite direct. And that they need to be aware of we also need to recognize as we work with our partners in the business community, that they will not be able to be successful in the clean energy transition if they don't have the support and buy-in of the communities that are impacted by the things that they want to build or the minds that they want to explore.
And so, this is again, from my experience working, as a solar developer with a solar developer, communities that are not seeing the benefits from projects that are going on in those communities, whether those benefits are economic, social, certainly employment, but also ecological. If they're not seeing those benefits, they will turn their backs on the progress, even if it helps their tax base. The tax base is not an immediate, immediate personal benefit. And really, it's the trickiest question and it's at the heart of this new program we have at WWF called Community Positive Energy Transition, is that we need to, as we're building out this new infrastructure, keep nature, keep it centered on nature and communities really. So that’s been as we've built this program up and as we've gone through this study, that's really been our focus. Yeah.
Seth Larson: Yeah. I had a chance to interview, uh your colleague, your boss, Marcene, a year or two back, and she was reflecting on how we have a chance to get this transition right, the transition in a way that we didn't with the original industrial transition that we went through in the early part of the 20th century as building out the original electric grid and in our sort of zeal to expand electricity to a lot of communities that really needed it. Sometimes that was done in a way that didn't have the foresight to take into account the impact it could have on communities and try to get it right this time as we're going through another transition, I know it is a priority for her and for us as an organization. And I think that's a really great point to wrap up on.
Colin Meehan: I agree. I think it's such a unique opportunity to have an impact that it’s going to last for a very long time. If we can get it right this time, that's going to be embedded in the culture of energy infrastructure going forward, because they'll see that success.
Seth Larson: Yep. Colin, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us through this report today and explain some of these pretty thorny, complicated issues and questions that we're trying to work through. I think it's really important stuff and I really appreciate your time.
Colin Meehan: Thanks, I really appreciate it, Seth. Great talking to you.
Seth Larson: Thanks again to Colin for joining the show today. Debates around mining for critical minerals are only going to intensify in the years to come as the clean energy transition accelerates. So, I think it's an important moment right now to understand some of these key questions about how we balance mining for minerals with conserving nature. Colin and his colleagues have given us an important resource with this new report, and I encourage you to read it for yourselves. I'll include a link in the show notes. For now, thank you for listening and let's keep building a more sustainable future.