Life Cycle Material Flows and Supply Chain Externalities

Critical Mineral Demand

Rare earth element requirements for renewables: The accelerated rollout of wind and solar energy has transformed the global demand landscape for critical minerals, especially rare earth elements (REEs), battery metals, and specialty materials needed for advanced technologies.

Permanent magnets and rare earths:

• Permanent magnet generators in direct-drive wind turbines require neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium for high-performance magnets. Wind power now drives over 40% of new rare earth demand growth, with global requirements projected to triple by 2030 (IEA, 2024).
• Over 85% of global rare earth processing capacity is located in China, a concentration that leaves global supply chains highly exposed to policy risk, export controls, and market volatility. China’s 2024 export restrictions triggered price spikes, exposed downstream dependency, and fueled calls for strategic mineral stockpiling and new mine investment in Europe, the US, and Australia (USGS, 2025).
• The ongoing shift toward offshore wind and larger turbine designs further magnifies rare earth demand intensity per unit of renewable capacity installed.

Battery metals and grid-scale storage:

• Battery metals (lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite) underpin the explosive growth of utility-scale battery storage, essential for balancing intermittent wind and solar output on modern grids.
• Global lithium and cobalt production is dominated by a handful of countries (Chile, Argentina, China for lithium; DRC for cobalt), with supply chain volatility exacerbated by geopolitical friction, labor unrest, and permitting delays for new projects.
• Delays in mine expansion and refining capacity have already caused market shocks, with price spikes impacting both battery costs and electric vehicle deployment rates.

Polysilicon and solar supply chain emissions:

• The solar supply chain’s primary emissions hotspot is polysilicon production. The Siemens process, which dominates global polysilicon output, is highly energy-intensive and powered by coal in Xinjiang, China, where over forty percent of global supply originates (IEA, 2024).
• This region-specific emissions intensity means that most solar modules have substantial embedded carbon before ever reaching the installation site, with major implications for the net climate benefit of PV deployment.
• Chloride-based refining processes can cut energy demand and CO₂ emissions by thirty percent, but commercial adoption is constrained by high capital costs and the need for technical and regulatory validation.
• Additional critical materials such as indium, tellurium, and silver (required for thin-film, high-efficiency, and next-generation PV) face surging demand and risk of local depletion, especially as silver loadings remain high and new mineral discoveries lag technology expansion.

Worker and Community Health

Mining impacts and radioactive contaminant exposure:

• Rare earth extraction and beneficiation pose major environmental health risks. At Bayan Obo in Inner Mongolia, thorium and uranium concentrations in tailings reach up to twenty times background levels, with rising dust and radiological exposure among workers and residents (Deng et al., 2023; Wu et al., 2024).
• Respiratory illnesses, cancer risk, and ecosystem contamination are well-documented, but local remediation is limited and long-term epidemiological monitoring is sparse.

Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM):

• Cobalt mining in the DRC remains dominated by ASM, often in hazardous, poorly regulated conditions. Workers (including children) face daily exposure to heavy metals, lack basic personal protective equipment, and operate outside any effective health-and-safety regime (Amnesty International, 2024).
• ASM products can be laundered into global supply chains, complicating traceability and exposing battery and EV manufacturers to reputational and regulatory risk.

Community health and environmental justice:

• Mining, refining, and waste disposal sites expose surrounding communities to elevated cancer and respiratory disease risks from airborne particulates, groundwater contamination, and toxic waste leaching.
• While global voluntary standards (IRMA, EITI) call for community engagement and environmental protection, actual enforcement is inconsistent.
• Downstream, poorly regulated e-waste recycling and panel disposal operations in South Asia and Africa have created new hotspots for exposure to heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants (UNEP, 2024), with little regulatory response.

Embedded Emissions and Improvement Pathways

Greenhouse gas footprint of solar PV:

• Lifecycle GHG intensity of crystalline silicon PV modules averages thirty-three grams CO₂-equivalent per kilowatt-hour (g CO₂e/kWh), with most emissions front-loaded in polysilicon production, wafering, module assembly, and transport.
• While this is an order of magnitude below emissions from coal-fired power, the rapid scaling of PV means absolute upstream emissions are now a non-trivial share of the sector’s total climate impact.
• Regional supply chains matter: modules produced with renewable-powered manufacturing (e.g., Norway, Pacific Northwest US) have roughly half the carbon footprint of those made with coal-intensive electricity.

Circularity, recycling, and material recovery:

• Magnet recycling (Dowa Holdings pilot, Japan) achieves neodymium recovery rates up to ninety-eight percent from end-of-life turbine magnets, but costs remain forty percent above virgin extraction due to complex logistics, collection inefficiencies, and process energy demand (NEDO, 2024).
• Recycling of silicon, silver, and glass from PV modules is at an early commercial stage. As of 2025, only about ten percent of global PV waste is recycled, due to low secondary material prices and the high cost of safe, effective dismantling. Most end-of-life panels are landfilled or stockpiled, compounding future waste and pollution risks (IRENA, 2025).

Innovation and transition pathways:

• Closed-loop supply chains (where recycled material from end-of-life products is used in new module and turbine manufacturing) are being piloted by leading manufacturers, but face economic and technical barriers to scale.
• Extended producer responsibility (EPR) mandates for solar and battery waste are emerging in the EU and select US states, but are not yet globally standardized or enforceable.
• Large-scale decarbonization of mineral processing, using electrified, renewably powered technologies (e.g., hydrometallurgy, green hydrogen electrolysis), will be essential to maximizing the climate benefits of renewables.
• The ultimate sustainability and long-term competitiveness of the renewables sector depends on accelerated technical innovation and the adoption of transparent, verifiable supply chain governance frameworks (IEA, 2024; World Bank, 2025).