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Hidden Impact
Pursuing clean energy technology means mining for increasingly rare metals and minerals. And that doesn’t come without an environmental impact.
In 2020, something happened, which offered a moment of hope for supporters of green energy technologies: For the first time in the United States, electricity generated by wind and solar technology exceeded that of coal. This change lasted only days, a blip really in our history of energy use and was certainly enhanced by the pandemic lockdowns. Nonetheless, coal consumption has been trending down for most of the past decade, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that wind and solar capacity will actually surpass both coal and gas by 2024. These developments gave us a glimpse of a future where our dependencies switch to cleaner energy resources. While that forecast is encouraging, however, we cannot consider that future without also understanding the impact these ostensibly green technologies could have upon the environment, too.
In their report “Solving the Climate Crisis,” the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis concluded that “To achieve net-zero in the electricity sector by 2040 and economy-wide by 2050, deployment of wind [and solar] energy must increase dramatically.” A dramatic increase in renewable technologies, however…
