In its latest report Material and Resource Requirements for the Energy Transition the ETC dives into the natural resources and materials needed to meet the needs of the transition. Large investments and strong policy support are needed to ensure that the supply of some key minerals grows quickly and sustainably over the next decade to meet rapidly growing demand.

There is no fundamental shortage of any of the raw materials to support a global transition to a net-zero economy: geological resources exceed the total projected cumulative demand from 2022-50 for all key materials, whether arising from the energy transition or other sectors.

However, even with strong action on innovation and recycling, scaling supply rapidly enough to meet demand growth between now and 2030 will be challenging for some metals, and mining will need to expand significantly.

Without strong action to improve materials efficiency, increase recycling or increase mined supply, there could be significant supply gaps for six key energy transition materials: lithium, nickel, graphite, cobalt, neodymium and copper.

The analysis identifies four key actions policymakers, miners and manufacturers must take to reduce that risk and expand supply quickly and sustainably:

Building new mines and expanding existing supply of materials quickly
Building more diverse and secure supply
Driving sustainable and responsible material production
Boosting innovation and recycling to reduce pressure on primary supply

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Most importantly, it is crucial to understand that any impacts on land and water to build and operate a
clean energy system will be significantly less than the adverse impacts that will arise from
temperature rises above 1.5°C and beyond 2°C in the absence of a rapid energy transition by 2050.
This section therefore covers in turn:
➀ Land and water requirements to operate and maintain a clean energy system.
➁ Material and mineral requirements compared with globally available resources.
➂ The new system vs. the old: a dramatically reduced impact on the global environment over the longterm.
1.1 Land and water requirements for a clean energy system
Total land and water requirements for the global energy system are small compared to other major uses
such as agriculture. This section outlines land and water requirements to build and maintain a clean
energy system, compared to a fossil fuel energy system.
• Land requirements for a zero-carbon energy system are much larger than for a fossil fuel based
system, but are small relative to agricultural use and total available land – likely less than 2% of land
dedicated to agriculture. In many cases low-carbon energy can be sited on working agricultural land.
• Water requirements for metals mining, cleaning solar panels, nuclear power generation, carbon
capture and electrolysis for hydrogen could be as much as 1.5–2 times larger than a fossil fuel energy
system, but requirements are around 50 times lower than for agriculture.
The required land and water for mining the materials needed to build clean energy technologies is
discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.
It is also worth remembering the adverse impacts climate change would have on land and water, which
would be avoided with the energy transition. These impacts, outlined in Section 1.3 below, would likely
be significantly worse than the requirements to build and operate a clean energy system – whether from
water scarcity or available land.8
1.1.1 Land requirements for a clean energy system
Exhibit 1.2 sets out the land requirements for a net-zero energy system compared with a fossil fuel
system and global agriculture use. Key points are:
• Land requirements for wind and solar, including power generation for direct electricity use, green
hydrogen production, and direct air carbon capture (DACC), account for around 0.4–1.1 million square
kilometres of land – around 1% of global land use and an area of land slightly less than current urban
areas. Importantly, the impact on global biodiversity or agriculture is much less than this would imply,
given that:
◦ Much solar photovoltaic (PV) can be placed on rooftops or on desert and other land which is
unsuitable for agriculture – around 40% of solar PV installations in 2021 were on rooftops.
◦ Wind farms compete only minimally with agricultural land use, and solar farms can also be
combined with some agricultural activity and biodiversity.
• The largest land requirements for renewable energy – and the biggest potential adverse impact on
biodiversity – derives not from wind and solar deployment, but from bioenergy production. But
sustainable use of bioresources need not exceed the land already dedicated to those resources today,
implying no net increase:
◦ The ETC believes that almost all future bioenergy use could be met from waste and residues,
with minimal additional energy crop use. This implies future land use for bioenergy would not go
beyond existing levels, which totals 0.5–2.5 million km2.
◦ Bioenergy development must still be carefully managed within sustainability limits and used
only in applications where alternative zero-carbon technologies are not available.
• Thus, new additional land use from the energy transition would only be around 0.4–1.1 million km2,
comparable to the 0.2–0.4 million km2 used for the fossil fuel energy system.13
• However, both energy systems are very small compared with the 51 million km2 devoted to
agriculture, of which 41 million km2 directly (i.e. grazing land) or indirectly (i.e. arable land used for