Earth Day 2026: How Critical Minerals Make Renewable Energy Possible

Earth Day's enduring legacy is people working together to shape a livable future. This year's theme, "Our Power, Our Planet," puts that idea at the center: environmental progress isn't handed down from on high. It is sustained by community participation, civic action, and the everyday decisions of people protecting where they live and work.

For the minerals industry, that framing resonates in ways that might surprise people. The clean energy future — the one powered by wind, solar, and electric vehicles — runs entirely on minerals. And the communities that extract those minerals, and that live with mine sites long after operations end, are among the most directly invested in getting this transition right. This Earth Day, it's worth looking at both sides of that relationship: the minerals that make green energy possible, and the growing commitment to giving back the land those minerals come from.

The Minerals Behind the Clean Energy Revolution

The shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy is not a shift away from resource extraction — it's a shift in which resources we extract. According to the United Nations, technologies such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels rely on critical minerals including lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, and rare earth elements. Without these materials, the green energy transition simply does not happen.

The scale of that dependence is striking. According to the IEA's The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions, a typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car, and an onshore wind plant requires nine times more mineral resources than a gas-fired plant. The same report projects that mineral demand from low-carbon power generation will nearly triple by 2040, with wind power playing a leading role due to its high mineral intensity, particularly from offshore installations.

Some of the specific relationships between minerals and technologies are worth understanding:

Copper is everywhere in the clean energy system. According to the IEA, it is used in cabling, wiring, and transformers, as well as in solar and wind power and battery storage, making it one of the most broadly applied minerals across clean energy technologies. The same report projects that offshore wind alone will account for nearly 40 percent of copper demand from the wind sector by 2040, driven by the extensive cabling those installations require.

Lithium is the backbone of battery storage. The IEA describes lithium as a core component of lithium-ion batteries, making it indispensable for electric vehicles and stationary energy storage.

Rare earth elements, including neodymium and dysprosium, are critical to the permanent magnets inside wind turbines and electric motors. According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, these ultra-strong magnets generate motion in electric vehicles and convert wind into electricity in turbines.

Silicon and silver are central to solar photovoltaics. The IEA reports that 40–50 percent reductions in the use of silver and silicon in solar cells over the past decade have helped enable a dramatic expansion in solar PV deployment — an encouraging sign that material efficiency can ease pressure on supply chains even as demand grows.

The demand trajectory is clear. A peer-reviewed analysis published in PNAS projects that annual demand for critical minerals will rise six-fold, from 4.7 million tons in 2022 to 30 million tons by 2030. Meeting that demand responsibly — and mining it well — is one of the defining challenges of this decade.

People at the Center: Reclamation as Community Work

"Our Power, Our Planet" is ultimately about people having a stake in outcomes. Nowhere is that more tangible than in communities that live adjacent to mine sites — during operations and long after. The minerals industry has increasingly recognized that how a mine closes matters as much as how it opens.

Industry best practice today calls for closure planning to begin long before a mine stops producing. As documented in a 2025 review of global reclamation innovation, leading approaches recommend beginning closure planning during the exploration phase, implementing an iterative process that adapts throughout the mine's operational life — allowing for progressive restoration that spreads costs over time and reduces final closure liabilities.

Community involvement has emerged as a defining factor in whether reclamation actually succeeds. The same review finds that communities with agency in determining post-mining land uses demonstrate higher satisfaction and stronger connections to reclaimed landscapes. That's not just a feel-good outcome — it reflects a practical reality that restoration works better when the people who live near a site have a voice in how it's done.

The technical work of reclamation has also advanced considerably. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) reports that through soil amendments, compost applications, and native species restoration, former mine lands are returning to functional ecosystems, and that constructed wetlands can remove metals from mine-impacted water while simultaneously restoring habitat. OSMRE also notes that LiDAR mapping, drone surveys, and in situ sensors now provide real-time insight into vegetation growth, slope stability, and water chemistry, allowing teams to intervene early before problems escalate.

Real-world examples show what that commitment looks like on the ground. The National Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs documents a case in Arizona where remediation of acid-polluted mine water resulted in fish returning to a creek even before the project was complete. In New York State, a quarry operator donated reclaimed land to a local township for use as a public park. In Brazil, a bauxite mining company began restoring forest in the Saracá-Taquera National Forest in the early 1980s; research published in Ecological Engineering found that diversity in native species selection plays a key role in successful forest establishment, with meaningful cover achieved within 9 to 13 years.

When a Mine Site Becomes a Clean Energy Hub — or Something Even Better

"Our Power, Our Planet" is also about who benefits from the energy transition — and whether the communities that have long supplied the raw materials for that transition get to share in its rewards. Increasingly, the answer is taking shape on the very ground those communities know best.

In Vermont, the Elizabeth Mine — an old copper operation that had been leaching acid into the Ompompanoosuc River for decades — was cleaned up and then given a second act through collective community decision-making. According to The Nature Conservancy, after the cleanup the community voted to develop a solar project, installing 20,000 panels across the 45-acre mine site. The Elizabeth Mine Solar project came online in 2016, generating 5 megawatts — enough to power every home in Strafford. That outcome didn't happen through top-down policy alone. It happened because a community decided what it wanted its land to become.

In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the former Groveland Mine — an iron ore operation in Dickinson County — tells a similar story of community-driven reinvention. Circle Power Renewables plans to build a 120-megawatt solar array on the former mine site, covering some 500 acres with enough panels to power 17,600 homes, with the project expected to be operational by 2028. What makes the Groveland project notable isn't just its scale — it's how it got approved. Local officials who might have resisted an industrial solar project on farmland or forestland embraced this one because it repurposed land the community had long considered a liability. The project is also projected to generate more than $12 million in taxes to local governments over its 30-year lifespan — tangible community benefit built directly on the footprint of extraction.

In Wyoming, the Carissa Gold Mine near South Pass City offers a different kind of second act — one rooted in history and community education. The reclamation project, led by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality's Abandoned Mine Land Division, addressed significant safety hazards at the 19th-century gold mine, including hazardous materials, structural instability, and dangerous mine openings, while preserving a vital piece of Wyoming's mining heritage. The results speak for themselves: the site is now an active state historic park, and over the past decade, 34,000 people — including 8,200 schoolchildren from Wyoming — have visited the site. The project was recognized with the 2024 NAAMLP Hardrock Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Award, the nation's top honor in hardrock mine reclamation. It's a clear example of what's possible when safety, preservation, and community benefit are treated as shared goals rather than competing ones.

The Road Ahead

None of this erases the genuine environmental challenges that mining presents. A study published in Science of the Total Environment notes that the mining and extraction of critical metals create environmental impacts and raise concerns about ecosystems and community health that deserve continued attention. The United Nations Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, launched in 2024, laid out guiding principles emphasizing equity, transparency, and the rights of local communities — because a just energy transition must extend to the people and places where minerals are found, not just the places where clean energy is consumed.

Recycling will play a growing role in easing pressure on primary supply. The IEA notes that unlike oil, which is consumed through combustion, minerals are a component of infrastructure with the potential to be recovered and reused, and that emerging waste streams from batteries and wind turbines are creating new opportunities for material recovery that could reduce the need for new extraction over time.

This Earth Day, "Our Power, Our Planet" is an invitation to see the clean energy transition whole — not just the gleaming panels and spinning turbines, but the minerals beneath them, the communities that produce them, and the land that deserves to be restored when the work is done. Power, in that sense, belongs to everyone with a stake in the outcome.

Minerals Make It Happen.