Toward Decarbonized Metal Mining and Shifting Environmental Impacts: A Quantitative Comparative Assessment

Over the next few decades, staggering amounts of metals will be required to facilitate the rapid electrification of society. However, mining itself produces substantial greenhouse gas emissions and remains the single largest global producer of solid waste. Here, we perform a comparative life cycle assessment for the extraction of copper, cobalt, gold, and rare-earth elements using two decarbonized routes: fully electrified conventional mining and electrokinetic in situ recovery (EK-ISR). Our results indicate that while electrifying conventional mining can reduce the carbon footprint by over one order of magnitude─for instance, reducing projected annual carbon emissions for copper from up to 650 Mt CO₂e/year to roughly 36 Mt CO₂e/year by 2050─it fails to address the escalating production of tailings and overburden. Conversely, we find that EK-ISR offers a fundamental shift in the environmental impact. While its energy intensity can reach that of conventional mining, EK-ISR eliminates the need for solid waste storage. We estimate that for copper alone, a shift to EK-ISR could avoid the generation of more than 100 Gt of waste over the next 30 years. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that the future of sustainable mining relies on shifting environmental burdens from permanent landscape scarring and waste storage to the temporary land occupation required for renewable energy generation.