The energy transition runs on materials
Followig his keynote speech at the eMobility Expo World Congress - MOW in Malaga on 11 March, our Director-General, Roman Stiftner, shares his reflections on a defining question: ‘From mine to megawatt: Why raw materials decide the energy transition?’
The first mile of e-mobility is not on the road. It is in the ground. Electric vehicles and wind turbines may symbolise the future of clean energy. But long before any of this is visible, another industrial world is already hard at work: mining, refining, and processing the minerals that the transition ultimately depends on.
The transition we rarely talk about
The energy transition is often described through images that are easy to recognise:
- Electric cars,
- Charging stations,
- Wind parks,
- Solar panels.
These technologies have become the visual symbols of climate neutrality and electrified mobility. But these images tell only part of the story.
Long before the first electric car leaves a factory or the blades of a wind turbine begin to turn, a different industrial world has already been at work: mining -> crushing -> refining -> alloying and processing the materials that make these technologies possible.
In other words: before there is a clean dashboard, there is a very dirty shovel somewhere along the way. This is not a criticism of the energy transition. It is the physical reality behind it. The transition to electric mobility and renewable energy is therefore not only an energy transition. It is also a materials transition.
Electrification changes the resource equation
Electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar installations and battery systems require large volumes of minerals and metals. Often in greater quantities and greater diversity than conventional technologies. Copper, aluminium, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and rare earth elements are no longer marginal components hidden deep in industrial supply chains. They form the enabling architecture of electrification.
Electrification doesn’t remove resource dependence, it shifts it. The future energy system will rely less on fossil fuels and more on minerals and metals that must be mined and processed before becoming part of batteries or motors. This makes the transition not less necessary, but more complex.
The problem is not geology
Public debates about critical minerals often ask: what if the world runs out? Geology offers a reassuring answer. The Earth’s crust contains abundant resources, and there is no imminent geological scarcity of the minerals needed for electrification. The real challenges lie elsewhere.
Developing mining projects takes time. Permitting is complex, and processing requires significant energy and capital. Supply chains must expand rapidly to meet rising demand. The key question is not what exists in nature, but what can be brought to market responsibly, competitively, and at the scale required for a global transition.
From geology to geography
Even more important than geology is geography.
Global supply chains for many critical minerals are highly concentrated in the refining and processing stages where raw materials are transformed into battery-grade chemicals and advanced industrial materials.
Mining may occur in one part of the world while processing capacity is located somewhere entirely different. Yet it is precisely this processing stage where industrial value and strategic influence accumulate. Whoever controls refining capacity controls something extremely important: time, flexibility, quality and strategic leverage within global supply chains.
Therefore, the geopolitics of the energy transition has less to do with where minerals are found and more to do with where industrial capabilities are located.
Europe’s strategic question
For Europe, this reality raises an unavoidable question. The continent has set ambitious goals for climate neutrality and electrified mobility. But these ambitions will only succeed if the underlying industrial supply chains are secure and resilient. Energy policy, industrial policy and raw materials policy cannot be treated as separate domains. They are deeply interconnected parts of one industrial system.
Processing and refining of minerals are energy-intensive industries. Without competitive energy prices and supportive industrial frameworks, these activities will inevitably move to regions where such conditions already exist. If Europe wants to remain a competitive industrial location for the technologies of the future, it must address the entire value chain from extraction and processing to recycling.
The untapped potential of circularity
Circular economy strategies will play a central role in this transition. Europe already holds large amounts of valuable materials embedded in vehicles, infrastructure, equipment and consumer products. End-of-life batteries, electronics, industrial residues and metal scrap will form an important part of the continent’s future material base.
But circular economy policies must go beyond targets. They need to become industrial strategies that reintegrate materials into supply chains at scale. Put simply: scrap is not waste, it is raw material.
Recycling will not replace primary mining, but it can reduce supply risks, strengthen resilience and keep valuable materials within Europe’s industrial ecosystem.
Diversification instead of dependency
At the same time, no region can secure the raw materials required for the energy transition entirely on its own. Global supply chains will remain indispensable. The challenge is not self-sufficiency but diversification. Strategic partnerships with resource-rich countries based on investments, technological cooperation, sustainability standards and shared value creation will become increasingly important. The future of raw materials supply lies not in isolation, but in diversified interdependence.
A vehicle that reflects the world
Electric vehicles are presented as the flagship technology of the new energy era. But they also illustrate the complexity of modern industrial supply chains. Behind a single electric vehicle lies a global network of materials, technologies and industries that spans continents. Lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper travel through complex value chains before becoming part of a battery pack or electric motor.
Refining capacity, industrial know-how and advanced manufacturing capabilities are distributed unevenly across the world. In that sense, an electric vehicle is more than a mobility solution. It is a compressed map of the global economy.
From mine to megawatt
The energy transition is often described in terms of renewable electricity and emissions reductions. But the transformation begins much earlier in the industrial value chain. Every battery starts long before the gigafactory. Every charging network begins long before the transformer is installed. Every wind turbine begins long before the blades start turning.
Which leads to a fundamental question for policymakers, industry, and society alike: Do we actually have the materials, the processing capacity, and the industrial strategy required to build the future we are promising?
If the answer is yes, the clean transition can become not only greener but also more resilient and economically robust. If the answer is no, others will mine, others will refine and others will manufacture, while Europe will mainly regulate. And regulation alone does not power a battery.
The pathway of the transition is therefore clear: from mine to megawatt.
Dr. Roman Stiftner is Managing Director of the Austrian Mining and Steel Association (WKÖ) and Director-General of EUMICON.