Despite this fall in coal reliance, the thinktank said, “most of the emissions cuts in 2023 are not sustainable from an industrial or climate policy perspective”.
Müller said: “The crisis-related slump in production weakens the German economy. If emissions are subsequently relocated abroad, then nothing has been achieved for the climate.”
You are right that mining is dirty as hell and if we only consider the ecological impact of mining then nuclear is a much better solution than renewables energy.
For the whole world to transition to renewables energy the production of copper will need to be multiplied by 2.7 in 2040 compared to 2020 levels, rare earth by 7.3, lithium by 42 ! …
Uranium mining is terrible for environment but so is copper mining, cobalt mining, lithium extraction … Since uranium is so dense energetically we only need a very tiny amount of it to produce electricity so overall the mining impact of nuclear is much lower than renewables energies.
The amount of copper and other minetals used for renewable energy is way higher than nuclear, these have to be mined too.
I’m not advocating for nuclear but there is so much disinformation around it that does not help the debate.