In a previous post, I offered a broad overview of the problems related to minerals needed for the clean-energy transition. To recap: clean-energy technologies are more minerals-intensive to build than their fossil-fuel counterparts; the growth of clean energy will rapidly raise demand for a set of key minerals;mining and processing of those minerals is geographically concentrated, often in countries with weak labor and environmental protections;mineral mines and processing facilities often pollute water, scar landscapes, and impoverish communities;production may not be able to expand fast enough to keep up with demand, which could cause supply constrictions and price fluctuations and slow the transition away from fossil fuels.That’s the big picture. In today’s post, I want to take a take a closer look at some of the biggest clean-energy technologies and the minerals required to build them. Specifically, I’ll cover batteries, solar PV, wind, geothermal, concentrated solar, and carbon capture and storage (CCS). I’m not going to get too deep into any one of these — just a quick tour.I’ll be drawing heavily on a 2020 World Bank report that projects demand for key minerals under rapid decarbonization scenarios from the International Energy Agency (IEA) — specifically the RTS (reference technology scenario, or current policy), 2DS (2-degree scenario), and B2DS (beyond 2-degree scenario, aiming for 1.5). (The World Bank and IEA use the word minerals to refer to the mineral and metal value chain, and I do the same in this post.)This tour will reveal which minerals are expected to be most in demand — which ones are certain to be needed and which depend on the direction taken by particular technologies. It will help focus attention on possible supply stress points. It will also reveal that there is enormous uncertainty about the pace and scale of demand growth for specific minerals and minerals generally. Much depends on unpredictable developments in technology, policy, and politics. Epistemic humility is called for, along with policy focused on resilience. (More on policy in the next post.)One fact that is certain: the more ambitious the world’s decarbonization efforts, the higher mineral demand will rise. Here’s an overview table of energy sources and technologies and the key minerals they use:Let’s start the tour with the 800-pound gorilla of minerals demand: batteries.Batteries are the biggest growth sector for minerals demandOf all the clean-energy technologies set to boom in coming decades, none will put a strain on minerals supply like batteries, shown as energy storage in the chart above. They account for about half of the projected growth in minerals demand over the next two decades in a rapid decarbonization scenario.In large part, this has to do with the expected rise in battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs), which represent 90 percent of battery demand growth; the other 10 percent will come from growth in stationary storage, used to balance out wind and solar on the grid. If the world targets 2°, minerals demand from energy storage will double from the baseline scenario; if the world targets 1.5°, it will more than double again.Batteries, readers of my battery series will recall, are composed of two electrodes, a cathode and an anode, and an electrolyte through which they exchange ions. (The outlier is redox flow batteries, which pump a liquid electrolyte past electrodes.)Depending on what those three parts are made of, batteries require different minerals. Many EVs still use lead-acid batteries, which use lead and sulfuric acid, but lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are expected to rapidly take over the market, so demand for lead-acid batteries won’t grow much.As for LIBs, most use graphite as the anode, which means graphite will be the most sought-after mineral in energy storage. Cathodes vary more widely. The most common use nickel, with various mixes of cobalt, lithium, and manganese also common. (It should be noted that li