Environmental trade-offs from renewable energy adoption in chile’s copper production: a life cycle assessment

As the world’s leading copper producer, Chile faces the dual challenge of satisfying rising demand for copper in clean energy technologies while mitigating the environmental impacts of extraction and processing. To address the sector’s substantial energy and water requirements, national strategies have emphasized renewable energy deployment and the use of desalinated seawater as measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and alleviate water scarcity. Nevertheless, the absence of integrated risk assessments suggests that critical environmental trade-offs may be overlooked. This study applies a life cycle assessment to quantify the environmental trade-offs associated with a clean energy transition in Chilean copper production. The analysis considers key variables, including green hydrogen deployment, a fully renewable electricity mix, seawater use, and ore grade decline. Results indicate a reduction in global warming potential for both pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical processes under renewable energy scenarios; however, notable increases emerge in impact categories such as ozone depletion, mineral resource scarcity, freshwater and marine ecotoxicity, and human toxicity. These burdens are primarily attributable to large-scale photovoltaic deployment and intensive reliance on reverse osmosis desalination. Sensitivity analysis of ore grade decline further reveals that, at critically low ore grades, the renewable energy scenario ceases to deliver climate benefits relative to business-as-usual and exacerbates trade-offs linked to photovoltaic expansion and desalinated water use. Overall, the findings underscore the necessity of complementary mitigation strategies, including efficiency improvements in mining and concentration processes, as well as reductions in the environmental footprint of photovoltaic supply chains and desalination technologies.