 Just like the 20th century was powered by fossil fuels, the 21st will rely on minerals. The screen you are now looking at, all your electronic devices and most crucially, your hopes for avoiding climate catastrophe are dependent on strategic minerals like lithium, nickel and rare earths. But there is a problem. Mining has had a massive impact. Freshwater depleted or polluted, biodiversity lost, communities displaced. Dams, storing toxic mining waste, collapsed in Spain in 1998, in Romania in 2000 and in Hungary in 2010. Long after mines closed, pollution persists. No wonder then that for the past four decades, Europe chose to outsource these activities. It became a buyer rather than a miner. It has now woken up to see China dominating the whole chain, from looking for minerals to producing metals and finished products like electric vehicles' batteries. If relations with China sound, a lack of raw materials could kill EU industry. Now brewing, a new European law, the Critical Raw Materials Act, once passed in 2024, dozens of mining projects across the EU can be fast tracked. Investigate Europe's team of journalists researched what this would mean for Europe. They found, fast track is a recipe for conflicts. In the mineral-rich Nordic countries, for example, indigenous Sami representatives say, this is a catastrophe. Another finding, a paradox, if the EU is to depend less on China, it will need Chinese know-how and Chinese industrial inputs. At the same time, Russia is expanding its influence in countries where the EU aims to source raw materials. And US subsidies suck new investment from Europe. Europe's mining ambition comes with promises that it will be greener and respectful of local communities. Huge doubts persist. IE reporters took out their pickaxes and started digging to find out.