Materials & the Replacement Clock
The renewable build has already moved ~21 million tonnesof material (see the homepage counter). But the honest question isn't the total — it's the intensity per unit of energy, and the fact that none of it is dug up only once.
Critical minerals per terawatt-hour
Lead with per-TWh, not per-megawatt — it bakes in the capacity-factor gap (solar runs ~23% of the time, nuclear ~92%). On that fair basis, a wind or solar TWh needs ~10× the critical minerals of a nuclear one.
Honesty rail: this is critical minerals only— it deliberately excludes steel, concrete and aluminium, which dominate tonnage by mass (the homepage counter shows those). The IEA's own "wind needs 9× the minerals of a gas plant" headline uses this same critical-minerals basis. And the chokehold on these minerals is midstream refining, not mining.
The replacement clock
A reactor runs 60–80 years. A renewable grid is rebuilt two to three times over that span — and because Australia recycles almost none of it, each rebuild is fresh mining, not a closed loop.
These tonnes are not one-and-done: panels are re-procured ~every 25 yr, inverters ~15 yr, blades ~20 yr — and Australia landfills most end-of-life panels and nearly all blades, so replacement is fresh mining, not a closed loop.