India’s push towards clean energy is hampered by complex global competition over essential minerals, with China’s dominance and supply chain fragmentation risking the country’s energy and defence goals, experts warn.
India’s clean energy ambitions are running into a new constraint: the minerals needed to build the system. In an opinion piece published by Eco-Business, Soumit Pandey and Animesh Ghosh argue that the shift away from fossil fuels is replacing oil dependence with a more complex contest over lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, copper and rare earths, all of which are essential to batteries, wind turbines, solar equipment, electrolysers, electric vehicles and defence technologies.
Their central warning is that the world is no longer dealing with a simple shortage of raw materials. Instead, the market is splitting into layers controlled by different powers: resource-rich countries dominate ores and concentrates, industrial hubs such as China, Japan and South Korea shape processing and finished products, and scrap and recycled materials move through separate trade channels. That fragmentation, the authors say, leaves countries such as India exposed at every stage of the chain.
The concern is backed by other recent analysis. A Livemint opinion piece said India’s rapid expansion in solar power and electric vehicles is still shadowed by heavy import reliance for minerals such as lithium, cobalt and rare earths. The World Resources Institute and the International Institute for Sustainable Development have also said India’s energy transition depends on a steadier and more diversified mineral supply, with the main risk coming from concentrated global sourcing and weak domestic processing capacity.
China remains the dominant force in that system. Eco-Business said Beijing has spent two decades building overseas mining access while also securing a commanding position in refining and processing. The paper argues that China now controls about 90% of rare earth processing and holds significant stakes across lithium, cobalt and graphite supply chains, giving it outsized influence over prices, industrial policy and export flows.
For India, the policy choice is increasingly urgent. The authors say domestic mines, refining plants and recycling systems will take years to scale, while demand is rising now because of climate targets and defence requirements. They argue that India should build allied supply chains, invest across the full value chain and formalise its large informal recycling sector, while also deciding which uses should take priority when mineral supplies are tight. The broader message is clear: in a resource order defined by strategic competition, delay is itself a vulnerability.
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