It's true this is a big problem, thanks for posting Ricky. Hence another reason we should realise batteries are not so cool, even if not lithium based, the problem with them is that the mined materials in them are proportional to the amount of energy that the battery is capable of storing, therefore implying we only need to forecast future energy requirements to also forecast battery material requirements. The logic of deducing this much mined materials might be required for the future of humanity in any "renewable energy" scenario would hold if we didn't know about alternatives like hydrogen, which does not require materials to embody the Joules of energy stored, only less exotic materials required to contain hydrogen under pressure, or liquified, and the passage of it, and we obviously don't need to dig hydrogen out of the ground, despite this being suggested by some fans of extracted fuels. The relationship between materials and energy stored is completely different, there is no direct link between materials required and energy required in the case of hydrogen.
In the cases of copper and gold you mentioned in passing how they are most commonly processed, but you missed mentioning any alternatives.
There are many processing methods, some much safer but "more expensive" than others, it is just the more profitable option always wins in the current economic paradigm, the paradigm of profit, which is also the paradigm of energy by extraction - they are one and the same.
I put this down to you needing to sell a dialog, a narrative in the profit driven system like we mostly all do, any of us involved in any kind of activism, including energy related activism, unfortunately, we are still dependent for our personal energy on energy by profit, therefore energy extracted from the planet, we have to talk about things in a way that might make some money for us, this is the basis of maybe all politics, it all starts with a sales pitch.
So the thing we should all agree on, is if we removed the need for each of us to compete with one another for every Joule of energy we each need to exist, then we would finally have removed the most fundamental conflict of interest that exists in every one of us.
Saying that, I hope and trust your article will make a difference, but with respect, how you could make the biggest difference would be to get onto talking about motivations, and how this would change, if we could finally ditch the for-profit personal energy model.
It changes, as soon as we start to issue solar indexed stimulus, as necessary to reflect the economic product created by energy which is added to Earth, rather than subtracted from it.
Until then, we will see nothing much change for any better, because all of it, all the bad stuff, is fully dependent on the for profit business model.
We can lament the bad stuff for profit, hence continuing to push up the temperature, because the temperature rise starts first as profit, before it is multiplied by outcomes like CO2, but we can never change it, until we can change the need for each of us to require energy by profit.
So if we really want change, we should do everything we can, to make the issue of solar indexed stimulus happen sooner rather than later, because later could be too late.