"Imported Minerals, Metals Fuel U.S. Shift To Homegrown Power"

"A U.S. clean-energy boom could force the nation to shed its addiction to foreign oil, only to develop a dependence on imported minerals and metals.

Clean-energy technologies -- solar photovoltaics, geothermal, compact fluorescent and light-emitting diode lighting, and wind turbines -- depend on globally scarce materials, some of which are produced only in unstable nations."

Katie Howell reports for Greenwire in the New York Times June 9, 2009.