Climate solutions like solar panels and electric cars require lots of minerals – copper, lithium, manganese. The U.S. plans new mines for these metals across the West. But as NPR’s Julia Simon reports, the country’s need for these metals can sometimes collide with the region’s lack of water. … You do have a miner in there. JULIA SIMON, BYLINE: On a 107-degree morning in the mountains east of Phoenix, a miner in a hard hat peeps out of the top of an 11-foot-tall bucket. Tyson Nansel, spokesperson for the Resolution Copper mine, says the miner’s about to plunge… SIMON: …Where the copper lies. To process it, the mine will use water – a lot, says geologist James Wells, much of it from an area east of Phoenix. JAMES WELLS: The equivalent of a brand-new city of something like 140,000 people – that’s how much water we’re talking about.