If you use your cell phone to post on social media about your perception that mining is hazardous to our air and water quality, and we need to promote wind energy instead, Minnesota State Senator David Tomassoni will revel in the irony, just a little bit.

“A windmill has 200 tons of steel in it and 4-9 tons of copper in it. It has a whole bunch of stainless steel too. So there are all kinds of things that need to be mined,” Tomassoni said recently, sitting in his office in the Minnesota Senate Building, across the street from the State Capitol. “A cell phone has something like 39 different minerals in it, and not one of those minerals magically falls from the sky. They all have to be mined.”