This paper examines the use of materials, in particular metals, in six low-carbon energy technologies of the European Union’s Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan), namely: nuclear, solar, wind, bioenergy, carbon capture and storage and electricity grids. The projected average annual demand for metals in the SET-Plan technologies for the decades up to 2020 and 2030 is compared to the known global production volume in 2010. From an initial inventory of 60 metals, fourteen metals were identified for which the six technologies will require 1% or more of current world supply per annum between 2020 and 2030. These 14 metals, in order of decreasing demand, are tellurium, indium, tin, hafnium, silver, dysprosium, gallium, neodymium, cadmium, nickel, molybdenum, vanadium, niobium and selenium. The 14 metals were examined further by analysing the effect of market and geo-political factors of supply and demand. This latter examination highlighted five of the fourteen metals to represent a high risk to large-scale technology deployment, namely: neodymium, dysprosium, indium, tellurium and gallium. Significantly, the five metals affect the wind and solar sectors only. The five metals were further analysed with respect to more detailed technology deployment scenarios, which shows that the demand of each of the five metals could increase significantly depending on future technology choices. For each of the five metals, mitigation strategies to alleviate potential shortages are also deliberated upon, such as extending primary output; re-use, re-cycling and waste reduction; and substitution.
MOSS Raymond;
TZIMAS Evangelos;
KARA Hudai;
WILLIS Peter;
KOOROSHY Jaakko;
2013-02-25
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
JRC70896
0301-4215,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421512011068,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC70896,
10.1016/j.enpol.2012.12.053,
