Abstract
The global energy sector is expected to experience a
gradual shift towards renewable energy sources in
the coming decades. Climate change as well as energy
security issues are the driving factors. In this
process electricity is expected to gain importance to the
cost of fuels. However, these new technologies
are in many cases dependent on various metals. This
analysis evaluates the need for special metals and
compares it with known resources in order to find
possible bottlenecks in the market. The time
perspective of the analysis reaches to the year 2050.
Following technologies have been selected for evaluation:
solar electricity, wind power, fuel cells,
batteries, electrolysis, hydrogen storages, electric cars
and energy efficient lighting. The metals investigated
belong either to the semiconductors, platinum group
metals, rare earth metals or are other critical
metals like silver and cobalt.
The global transition of the energy sector is modelled
with TIMES. According to the results the most
critical market situation will be found in silver. Other
elements, for which bottlenecks in the market seem
possible, include tellurium, indium, dysprosium,
lanthanum, cobalt, platinum and ruthenium. Renewable
energy scenarios presented by the IPCC Fifth Assessment
Report seem partly unrealistic from the
perspective of critical metals.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 53-62 |
Journal | Renewable Energy |
Volume | 95 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2016 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- critical metals
- clean energy technologies
- TIMES model
- resources
- reserves