Tech

Yes, we have enough materials to power the world with renewable energy

Powering the world with renewable energy will require a lot of raw materials. The good news is, when it comes to aluminum, steel and rare earth metals, there’s a lot to consider, according to a new analysis.

In the 2015 Paris Agreement, world leaders set a goal of keeping global warming below 1.5°C, and achieving that goal will require building a lot of new infrastructure. The researchers found that even under the most ambitious scenarios, the world still has enough raw materials to power the global grid with renewable energy. And extracting and processing those materials will not generate enough emissions to warm the world beyond international goals.

There is a catch for all this good news. While we technically have the materials needed to build renewable energy infrastructure, in practice, extracting and processing them can be a challenge. If we don’t do it responsibly, turning those materials into usable form can lead to environmental harm or even human rights violations.

To better understand the physical need to achieve climate goals, the researchers looked at 17 key materials needed to generate low-emission electricity. They estimate how many of each of these substances are needed to build cleaner infrastructure and compare them with estimates of how much of those resources (or raw materials needed to make them) are available in protected areas. geological existence. Geological reserves include the total amount of matter on the planet that can be economically recovered.

Most renewable technologies require some loose materials such as aluminum, cement and steel. But others also need special ingredients. Solar panels run on polysilicon, while wind turbines need fiberglass for the blades and rare earth metals for the motors.

Material requirements vary depending on the type of new infrastructure we build—and how quickly we build it. For the most ambitious climate action scenarios, nearly 2 billion tons of steel and 1.3 billion tons of cement could be needed between now and 2050.

Production of dysprosium and neodymium, the rare earth metals used in wind turbine magnets, will need to quadruple over the next few decades. Solar-grade polysilicon will be another hot commodity, with the global market projected to grow 150% between now and 2050.

But for every scenario the team examined, the materials needed to keep the world below 1.5°C of warming make up “just a fraction” of the world’s geological reserves, said the report. King tailorCo-director of the climate and energy group at the Breakthrough Institute and one of the authors of the study, published in the journal Joule this week.

There will be consequences for digging into those reserves. The researchers found that emissions impacts from the extraction and processing of these important materials could total 29 gigatons of carbon dioxide between now and 2050. Most of those emissions are due to polysilicon, steel and cement.

The total emissions from the extraction and processing of those materials are significant, but over the next 30 years, they add up to less than a year’s worth. global emissions from fossil fuels. Wang said the initial emissions costs will be more than offset by savings from clean energy technologies that replace fossil fuels. above progress cutting emissions from heavy industrysuch as steel and cement, can also help reduce the climate impact of establishing renewable energy infrastructure.

This study focuses only on technologies that generate electricity. It doesn’t include all the materials needed to store and use that power, such as batteries in electric vehicles or grid storage.

Demand for battery materials is expected to explode between now and 2050. Annual production of graphite, lithium and cobalt will all need to increase by more than 450% from 2018 levels to meet projected demand. for electric cars and grid storage, according to a 2020 study from the World Bank.

Even considering battery materials, Wang said, the underlying problem is the same: the stock of materials needed for the world’s clean energy infrastructure is sufficient for even high-demand scenarios. Best.

Getting them off the ground will be the hard part. Increasing production of some materials, especially those needed for batteries, will pose social and environmental challenges.

Silver stone on black background
Silicon is used in semiconductor chips as well as solar panels.

“There is an underestimation of what needs to happen in mining,” says Demetrios PapathanasioGlobal director for energy and mining at the World Bank.

Take copper as an example: the world has mined about 700 million tons of copper since we started mining thousands of years ago. We will need to mine another 700 million tons over the next three decades to meet climate goals, says Papathanasiou. It’s not a matter of reserves: the minerals are there.

The problem is that mining, whether for fossil fuels or renewable energy, can cause significant harm to the environment. For example, in the western United States, proposed mines for materials such as copper and lithium can force indigenous people to leave their land and cause pollution.

Then there is the issue of labor. In some cases, today’s materials are extracted by workers under unfair or exploitative working conditions. Despite efforts to ban child labor, it is still widespread in cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Processing Polysilicon in China has been linked to forced labor.

Papathanasiou says figuring out how to get the materials we need to build a cleaner future without destroying people or the environment in the process should be a key focus of the renewable energy transition. create in the future. “We really need to come up with solutions that help us get the materials we need sustainably and in a very short time.”



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