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Limiting climate heating while meeting basic needs of all necessitates eliminating fossil carbon emissions. This paper discusses the dynamics of mobilizing materials required for large-scale deployment of renewable energy, which entail: 1) availability of resources in the environment and technosphere; 2) accessibility, which depends on resource quality and available technologies; 3) processability, which depends on energy availability, processing capacity, and environmental impacts on planetary boundaries; and 4) operability, which depends on social acceptance and geopolitical agreements. Also, materials can be mobilized through four routes: 1) increasing primary production; 2) diverting existing primary production; 3) repurposing existing in-use stocks; and 4) re-mining previous wastes and emissions. The interplay of these enabling factors determines the maximum possible rate of material mobilization and thus of the energy transition itself. This paper presents and discusses a framework to explore joint energy-material transformations, enabling to consider material aspects in transition modelling and guide technological developments.

Existing life cycle assessments (LCA) of lithium carbonate production from brines are mainly based on one single brine operation site, while many different lithium carbonate production routes have been developed in the past. Hence, current life cycle inventories do not capture the variability of brine sites and misestimate life cycle impacts. This study presents a systematic approach for LCA of existing and future lithium carbonate production from brines, which can furthermore be applied to geothermal brines or seawater. It has been used to model life cycle inventories of three existing and two upcoming brine operations in Argentina, Chile, and China and combined with regionalized life cycle impact assessment. Impacts on climate change, particulate matter human health impacts, and water scarcity from lithium carbonate production differ substantially among sites. Existing life cycle inventories for lithium-ion battery production underestimate climate change impacts by up to 19% compared to one from our study.