Critical metal requirement for clean energy transition: A quantitative review on the case of transportation electrification

Trade-off between critical metal requirement and transportation decarbonization in automotive electrification

“…First, prioritizing alternative designs for cathodes/anodes and fuel cell systems is essential to reduce the reliance on primary critical metals. In addition to the metals’ high abundance in the crust, alternative cathode designs could also offer improved specific energy and operational safety 79 . Our sensitivity analysis indicates that LFP and Li-S/air batteries could be adopted to reduce the use of cobalt, nickel, and manganese compared with NMC/NCA batteries.…”

“…Our sensitivity analysis indicates that LFP and Li-S/air batteries could be adopted to reduce the use of cobalt, nickel, and manganese compared with NMC/NCA batteries. Other batteries with manganese-rich cathodes, such as lithium manganese nickel oxide batteries and lithium manganese iron phosphate batteries, use a higher share of abundant metal manganese and can also serve as a solution to reduce the reliance on cobalt and nickel 79 . Post-LIB technologies such as sodium-ion and zinc-ion batteries are sustainable alternatives, enabling EVs to decouple from using lithium 81 .…”

“…The future demand for critical battery metals far exceeds the 2020 production capacity, as evidenced in global-level studies [42][43][44] . Other studies also show that monotonic growth in global demand for critical metals to 2050 is the most prevalent trend, mainly driven by the EV market penetration and battery technology development 79 . Another considerable challenge is that the current critical metals are centralized in a few politically unstable countries such as Chile, Congo, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa, according to the World Bank 80 .…”

“…Regarding recycling technologies, direct cathode reuse is considered a more advantageous route and should be boosted to improve recovery efficiency 74 . Standardizations and regulations on battery design of battery chemistries, types and sizes, labeling of cells, and pretreatment operations, including selective collection and sorting, should be established to ensure high-quality recovery 79 . For the waste batteries, we only consider the recyclability of EoL battery flows, while scraps in battery production also need to be considered as they are estimated to be over 900 Gg by 2030 83 .…”

Mobilizing materials to enable a fast energy transition: a conceptual framework

“…Moreover, transition models (including IAMs and others) are usually "materials blind" too (Michaux, 2021c), in disregarding the physical requirements of materials, the dynamics of mobilization, as well as social implications. Studies on raw material demand induced by the energy transition take pathways as exogenous inputs, and usually analyse the demand for selected years only, e. g., 2050 or 2100 (Kullmann et al, 2021;UBA, 2019;Visser, 2019;Zepf et al, 2014;IRENA, 2022;World Bank, 2020;de Koning et al, 2018;Moreau et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2023;Rinaldi et al, 2023;Xu et al, 2022). As with energy, material investments for building RE infrastructure can have a critical influence on the dynamics of the transition.…”