Towards a dynamic assessment of raw materials criticality: Linking agent-based demand — With material flow supply modelling approaches

Knoeri, Christof; Wäger, Patrick; Stamp, Anna; Althaus, Hans‐Jörg; Weil, Marcel

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.02.001

Cited by 60 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…A common tool for the assessment and communication of the resource criticality in both research and policy contexts is the Bcriticality matrix^, composed of two dimensions: supply risk (or risk of supply disruption) and economic importance (or vulnerability of the system to a supply disruption) (Erdmann and Graedel 2011;Glöser et al 2015;Knoeri et al 2013). In the case of Graedel et al (2012), a third dimension is added, in order to take environmental implications into account.…”

Section: What Is Resource Criticality? From the Criticality Matrix Tomentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of raw materials based on supply risk indicators for Europe

Mancini

Benini

Sala

2016

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Purpose The concept of Bresource criticality^has recently emerged as a policy priority and research subject, usually referred to the risk of supply disruption for mineral resources, due to economic and geopolitical reasons. Different methodologies for assessing critical raw materials (CRM) have been developed in governmental and research contexts, and the possibility of including the resource security aspect in life cycle assessment (LCA) has been claimed by different authors. The present paper aims at integrating CRM considerations in LCA in order to address socio-economic and strategic aspects related to resource use. Methods In this paper, we first explore how resource criticality could be interpreted, taking into account a wider perspective and a multidimensional concept. This includes the consideration of environmental and depletion aspects, in addition to the dominant interpretation, based on economic and geopolitical considerations. We then focus on the economic dimension of the resource criticality and propose the integration of this aspect in LCA through the use of characterization factors (CFs) based on the supply risk factors for Europe. Four different methodological options for resource security CFs are tested in the impact assessment of 50 processes and products.These options include the following: supply risk factors as such; two exponential functions of the supply risk factors, aimed at increasing the variability of the dataset, and the ratio between supply risk and production data, which reflect the size of the market, giving more importance to the materials used in small amounts in products and applications (like, e.g. specialty metals, that are often perceived as critical).Results and discussion The results show how the impact depends on the supply risk factors or on the mass depending on the algorithm used. Even if there is no objective way to establish how much importance should be given to one aspect or the other, we conclude that the use of the factors Bsupply risk/ production^results might better reflect CRM importance and therefore could be used in LCA for an assessment of resource security impact for EU. Applying an exponent to the supply risk factors, the values are spread on a wider range and it is possible to spot the CRM among the resources within an inventory. Conclusions The choice of the indicator is based rather on how important is the need of identifying a CRM in the inventory, e.g. in order to optimize CRM use, explore substitution options and enhance recovery in waste management.

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Section: What Is Resource Criticality? From the Criticality Matrix Tomentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of raw materials based on supply risk indicators for Europe

Mancini

Benini

Sala

2016

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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“…In this context, it is important to clearly distinguish between the aforementioned screening methods that generally determine numerous different materials and technology oriented studies of the supply system of specific commodities. When considering specific raw material markets and supply systems, dynamic criticality approaches including econometric time series analysis [4,9,10], agent based [11] or system dynamics modeling [12] have been presented in previous years (see also bottom part of Table 1); however, most current screening methods analyzing large numbers of materials and commodities do not take temporal changes into account (see also classification in Table 1). The European Commission has updated its 2010 criticality study [13] in 2014 [14], and there are publications about criticality assessments for two different years using the same set of indicators [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking the Step towards a More Dynamic View on Raw Material Criticality: An Indicator Based Analysis for Germany and Japan

et al. 2016

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Due to mounting concerns about the security of raw material supplies, numerous studies dealing with the quantification of supply risks and material criticality at the national level have been carried out in previous years. Regarding these studies, most approaches are indicator based static screening methods analyzing large numbers of raw materials and identifying those which are most critical for an economy. The majority of these screening methods quantify supply risks and vulnerabilities for one base year without taking into account temporal changes. Dynamic approaches for specific raw materials analyzing affected value chains in detail have been introduced recently; however, these studies do not intend to provide a screening of larger numbers of commodities. In this paper, we present a simple dynamic screening approach to assess raw material criticality at the country level building upon methods from innovation economics. The indicators applied in this study are only based on broadly available production and trade data, which makes this approach relatively easy to apply. We test our methodology on the example of Germany and Japan-two economies with highly specialized industries and low domestic raw material deposits, and, hence, high import dependency. The results are comparable to those of previously conducted multi indicator based static screening methods. However, they provide additional insight into temporal developments over the previous decade.

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“…Some authors propose to use an agent-based behaviour model [6,7]. It allows one to represent dynamic system behaviour, but this method does not take into account the system elements' reliability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A gas supply system criticality assessment

Jokšas¹,

Žutautait²,

Ušpuras³

2014

Risk Analysis IX

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Heat and electricity systems are very strongly associated with fuel provision systems. Natural gas is one of the main fuels used in the heat and electricity generation process. So it is important to ensure that the infrastructure of natural gas supply remains as robust and reliable as possible. System criticality level is one of the most important indicators of reliable power supply. The simulation of a gas network was implemented by the optimization method of maximum flow. In this paper the authors present a gas supply system criticality assessment based on some results of risk analysis. The pilot calculations were performed for a closed hypothetical energy system. The results of such analysis may also be incorporated into the development of an infrastructure criticality analysis.

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Towards a dynamic assessment of raw materials criticality: Linking agent-based demand — With material flow supply modelling approaches

Cited by 60 publications

References 30 publications

Characterization of raw materials based on supply risk indicators for Europe

Characterization of raw materials based on supply risk indicators for Europe

Taking the Step towards a More Dynamic View on Raw Material Criticality: An Indicator Based Analysis for Germany and Japan

A gas supply system criticality assessment

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