Resource Efficiency

Context

A zero-carbon world means that all countries need to move away from fossil fuels to more complex renewable energy technologies. These include most of the low-carbon infrastructure, such as wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries. They require greater quantities of complex combinations of materials and long supply chains from source to point of use. Sourcing and producing these critical minerals has the potential to affect GHG emissions targets and their long and complex supply chains have security issues. These impacts remain largely unexplored in energy, transport, and critical minerals modelling work.

Research Priorities

The Resource Efficiency Research Community will focus on: a) the assessment of material requirements for future energy and transport systems; b) the assessment of material criticality; c) the evaluation of opportunities for material circularity. The first area is centred around the development of MatDP (Material demand projections) through to an open-source software offering. The second area focuses on development of two new models on critical minerals supply and value chains. These software products, when combined, anticipate the quantity and type of critical minerals required to expand electricity and transport systems in LMICs under different scenarios, and demonstrate how these countries can get more value from them. In the immediate future, MatDP will be linked with CCG and other energy and transport models, and training materials and case studies will be developed.

Research Questions

1. How many and which materials will be needed globally to meet climate change targets?

2. What material supply chains are at risk of disruption, where will these risks occur and what interventions can mitigate future risks?

3. What role can material circularity strategies play in reducing demand for primary material and how does this affect environmental and social impacts?