CRITICAL MATERIAL CHALLENGE - EXAMPLES OF TERAWATT SCALE PV AND BATTERIES

The energy and mobility transition is metal intensive and faces sustainability challenges. Exponential increase of renewables raises critical material issues.

Renewable energy solutions rely on metals that are plentiful in earth’s crust but bottlenecks might arise from geographical concentration, lack of mining capacity, company concentration as well as geopolitical, environmental and social risks.

However, solutions exist to mitigate the material scarcity and hence reduce the risk of shortages.

• 1. Reduction of material and development of improved and more sustainable design.
• 2. Materials substitution as an alternative to reduce the resource supply pressure.
• 3.   Circular use of critical raw materials to reduce primary resource use and waste production.
• 4. Production of key mineral resources: toward more independence through a worldwide reflection of relocalization.

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