Criticality of mineral raw materials and sustainability...
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© Fraunhofer ISI Expert Workshop on Security of Supply and Scarcity of Raw Materials Ranco, Italy, 13-14 November 2012 CRITICALITY OF MINERAL RAW MATERIALS AND SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT
Transcript of Criticality of mineral raw materials and sustainability...
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E x p e r t W o r k s h o p o n S e c u r i t y o f S u p p l y a n d S c a r c i t y o f R a w M a t e r i a l s
R a n c o , I t a l y , 1 3 - 1 4 N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 2
CRIT ICAL ITY OF MINERAL RAW MATERIALS AND SUSTAINABIL ITY ASSESSMENT
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Criticality is a relative concept
Criticality has at least two dimensions
Some sort of risk – generally risk of supply interruptions
Some sort of impact – generally economic
At least two dimensions are connected by a logical „AND“
Raw materials are not critical in themselves, they are critical to somebody (for some reason or set of reasons) at some point in time
Countries or group of countries
Parts of countries
Sectors
Companies
Instrument to highlight current issues and inform policy or business decisions
Some features of „cr i t i ca l i ty“
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Three reasons why some materials may be considered critical:
“first, they have a significant economic importance for key sectors,
second, the EU is faced with high supply risks […]
and third, there is currently a lack of substitutes.”
Need to define metrics for each in order to determine criticality.
Def in ing “cr i t i ca l” raw mater ia l s for the EU
COM (2008) 699 – The Raw Materials Initiative
Indicators from “Critical raw materials for the EU” (Ad-hoc working group on defining critical raw materials, 2010)
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Production statistics differentiated by quality
Specially relevant for industrial minerals
Life cycle data
Only cradle to gate possible
Data not available for all raw materials in the assessment
Trade statistics
Detail, completeness and correctness of reported data
Relevant for import dependence and availability of secondary raw materials
Recycling indicators
Quality of data and assumptions varies widely
Most complete current source: UNEP report (but heavy reliance on extrapolations and expert judgment)
Some data l imi tat ions encountered dur ing the 2010 EU exerc i se
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What it does
Provide transparent estimates for the relative ranking both in supply risk and economic importance
Give relative ranking at one point in time (snapshot)
Compare raw materials on the basis of their economic benefit to society
Considers all uses of a raw material
Explicitly acknowledge contribution of secondary raw materials to supply
Emphasizes the importance of substitution
What it doesn‘t
Provide a view into the future beyond the lifetime of the indicators used
Consider the effect of market size (e.g. scale of problem and rate of change of indicators)
Explicitly consider the interdependence between different metal markets (both on the supply and the demand side)
EU methodology
See also Buijs, Sievers and Tercero Espinoza: Limits to the critical raw materials approach, Waste and Resource Management 2012 (in press)
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Minerals, Critical Minerals, and the US Economy (USA, 2007) U.S. consumption (value) Substitutability U.S. import dependence Ratio of world reserves to production Ratio of world reserve base to production World by-product production U.S. secondary production
Method of metal criticality determination (2012) Depletion times (reserves) Companion metal fraction Policy potential index Human development index WGI: Political stability Global supply concentration Substitute perf. and avail. Net import reliance LCA cradle-to-gate: “human health” and “ecosystems” ...
Critical Materials Strategy (USA, 2010) Basic availability Competing technology demand Political, regulatory and social factors Co-dependence on other markets Producer diversity Demand for clean energy Substitutability
Critical metals in strategic energy technologies (EU, 2011) Limitations to expanding world supply Concentration of supply Political risk related to major suppliers Likelihood of rapid demand growth
Kritische Rohstoffe für DE (Germany, 2011) Consumption DE vs. world Change in the above Change in imports Sensitivity of value chains Demand from emerging technologies Substitutability …
Material Security (UK, 2008) Global consumption levels Lack of substitutability Global warming potential Total material/ environmental requirement Physical scarcity Monopoly supply …
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Definition of critical raw materials
Security of supply
Political
Economical
Social
Environmental
Economic or policy importance of metals and minerals
Sustainability assessment by LCA
Non-renewable use of resources
Depletion of abiotic resources
Several other impact categories
Cr i t i ca l i ty and susta inabi l i ty assessment
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Def in ing supply r i sk : The EU approach
Material properties are not included!
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Acknowledging the contr ibut ion and potent ia l of recyc l ing
Tercero Espinoza (2012): The contribution of recycling to the supply of metals and minerals. In Deliverable 2.1 of the FP7 POLINARES Project.
Available at http://www.polinares.eu/docs/d2-1/polinares_wp2_chapter8.pdf
Growth through larger, more affluent population Saturation when?
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Example: Cobalt
EU completely dependent on imports (≈ 20% of world production)
≈ 2/3 of cobalt products produced in Europe are sold outside of Europe
≈ 20% of cobalt demand worldwide is for battery production (Li-ion for electronic devices)
but these are not produced in the EU!
The ro le of geography: Europe, dependence, g loba l izat ion and burden sh i f t ing
Based on data from Eurometeaux for the report Critical Raw Materials for the EU (2010); see also Tercero Espinoza (2011) / POLINARES Project (http://www.polinares.eu/docs/events/polinares_events_tw2_minerals_supply_chain_bottlenecks.pdf)
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Market s ize ( tonnes , 2010) of EU CRM
Market size is a factor in: Overall environmental impact
Magnitude of investment necessary to increase supply
Rate of change of indicators, e.g.
Concentration of supply
Distribution of end uses
Limitations to expanding supply of co- and by-products
And impact of these
Data from “Critical raw materials for the EU” (2010), World Mining Data (2012), USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries (2012)
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Speed of change in ind icators : Can we keep up? How long- l i ved should resu l t s be?
Based on production data courtesy of BGR, World Governance Index: http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/sc_country.asp
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In f luence of technologica l change
Results from the POLINARES Project, based on: Ad-hoc working group on defining critical raw materials: Critical raw materials for the EU (2010); Fraunhofer ISI / IZT: Rohstoffe für Zukunftstechnologien (2009); BGR Commodity Top News 33 (2010); Fraunhofer ISI: Lithium für Zukunftstechnologien (2009); U.S. DoE: Critical materials
strategy (2010). See also Buijs, Sievers and Tercero Espinoza: Limits to the critical raw materials approach, Waste and Resource Management 2012 (in press)
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Substitutability mapping and monitoring
USGS publishes useful assessment, but necessarily vague
Environmental impact data for all materials at similar quality
Environmental impacts tied to geography
Global recycling rates (not extrapolations) – see next slide
Production statistics differentiated by quality
More detailed trade statistics
Some i tems for a wish l i s t
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Wish l i s t : Dynamic substance f low ana lys i s
Modeling work for the International Copper Association (publication in preparation by Glöser, Soulier and Tercero Espinoza)
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Wish l i s t : Captur ing the dynamics of raw mater ia l s markets
Preliminary results from the project “Value from Waste” (part of the ERA-NET AERTOs)
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Where can criticality ideas be included in LCA? Should they be included at all?
Where can LCA thinking be included in criticality assessments?
L ink ing LCA to cr i t i ca l i ty
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E x p e r t W o r k s h o p o n S e c u r i t y o f S u p p l y a n d S c a r c i t y o f R a w M a t e r i a l s
R a n c o , I t a l y , 1 3 - 1 4 N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 2
CRIT ICAL ITY OF MINERAL RAW MATERIALS AND SUSTAINABIL ITY ASSESSMENT
Dr. Luis A. TERCERO ESPINOZA
Coordinator of Business Unit Systemic Risks
Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI Competence Center Sustainability and Infrastructure Systems
Breslauer Str. 48, 76139 Karlsruhe, Germany
[email protected] Tel: +49 721 6809-401
Fax: +49 721 6809-135
www.isi.fraunhofer.de
