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Last year the International Energy Agency (IAE) published a report titled…<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThe Role of Critical Minerals In Clean Energy Transitions<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
I recently dived deep into its 260 pages to see if a shortage of critical minerals threatens the world’s transition to a renewable future.<\/p>\r\n
After surfacing, I can say the report makes three points I concur with:<\/p>\r\n
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- There’s no shortage of required minerals.\u00a0 More than enough economically viable deposits to build a renewable future have been discovered.<\/li>\r\n
- The production of some minerals will need to greatly increase to produce the solar panels, wind turbines, battery storage, and electric vehicles required to replace fossil fuels.<\/li>\r\n
- Shortages of key minerals have the potential to slow our transition to renewable energy.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n
There are also two points I’d like to emphasize that are supported by the report but does not clearly state:<\/p>\r\n
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- Mining for lithium, copper, nickel, rare earth elements and potentially other materials will greatly increase — but the total amount of mining required by the energy sector will decrease<\/a> due to reduced extraction of coal, oil, and natural gas.\u00a0<\/li>\r\n
- No shortage — or even concurrent multiple shortages — can reverse the transition to renewables.\u00a0 There’s no plausible scenario where it suddenly becomes profitable to build new coal power stations or shut down electric vehicle production and go back to building internal combustion engines cars.\u00a0 Shortages can only slow down the replacement of fossil fuel infrastructure and can’t stop it.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n
That really all you need to know about the report. But if you are keen for more details – or are currently shouting at your screen that I’m an imbecile and those conclusions can’t be right because they don’t line up with your view of the world, feel free to read the ~5,000 words of detailed analysis below.<\/p>\r\n
260 Pages Of Fun<\/h2>\r\n
The report gives information on mineral use by different types of low emission generation and predictions on how much capacity will be installed.\u00a0 I’ll give details on what the report says about solar power, electricity networks and battery storage – both stationary and in EVs.<\/p>\r\n
The report gives six recommendations on how mineral shortages can be avoided.\u00a0 I’ll list them all and go into one of them — increased recycling — in detail.\u00a0 I’ll then explain why I’m optimistic about the future supply of minerals and think they’ll be sufficient to allow a rapid transition to renewable energy.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
You can read the 260-page report here<\/a>.\u00a0 I recommend reading the whole thing — provided you’re a nerd of Brobdingnagian proportions. Which you definitely are if you know what the word Brobdingnagian<\/a> means.<\/p>\r\n
Two Scenarios — STEPS & SDS\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n
The IEA gives predictions for two different scenarios:<\/p>\r\n
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- The first is the Stated Policies Scenario<\/strong>.\u00a0 They called this S<\/strong>TEPS<\/strong> (they had an extra T and an E lying around).\u00a0 This scenario assumes the world only meets the minimum emission reduction commitments of the Paris Agreement<\/a>.
<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\r\n- Predictions are also given for the Sustainable Development Scenario<\/strong>.\u00a0 They called this SDS<\/strong> because they used up their superfluous letters with STEPS.\u00a0 In this scenario, nations go beyond current commitments because of falling costs and\/or increasing desire to slow climate change.\u00a0
<\/span><\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nRenewable energy and battery storage costs will continue to fall, so I’m certain the world will do better than STEPS and definitely hope it will do better than SDS.\u00a0 Time will tell, but over the next 18 years if all we do is STEPS… it’s a tragedy.<\/p>\r\n
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