There is a long running historical debate over the access to natural resources and the progress of mankind. This debate dates back to the work of Malthus at the end of the 18th century, and includes resources as diverse as agricultural land and fossil fuels.
Recently attention has been drawn to the issue of the availability of certain materials critical to advanced low-carbon technologies. Could access to certain materials constrain the progress of a transition to a low carbon economy?
A series of UKERC working papers and reports investigate these issues to address the question:
“What is the evidence that the transition to a low-carbon economy may be influenced by access to critical materials?”
Journal Articles
Candelise, C., Speirs, J., and Gross, R. (2011) ‘Materials availability for thin film (TF) PV technologies development: a real concern?’, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol. 15, Issue 9, pp 4972-4981.
This Technology and Policy Assessment Report looks at the supply and demand of materials critical to the development of low carbon technologies, such as solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicle batteries.
This work forms part of the Materials Availability for Low-Carbon Technologies project.This Working Paper is the first in this series and considers issues related to the availability of indium and tellurium for thin film solar photovoltaic applications.
This work forms part of the Materials Availability for Low-Carbon Technologies project. This Working Paper is the second in this series and considers issues related to the availability of lithium and neodymium for electric vehicle (EV) and wind turbine generators.
Policy makers and industry are increasingly concerned over the availability of certain materials key to the manufacture of low-carbon technologies. The literature addressing this topic includes reports termed ‘criticality assessment’ that aim to quantify the relative criticality of a range of materials. This Working Paper examines the methodologies underpinning these criticality assessments, and attempt to normalise and compare their results.