Renault

• Keeping our planet liveable requires accelerated clean energy transitions by governments — global carbon emissions must halve by 2030 and achieve net-zero by 2050.
• But a more ambitious clean energy transition requires more of the metals and minerals used to build clean energy technologies.
• As the global energy sector shifts from fossil fuels to clean energy, the demand of precious metals — known as critical minerals — is increasing.

Supply and demand

• The current challenge lies in a supply and demand mismatch.
• The projected demand for critical minerals exceeds the available supply.
• In addition, critical minerals have a geographically concentrated supply.
• The demand and supply balance must be restored by one of two ways: either by decreasing the demand for critical materials or increasing their supply.

Restoring balance

• The most obvious way to restore the balance between supply and demand — more mining — is tricky.
• Plans for opening new mines in France, Serbia and Portugal have seen massive social opposition, leaving their future uncertain.
• Opening a new mine can take more than 15 years on average, so projects started today might arrive too late.
• With innovation and research and development, clean energy products can be redesigned to use less material in each generation.

Recycling is the way forward

• If the scarcity of critical minerals is not extreme, reducing the critical material content of clean energy products would be the way to go.
• In contrast, our research suggests that recycling decommissioned products is not subject to such a rebound effect.
• Firms need a cost-efficient reverse logistics system, recycling plants and infrastructure to get enough end-of-use products back and to process them.
• Recycling may indeed be the path to affordable clean energy.