Critical Minerals and Energy–Impacts and Limitations of Moving to Unconventional Resources
.jpg)
1
Graduate School of Energy Science, Kyoto University, Yoshida honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
2
Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia
3
Faculty of Science and Technology, Ritsumeikan University, Nojihigashi 1-1-1, Kusatsu City, Shiga 525-8577, Japan
4
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney, Ultimo, New South Wales 2007, Australia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Witold-Roger Poganietz
Resources 2016, 5(2), 19; https://doi.org/10.3390/resources5020019
Received: 7 August 2015 / Revised: 28 April 2016 / Accepted: 3 May 2016 / Published: 13 May 2016
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Resource Productivity and Innovations)
The nexus of minerals and energy becomes ever more important as the economic growth and development of countries in the global South accelerates and the needs of new energy technologies expand, while at the same time various important minerals are declining in grade and available reserves from conventional mining. Unconventional resources in the form of deep ocean deposits and urban ores are being widely examined, although exploitation is still limited. This paper examines some of the implications of the transition towards cleaner energy futures in parallel with the shifts through conventional ore decline and the uptake of unconventional mineral resources. Three energy scenarios, each with three levels of uptake of renewable energy, are assessed for the potential of critical minerals to restrict growth under 12 alternative mineral supply patterns. Under steady material intensities per unit of capacity, the study indicates that selenium, indium and tellurium could be barriers in the expansion of thin-film photovoltaics, while neodymium and dysprosium may delay the propagation of wind power. For fuel cells, no restrictions are observed.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
minerals; energy; deep ocean resources; unconventional resources
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
McLellan, B.C.; Yamasue, E.; Tezuka, T.; Corder, G.; Golev, A.; Giurco, D. Critical Minerals and Energy–Impacts and Limitations of Moving to Unconventional Resources. Resources 2016, 5, 19. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources5020019
AMA Style
McLellan BC, Yamasue E, Tezuka T, Corder G, Golev A, Giurco D. Critical Minerals and Energy–Impacts and Limitations of Moving to Unconventional Resources. Resources. 2016; 5(2):19. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources5020019
Chicago/Turabian StyleMcLellan, Benjamin C., Eiji Yamasue, Tetsuo Tezuka, Glen Corder, Artem Golev, and Damien Giurco. 2016. "Critical Minerals and Energy–Impacts and Limitations of Moving to Unconventional Resources" Resources 5, no. 2: 19. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources5020019
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
