Critical mineral constraints in global renewable scenarios under 1.5 °C target

Abstract

To avoid catastrophic climate change, the world is promoting a fast and unprecedented transition from fuels to renewables. However, the infrastructures of renewables, such as wind turbines and solar cells, rely heavily on critical minerals like rare earths, indium, etc. Such interactions between climate targets, energy transitions, and critical minerals were widely overlooked in the present climate scenario analysis. This study aims to fill this gap through an introduction of metal–energy–climate nexus framework with its application on global energy transition towards a carbon-neutral (or below 1.5 °C) target, in which six state-of-the-art integrated assessment models (IAMs) under different shared socioeconomic pathways were applied. Our analysis revealed that climate mitigation is expected to boost significantly the critical mineral demand by 2.6–267-fold, which varies greatly by IAM models. Solar power development may be constrained by tellurium (Te) and selenium (Se) shortage, while wind power will be jeopardized by the limited scalability of rare earth production. Moreover, a more sustainable pathway may come at higher demand for critical minerals along with higher renewable ratios. Consequently, a holistic investigation of the interaction of mineral, energy, and climate systems is highly recommended for future scenario designing.