Abstract
In the assessment of critical minerals, environmental impacts have been a focus of a number of methodologies. In the case of resource security for critical minerals, there are a variety of potential strategies that might be used to reduce criticality from the supply risk perspective, but the environmental consequences of these strategies need to be evaluated. Japan is a country with a heavy dependence on imported materials, and thus has examined various alternative resource supply strategies to improve resource security. This study examines these alternative strategies and evaluates the consequential environmental implications, focusing on the domestic impacts in Japan. Utilization of deep ocean mining and end-of-life home appliance recycling are examined as alternatives against the conventional, import-oriented process. From the obtained results, deep ocean mining, providing 30% of domestic copper demand with the remainder supplied from recycling, is the current optimal solution with regards to the environmental impact.
Highlights
While it has been an ongoing concern from the early days of human history, in recent years there have been growing concerns that resource supply in the future will be vulnerable to supply restrictions, for materials deemed as critical for economies or societies
It can be seen that conventional copper processing consumes more energy than deep ocean mining, more than half the energy of conventional processing is consumed in resource exporting countries in the mining stage
Raw material inputs are small in the recycling process, a large amount of energy is consumed for transportation to acquire end-of-life products
Summary
While it has been an ongoing concern from the early days of human history, in recent years there have been growing concerns that resource supply in the future will be vulnerable to supply restrictions, for materials deemed as critical for economies or societies. Of iron ore, copper, lead and zinc concentrates are imported [2] These materials are processed into metals, from which a variety of products, such as automobiles, electrical and electronic equipment are produced. Japan has traditionally developed a range of strategies to improve resource security—including upstream development in resource-producing countries, recycling, stockpiling and research and development of alternative (substitute) materials [3]. These approaches still rely on a variety of uncontrollable factors, which leads to the conclusion that domestic mineral production would be attractive if the possibility arose
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