Abstract
The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the energy transition may lead to trade-offs with other impacts on the environment, society, and economy. One challenge is resource use impacts due to increasing demand for high-tech metals and minerals. A review of the current state of the art resource assessment of energy systems was conducted to identify gaps in research and application. Publications covering complete energy systems and supplying a detailed resource assessment were the focus of the evaluation. Overall, 92 publications were identified and categorized by the type of system covered and the applied abiotic resource assessment methods. A total of 78 out of 92 publications covered sub-systems of renewable energy systems, and nine considered complete energy systems and conducted a detailed resource use assessment. Most of the publications in the group “complete energy system and detailed resource assessment” were found in grey literature. Several different aspects were covered to assess resource use. Thirty publications focused on similar aspects including criticality and supply risks, but technology-specific aspects are rarely assessed in the resource assessment of renewable energy systems. Few publications included sector coupling technologies, and among the publications most relevant to the aim of this paper one third did not conduct an indicator-driven assessment.
Highlights
The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the energy transition may lead to tradeoffs with other impacts on the environment, society, and economy
For example: in 2000 the main resources used by the German energy system were coal, crude oil, oil products and natural gas [1], whereas by 2050 the German energy system will most likely be dependent on copper, aluminum, lithium, nickel, rare earth elements, etc., due to the shift to renewable energies [4]
Two reviews focusing on the resource assessment of energy systems were identified, but both covered a specific sub-system and not the complete energy systems: Whereas Habib and Wenzel [19] presented a resource criticality assessment of resources for specific types of wind turbines, Leisegang et al [20] supplied an in-depth review of resource assessment of aluminum-ion batteries
Summary
The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the energy transition may lead to tradeoffs with other impacts on the environment, society, and economy. Energy production will consist of larger shares of renewables and will need supporting infrastructure such as batteries and other storages, more grid infrastructure due to more small producing sites, and sector coupling infrastructure This leads to a shift in resource use. Two reviews focusing on the resource assessment of energy systems were identified, but both covered a specific sub-system and not the complete energy systems: Whereas Habib and Wenzel [19] presented a resource criticality assessment of resources for specific types of wind turbines, Leisegang et al [20] supplied an in-depth review of resource assessment of aluminum-ion batteries Other reviews such as [21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29] partly included resource assessment but did not focus on it. Baumann et al [21], Peters et al [23], Jumare et al [24]
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