Critical Raw Materials and their Relevance for Clean Energy Transition
Critical Raw Materials and their relevance for clean energy transition
The EU has the goal to become a climate neutral economy by 2050. Strategic technologies needed for Green and Digital Transition are highly dependent on reliable, secure and resilient access to raw materials. Some of these raw materials are rare earth elements such as silicon, arsenic, cooper, manganese, etc. which are very important for the development of low-carbon technologies (wind, solar and geothermal power and energy storage) but also for the decarbonization of energy-intensive industries.
At a time when these components are strategic keys to the development of low carbon technologies, access to these raw materials is critical. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) analysis of “The role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions” states that “The rapid deployment of clean energy technologies as part of energy transitions implies a significant increase in demand for minerals. An even faster transition, to hit net-zero globally by 2050, would require six times more mineral inputs in 2040 than today”.
The EU aims to strengthen strategic autonomy by reducing dependence on external suppliers of critical raw materials for the production of green, digital, defense and aerospace applications. To this end, the European Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) entered into force on 23 May 2024.
The European Commission illustrates this dependency on third countries with this figure in its Grean Deal Industrial Plan in the section related to the CRMA:
The European Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) contains a list of 34 critical raw materials (CRMs):
Extracted figure from Critical raw materials act (europa.eu)
In the scope of the Alchimia project, some of these CRMs are ferroalloys used in the steelmaking process. Two models developed for Celsa use case, the dynamic process model for EAF (deployed by BFI) and the ladle furnace model (deployed by SSSA) will provide information about the following ferroalloys: Manganese, Copper, Silicon, Nickel, Phosphorus, Niobium, Arsenic, Titanium, Boron and Vanadium.
The project will add as a new KPI’s the tracking to analyze if there is a reduction in the consumption of these CRMs. Considering that an optimisation of these CRMs would imply a reduction in their use and therefore less dependence on these critical raw materials.
According to all meaningful insights from the CRMA, the Critical Raw Materials can become a relevant vector in the Green Deal Industrial Plans and the Net Zero Industry Plan, with the aim of being tools for achieving a sustainable and resilient supply chain and supporting traceability and the circular economy.