Steps that could help mitigate the risks related to the UK's dependence on critical material imports have been presented in a report from the National Engineering Policy Centre (NEPC).
Plans by the UK, and other countries, to move to net-zero have led to increasing use of, for example, technologies like batteries for energy storage and demand for materials such as lithium and cobalt has increased as a result. The UK is dependent on overseas supplies of many of these critical materials.
The report: Critical materials: demand-side resource efficiency measures for sustainability and resilience proposes a new target to halve the UK’s ‘economy-wide critical materials footprint’, and thus hopefully mitigate some of the problems relating to the country's dependency on imports and supply-side risks.
Steps such as the recovery and reuse or recycling of critical materials, changes in existing designs to reduce or eliminate the need to use critical materials and consideration of material requirements when planning future energy, transport and digital systems are all steps that would reduce demand for critical materials imports, the report says.
For example, reducing the size of electric vehicle batteries by one third could cut the UK’s lithium requirement by 17%. This would save 75 million tonnes of rock being mined for lithium by 2040, the report asserts. This reduction in battery size could be off-set by lightweight designs and innovation in battery technology, and a reliable charging infrastructure. Similarly, a government commitment to banning single use-vapes as well as improvements in repair and recycling of electronics would also have a positive impact, the report’s authors add.
In another example, the report noted the current design for a 6MW offshore wind turbine uses 5,800kg of neodymium magnets. Neodymium has a high value and the magnets can be reused, such as in electric vehicle motors. But the report warned that decision-makers lack information on the exact volume of neodymium magnets within UK wind farms and when they will be available, and in addition there is little capacity for decommissioning wind turbines in terms of ports, equipped yards or specialist engineers.
"The UK will have immediate access to a large future supply of neodymium, which there are currently few plans to take advantage of. To maximise the future opportunity from material recovery in the future, the UK needs to ensure new turbines are designed for end-of-life and materials recovery," the report said.
Professor Joan Cordiner, chair of the NEPC Working Group on Materials and Net-Zero said: “We are not the only country that will be competing for these finite minerals and we are calling on the new government to develop a materials strategy that addresses demand and reuse of critical minerals.”
The report recommends maintaining a National Materials Data Hub to monitor the sustainability of materials consumed by and used in the UK, as well as assessing infrastructure plans for material security and sustainability. It also calls for the government to work internationally to improve traceability and measure the global impacts of material’s emissions, pollution and social harms.
Concerns about the resilience of the UK’s critical mineral supply chain have been voiced over recent months. At the end of 2023, A report from the UK’s House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, said that the UK’s critical minerals minerals supply chains are vulnerable due to ‘dependence on autocracies – in particular China – and the inaction of successive UK governments.’ According to the report, the UK is lagging its other countries in response to the challenge.
During July this year, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the European Union, launched a joint equity investment facility worth €50 million, to provide equity investments for the exploration of critical and strategic raw materials, essential to the EU’s digital and green transition.
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