Addressing the terawatt challenge: scalability in the supply of chemical elements for renewable energy

TLDR

The fossil‑fuel infrastructure supplies 87 % of the world’s 16 TW, but scaling renewable technologies to the TW level creates a large demand for raw materials, requiring assessment beyond crustal abundance to include mineable ore concentrations. This paper surveys the availability of every chemical element for renewable energy deployment. The authors compile global primary production rates for each element and evaluate current and prospective future availability from existing and potential primary sources.

Abstract

The energy infrastructure for fossil fuels is well-established, accounting for approximately 87% of the 16 TW of power consumed globally. For renewable and sustainable energy conversion technologies to play a relevant role at the terrestrial scale, they must be able to scale to the TW level of deployment. This would place a significant demand on the current and future supply of raw materials (chemical elements) used by those technologies. Oftentimes, the average crustal abundance of a chemical element is cited as a measure of its scalability, however another important metric for scalability is the existence (of lack thereof) of mineable ores with a high concentration of the targeted element. This paper aims to provide an overview of the availability of all elements. This is accomplished via a compilation of data for global primary production rates for each element, as a measure of availability at the present time. This work also addresses the potential future availability based on current and possible future primary sources.