Search results for "Minor metals"
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Study of economic availability related to rare metals in the context of the energy transition
2014
A growing number of academic studies and international organizations reports have noticed an increasing dependency of new energy technologies on a specific class of natural resources often called minor metals. For several years, worries about economic availability of these metals in order to realize the energy transition have appeared. This thesis aims at underline the broader risks and constraints involved by general use of these metals in new energy technologies. A first part of this thesis is devoted to theories and indicators related to the depletion of non renewable resources. This part also shows that minor metals share many characteristics and that they can form a group of metal cons…
Byproduct production of minor metals: Threat or opportunity for the development of clean technologies? The PV sector as an illustration
2013
Abstract Today, the fight against global warming and the coming hydrocarbon exhaustion involve a drastic increase of clean energies. These technologies resort to many minor metals which are byproduct of major metals. We will take the definition of Hageluken and Mesker (2010, Complex Life Cycles of Precious and Special Metals. In: Edition Thomas E. Graedel, Ester van der Voet (Eds.), Strungmann Forum Report, Linkages of Sustainability, MIT Press) to show precisely what minor metals are: “[they are] metals that have relatively low production or usage, which occur in low ore concentrations, are regarded as rare, or are not traded at major public exchanges”. We will analyze the byproduct status…