recycling and recovery of critical minerals<\/a>, also known as secondary supply or the circular economy. However, the new research also highlights that, within this timeframe, only a small number of critical minerals used in photovoltaic technologies are expected to be found in sufficient quantities to theoretically reach or exceed this ambition. The prospects improve dramatically, however, when the timescale is extended out to 2050, as increasing availability of end-of-life material is forecast to meet or exceed domestic demand\u00a0for several critical minerals.<\/p>\nThe assessment found that, between 2040 and 2050, \u2018secondary\u2019 raw material availability could provide:<\/p>\n
more than 60\u00a0per cent of the cumulative demand for battery metals<\/p>\n
more than 85\u00a0per cent of the cumulative demand for the rare earth elements (REEs) used in magnets (neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium)<\/p>\n
more than 90\u00a0per cent of the cumulative demand for silver and 75\u00a0per cent for tin used in photovoltaics (solar panels)<\/p>\n
Although secondary supply has the potential to offset primary demand after 2040, the rapid growth of electric vehicles, wind turbines and photovoltaics means that, in the short term, primary supply (that is extracted directly from the ground) will remain essential to meet growth sectors, fill supply gaps and account for unavoidable material losses\u00a0or non-recovery. This\u00a0includes\u00a0continued reliance on imports of lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, copper and REEs, and highlights the\u00a0importance of supply\u00a0chain diversification, responsible sourcing and strategic international partnerships.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The report highlights that investment, capacity building, development of reverse supply chains and further data supporting the circular economy will be required to support the UK\u2019s transition toward secure, resilient supplies of critical minerals and technology metals and to realise the long-term supply potential available through recovery and recycling.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t![\"Speech](\"https:\/\/www.bgs.ac.uk\/wp-content\/themes\/bgs\/img\/quote-caption.svg\")
<\/p>\n
This study\u00a0demonstrates\u00a0that secondary supply of technology metals has the potential to become a\u00a0major contributor to UK material security. Our research shows that several elements will approach or exceed anticipated domestic\u00a0demand\u00a0by\u00a0mid-century.<\/p>\n
However, realising this potential will depend on several factors, including clear policy direction on technology metals recovery, investment in recycling and refining infrastructure and the development of integrated reverse supply chains and skilled labour.<\/p>\n
Primary supply will remain essential but, with\u00a0timely\u00a0and coordinated action, the UK can build a more resilient,\u00a0circular\u00a0and secure\u00a0critical materials\u00a0system capable of supporting its\u00a02050\u00a0net zero\u00a0ambitions.<\/p>\n
Dr Evi Petavratzi, principal mineral commodity expert at BGS.<\/p>\n
The report \u2018Future material demand and secondary supply potential for UK net zero technologies<\/a>\u2019 is available to download from the UK Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Demand for critical minerals is rapidly increasing in response to the global transition to net zero, with UK…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7953,216819,81942,13255,5410,59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-643086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-circular-economy","tag-cmic","tag-critical-minerals","tag-critical-raw-materials","tag-energy-transition","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}