SUPERVISOR: Fridolin KRAUSMANN

PROJECT ASSIGNED TO: Olivier HELDWEIN

The climate crisis and the associated ecological and social changes are among the greatest challenges of our time. The energy transition, characterized by rapid decarbonization, as well as a reliable access to 
clean energy for all, are central to achieving climate neutrality, the SDGs, and numerous political goals at the national and regional level. However, the renewable energy infrastructure is much more material 
intensive than fossil fuel infrastructure. This is especially true for critical minerals, which are expected to increase up to 40-fold by 2040 compared to 2020, driven by the increased demand from applications 
linked to the energy transition, such as renewable electricity generation based on solar and wind, batteries for energy storage, and the electrification of road vehicles. On the one hand, there are concerns about the availability of and access to the required amounts of critical raw materials to materialize the goals of the energy transition. On the other hand, the sustainability of the massive increase in the extraction of critical raw materials is questioned, as the mining industry is known to contribute significantly to global warming, pollution, deforestation and biodiversity loss, and is often associated with unsafe labour conditions and human rights violations. An interdisciplinary approach as typical for social metabolic research is required to investigate these interlinkages between resource use, policy goals and governance, environmental effects, and social outcomes connected to the use of critical raw materials for the so-called energy transition.

The increasing demand for rare earths, especially in applications linked to electrification and renewables, combined with the geopolitical struggle to control them, is set to deeply change the social metabolism 
of these critical raw materials. The goal of my thesis is to investigate the social metabolism of rare earth metals used for the energy transition with a focus on neodymium (Nd) as a case study, quantifying 
material stocks and flows, evaluating environmental impacts of raw material extraction and connected social conflict, as well as the analysis of shifts in geopolitical control over rare earth stocks and 
flows.
These questions are approached through 3 research questions:
1. How are regional stocks and flows of Neodymium for energy transition applications (wind turbines and EV) going to develop until 2050 under a Net Zero Scenario?
2. What environmental impacts are associated with the increased mining for rare earths used in the so-called energy transition and who is affected by them?
3. What shifts in the geopolitical metabolism of rare earths are in sight as transnational mining networks change with increased efforts to establish China-free supply chains?
Each research question will be treated in one chapter of the thesis and the associated publication of a journal article.

While the first research question sheds light on which countries and regions get to profit from the end-use of technology based on rare earths, the second research question shows the other side of the medal - 
who has to bear the negative impacts of mining. The localisation of benefits and impacts, together with the mapping of mining networks and the connected geopolitical actors allow to address geopolitical power 
dynamics and issues of environmental justice.

A set of different methods is used to answer the research questions: For the first chapter, a stock-driven, dynamic material flow analysis is conducted to investigate stock-flow development of Nd in light-duty EVs 
and wind turbines under the IEA’s Net-Zero-Emissions Scenario across five world regions and explore recycling potentials to meet regional demand. For the second chapter, an environmental Life Cycle Assessment is applied to a set of representative, large-scale existing and planned RE mining projects and the results connected with GIS data to assess impacts to the local populations around the mining sites. To this end, 
two life cycle inventories for RE mining methods currently missing in the scientific literature are created. For the last chapter, data for rare earth mines is gathered to perform a complex Network Analysis of 
the transnational RE mining network including the locations of the mine, the mining company headquarters, downstream processing and offtake agreements, and countries backing the project financially, weighted by 
annual production capacity and total reserves. The network analysis will be conducted for mining networks in the recent past, as well as for 2030, including projects currently in the planning and construction 
phases to identify shifts the geopolitical metabolism of rare earths.