The world needs an energy transition. This transition will be based on three main pillars: renewable energy
supply, electrification of end use and efficient use of energy. It will entail a fundamental shift in power
generation, where the share of solar and wind power needs to increase substantially. The IRENA World Energy
Transitions Outlook: 1.5°C Pathway proposes, globally, a 63% share for solar and wind power by 2050, up from
around 10% today. At the same time, the end use sectors (buildings, industry and transport) will need to be
electrified. As a result, electricity demand will nearly triple, to more than 70 000 terawatt hours (TWh) in
2050. Electromobility will become the dominant form of road transportation, with around 1.8 billion electric
cars needed on the road by 2050, a nearly 200-fold increase from the approximately 10 million electric
vehicles (EVs) on the road today (IRENA, 2021a).
Such a transition is daunting. One strand of critique regarding the feasibility of such a transition relates
to the availability of the necessary minerals and metals: the future access to those critical materials, the
ability to ramp up the materials supply and production fast enough, the rising cost of such materials, and the
geopolitical and strategic implications of new resource dependencies (Global Commission, 2019). Some even
talk of a possible “cold war” over critical materials (Lee and Bazilian, 2021). Also, some concerns have been
raised that the energy return on investment (i.e. the energy needed per unit of energy provision) may be on
the rise and could become an issue in the energy transition, as it could result in additional carbon dioxide
emissions (Fabre, 2019).
Building on the recently released "Materials for the Energy Transition" (Gielen and Papa, 2021), the focus of
this paper is on the rapid growth in demand for critical materials not widely used today induced by the energy
transition in renewable power generation, electricity grids and electromobility. New clean technologies in
these segments are dependent on a number of critical materials, and a rapid transition is foreseen.
Demand for materials may also grow due to other aspects of energy transition. For example, demand for
stainless steel may grow for subsea pipelines and other marine applications. Demand for other types of
infrastructure and for the built environment may also increase. For example, global demand for steel, cement
and copper for the building sector is estimated to reach 769 megatonnes per year (Mt/yr), 11.9 gigatonnes per
year (Gt/yr) and 17 Mt/yr, respectively, by 2050. For steel and cement, this represents a respective growth of
31% and 14% compared with present levels (Deetman et al., 2019). Energy transition may augment such growth
further, for example if the building renovation rates are tripled as foreseen in the 1.5°C pathway. However, in
this paper, such applications have not been considered in further detail.
This paper will assess how the growth of renewables will put critical materials at the centre of the energy
transformation, with the objective of highlighting the criticalities related to the sector and of identifying how
technological developments and innovation can positively reduce geopolitical risks.