La production mondiale d'électricité : une empreinte-matière en transition

International audienc

Devising Mineral Resource Supply Pathways to a Low-Carbon Electricity Generation by 2100

International audienceAchieving a "carbon neutral" world by 2100 or earlier in a context of economic growth implies a drastic and profound transformation of the way energy is supplied and consumed in our societies. In this paper, we use life-cycle inventories of electricity-generating technologies and an integrated assessment model (TIMES Integrated Assessment Model) to project the global raw material requirements in two scenarios: a second shared socioeconomic pathway baseline, and a 2 • C scenario by 2100. Material usage reported in the life-cycle inventories is distributed into three phases, namely construction, operation, and decommissioning. Material supply dynamics and the impact of the 2 • C warming limit are quantified for three raw fossil fuels and forty-eight metallic and nonmetallic mineral resources. Depending on the time horizon, graphite, sand, sulfur, borates, aluminum, chromium, nickel, silver, gold, rare earth elements or their substitutes could face a sharp increase in usage as a result of a massive installation of low-carbon technologies. Ignoring nonfuel resource availability and value in deep decarbonation, circular economy, or decoupling scenarios can potentially generate misleading, contradictory, or unachievable climate policies

Closing the TIMES Integrated Assessment Model (TIAM‐FR) Raw Materials Gap with Life Cycle Inventories

International audienceIntegrated assessment models are in general not constrained by mineral resource supply. In this paper, we introduce a material accounting method as a first step toward addressing the raw materials gap in the TIMES integrated assessment model (TIAM‐FR version). The method consists of attributing process‐based life cycle inventories (LCIs) taken from the ecoinvent 3.3 database to the TIAM‐FR technology processes constituting the global energy system. We demonstrate the method performing a prospective exercise on the electricity‐generating sector in a second shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP2) baseline scenario on the 2010–2100 time horizon. We start by disaggregating the LCIs into three separate life phases (construction, operation, and decommissioning) and coupling them to their respective TIAM‐FR electric outputs (new capacities, electricity production, and end‐of‐life capacities) in order to estimate the annual mineral resource requirements. Prospective uses of fossil fuels and metallic and nonmetallic mineral resources are quantified dynamically at the life phase and regional levels (15 world regions). The construction of hydropower, solar power, and wind power plants generate increasing use of metallic and nonmetallic mineral resources in successive peak and valley periods. However, the use of fossil fuels is much higher than the use of mineral resources all along the horizon. Finally, we evaluate how sensitive the global material use is to the allocation of a share of infrastructure activities to the decommissioning phase. This approach could be extended to other integrated assessment models and possibly other energy sectors

Mineral Resources for a Low-Carbon Electricity

International audienc