Return Rates and Recovery Options of Used Electric Vehicle Traction Batteries in Germany = Rücklaufmengen und Verwertungswege von Altbatterien aus Elektromobilen in Deutschland

Die Elektromobilität wird als Schlüsseltechnologie zur Senkung der CO$_{2}$-Emissionen im Straßenverkehr gesehen. In der Diskussion um die Klimabilanz der Elektromobilität wird allerdings der hohe ökologische Fußabdruck in der Herstellung batterieelektrischer Fahrzeuge wenig adressiert, der sich insb. durch die ressourcenintensive Traktionsbatterie ergibt. Neben der Bereitstellung von regenerativem Ladestrom ist eine effiziente Kreislaufführung der Batteriematerialien und eine möglichst lange Nutzung der Batteriesysteme und Komponenten Voraussetzung für die nachhaltige Gestaltung der Elektromobilität. Der vorliegende Beitrag gibt einen Überblick zur kreislaufwirtschaftlichen Wertschöpfungskette von obsoleten Traktionsbatterien aus Elektromobilen. Mithilfe eines systemdynamischen und eines ereignisdiskreten Simulationsansatzes werden zukünftige Rücklaufmengen obsoleter Traktionsbatterien auf Basis aktueller Diffusionsszenarien abgeschätzt sowie unterschiedliche Verwertungsoptionen von 2nd-Life-Konzepten bis hin zu alternativen Recyclingverfahren dargestellt und diskutiert

Potential contribution of secondary materials to overall supply - The example of the European cobalt cycle

Online: 2019-06-21Higher efficiency in raw material recycling is discussed as a key strategy to decrease the environmental impact of resource consumption and to improve materials’ availability in order to mitigate supply risks. However, particularly in the case of technology metals, demand is driven by specific emerging technologies from which recycling will not be possible before the end of their useful lifetimes. Hence, the availability of secondary materials is limited by the amount of obsolete products as well as their collection, separation and treatment during waste management and recycling. In this paper, we present the results of a dynamic material flow model for cobalt as a key raw material for lithium-ion batteries at an European level (EU28). This model aims at quantifying the current state of recycling and future recycling potentials from end-of-life (EoL) product flows. While it is expectable that obsolete large battery packs from (hybrid) electric vehicles will be efficiently collected in future, EoL Li-ion battery flows will remain dominated by smaller electronic equipment (smartphones, laptops etc.) in the coming years and the model results show a significant potential for improvements in collection and material recovery from EoL batteries in Europe. A major challenge will be the collection of smaller batteries and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) in general from which a significant share of total European cobalt demand could be recovered in the coming years.Simon Glöser-Chahoud, Frank Schultman

A real option application for emission control measures

Real Option analyses are broadly discussed in economics and finance and differ- ent analytic and numeric calculation methods for option values have been presented and successfully implemented in theoretical case studies and practical applications. However, real option analysis has not yet been applied for mandatory investments without monetary revenues, e.g. investments in pollution reduction and emission control installations in large industrial plants enforced by political regulation. The assessment of the timing of the investment, i.e. whether to invest immediately or to delay the investment in the future, is the main scope of this work. A difficulty of the underlying type of investments with regard to option valuation is that not to invest is not an option. Therefore, the frequently applied optimal stopping approaches based on investment thresholds are not applicable to this work. In the first part of the paper, specific features and characteristics of the regarded investments are analyzed and translated into financial terms of option valuation, accompanied by an overview of several relevant option valuation methods. The most appropriate methodology for the application, the Monte-Carlo-Analysis, will be assessed in more detail. Based on a two perspectives approach that analyzes possible savings and losses of a delayed investment, a case study displays the calculations and results of the developed meth- odology in several scenarios. The case study reveals possible influences of policy schemes and the impact of the degree of uncertainty on mandatory investments. The work has a strong methodological focus and the calculation methodology provided can be of use for investors and policy-makers, particularly with regard to investment decision-making in the real options framework and the design of political instru- ments such as funding schemes.Carmen Schiel, Simon Glöser-Chahoud, Frank Schultman

Implications of Real Option Thinking on Environmental Investments in the Context of Political Intervention

Real option analysis is an investment evaluation method that aims at better representing investment decisions in the framework of new institutional economics. The economic value of future options that are gained or lost by an investment decision becomes an important evaluation parameter for such decisions. Beyond a detailed quantitative analysis, the sole consideration of such options in the minds of decision-makers may influence their behavior and may cause an effect which is called real option thinking in this research. Real option thinking may have multiple positive or negative effects regarding the societal benefits of environmental investments. This research aims at providing an overview of possible implications that may result from real option thinking in the context of environmental investments. It is of use for both policy makers and industrial decision makers.Carmen Schiela, Simon Glöser-Chahouda, Frank Schultmann

Material Criticality Assessment for Business Purposes Using Fuzzy Linguistic Method

A secure supply of raw materials plays a vital role in the rapid growth of emerging technologies. The criticality assessment has been introduced to evaluate the supply risk of materials from economic, social and environmental aspects. From business perspective, multiple critical metrics should be involved, so that the decision makers can focus on the different metrics and put efforts to minimize the corresponding risks. However, due to the complexity of assessment and uncertainties in data sources, some metrics cannot be evaluated quantitatively, but qualitatively. This paper introduces a fuzzy linguistic approach to evaluate multiple risk metrics for material criticality assessment. The risk levels and the importance weight of metrics, expressed in linguistic terms, are modeled by triangular or trapezoid membership functions. We apply this method to evaluate the criticality of three materials: Cobalt, Tungsten, and Yttrium. We use matrix operation to aggregate the MFs of the multiple metrics in order to represent the overall criticality. As a result, the three materials are ranked according to their critical levels. The proposed fuzzy linguistic approach shows the advantage to evaluate the criticality with multi-criteria when only qualitative data is available. The membership function is an appropriate way to represent linguistic terms with imprecision, which are commonly used to interpret risk terms. The definition of multiple metrics provides flexibility for the users to choose risk categories they are interested in, and the aggregation of the metrics supports them to compare the criticality of materials. Further study may focus on how to justify importance weight judgments to make tradeoff decision, or integrate temporal factor to predict the future critical risk for business purpose