Sep 21, 2022
Does resource scarcity dooms the energy transition?
Why wrong forecasts are good — the example of iron nitride
The road to renewable energy is hitting some resource speed bumps. Resource constraints happen as the energy transition to renewable energy gears into exponential growth.
Lithium exemplifies the case of an underdeveloped resource that exists in quantities at the earth’s crust, but the supply chain does not meet current demand.
Estimates reach conclusions by making assumptions. Lithium availability estimates take current trends and project them into the future. Although helpful, forecasts frequently fail, partly because of themselves.
Forecasts work by failing. By identifying a possible problem, the problem gets solved before it happens.
Take as an example the real cost of PV generation against their forecasts
Estimates tend to assume lithium car batteries’ recycling rate will remain low. Lead-acid batteries sport a 99% recycling rate compared with 1 for Li-ion. Although there is the capacity to recycle more Li-ion batteries, there are not enough of them to recycle.
But as the first electric cars begin to retire, battery numbers available for recycling will grow.
Copper is yet another example where projections anticipate future demand to outstrip availability. Addressing copper’s future shortfall can take several paths: miniaturization, substitution, and recycling.
Miniaturization means material efficiency: improving design to use less copper to achieve the same goals, doing what Buckminster Fuller so aptly called ephemeralization. Do more with less.
Recycling will become increasingly common as the implementation of circular economy and cradle-to-cradle design intensives.
Finally, the copper alliance sees little potential for copper substitution. The main alternative they foresee is aluminum but at a loss of performance, resulting in more considerable material use.
Again, a prediction rests on its premises. Projection of future lack of supply spurs research to fix perceived future shortages.
An example is the award-winning new material, Iron nitride (Fe4N). Developed by Sandia National Laboratory and the University of California Irvine, Iron nitride combines high magnetization (1.89 T) and resistivity (200 μΩ•m), able to operate at temperatures above 200 °C.
Made from cheap and widely available materials -iron and nitrogen- its proprieties make it ideal for the transition to renewable energy. It also can be net-shaped, an industrial process that cuts costs.
Applications include the electrical grid, energy storage, and electricity-based mobility. Thus it helps address copper’s scarcity. It also serves as an example of how technological advancement makes forecasts wrong by taking them seriously.
