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Wissenschaft
On 18 March, the Council of the European Union endorsed the Critical Raw Materials Act. The Critical Raw Materials Act sets clear targets for the mining, processing and recycling of strategic raw materials in Europe. But is the Act the best way to achieve raw material security for Europe? In an expert statement, economist Professor Simon Glöser-Chahoud from TU Bergakademie Freiberg analyses the Critical Raw Materials Act. He argues in favour of regularly reviewing and adjusting the specified quotas and the list of strategic raw materials.
"In principle, it is right and consistent to coordinate and regulate the security of supply of strategic raw materials at European level. This supports the measures and endeavours of individual member states and key European industries. The Critical Raw Material Act focuses the security of supply of strategic raw materials on the European internal market, which appears to be more efficient and effective than the sometimes competing measures and strategies of individual member states to secure the supply of raw materials. The targets set by the Critical Raw Material Act with regard to mining, raw material processing and the recycling of strategic raw materials are ambitious. Therefore, clear incentives through accompanying political regulation and support for the industry, for example with the necessary investments, are of central importance for achieving the goals and for the competitiveness of the European mining and recycling industry.
The weaknesses of the Critical Raw Material Act lie less in the legislation itself than in the rigid, static objectives of the law. For example, the European Commission's current methodology for defining strategic and critical raw materials is of central importance to the Act. However, it also has clear weaknesses. The European Commission's approaches to defining critical raw materials were criticised by Freiberg scientists at an early stage, as they show significant weaknesses with regard to the methodology of risk assessment. However, the methodology has not yet been adapted by the European Commission.
Commodity markets and supply systems are fundamentally to be understood as highly dynamic systems that are characterised by adjustment mechanisms on the supply and demand side. For example, new technologies can greatly increase demand for certain raw materials in the short term, while demand for other raw materials previously categorised as scarce and critical can quickly decline due to substitution effects. Take cobalt, for example: there are already strong substitution effects in batteries. Will cobalt as an important cathode material for lithium-ion batteries still be needed at all in 2030 according to the future state of the art?
Fixed recycling quotas should also be viewed rather critically in dynamic supply systems: For example, achieving the specified recycling quota of 15% in the production of battery raw materials such as lithium or graphite could be almost impossible due to a lack of returns (used batteries) in 2030. However, this quota could be set too low again just five years later due to the currently increasing proportion of electric cars, which will also result in a sharp increase in used batteries with a time delay.
For the successful regulation of raw material supply, both the specified quotas and the list of strategic raw materials must therefore be regularly reviewed and adjusted."
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Simon Glöser-Chahoud, Corporate Sustainability and Environmental Management, Simon.Gloeser-Chahoud@bwl.tu-freiberg.de
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420715000021 referenced journal publication by the expert
Prof Simon Glöser-Chahoud of TU Bergakademie Freiberg.
Detlev Müller
TU Bergakademie Freiberg / D. Müller
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