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Visualized: The EV Mineral Shortage

by Tessa Di Grandi
This post is by Tessa Di Grandi from Visual Capitalist

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The following content is sponsored by KGP Auto


How Mineral Supply Will Change EV Forecasts

Did you know that EVs need up to six times more minerals than conventional cars?

EVs are mineral-intensive and are pushing up demand for critical battery metals. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), lithium, nickel, and cobalt demand is expected to grow from 10%-20% to over 80% by 2030.

As countries around the world pledge to go all-electric by 2035 and 2040, do we have enough mineral supply for EV demand?

Factors such as geopolitical concentration of resources, quality of materials, mining industry lead times, and environmental factors will together determine whether we have the minerals we need.

Let’s take a look at how critical minerals are affected.

MineralConstraints
CopperCopper mines currently in operation are nearing their peak, suffering from reserve exhaustion, while ore quality in older mines is declining.

South American and Australian mines are located in areas where water availability can be scarce.
This could cause setbacks given the high water requirements needed for the mining process.
NickelThere are a number of growing concerns related to higher CO2 emissions and waste disposal.

Nickel quality needs to be high (Class 1) for EV batteries. Most nickel in the global supply chain is unusable for EVs.
CobaltThe Democratic Republic of Congo and China (Read more...)

Ranked: Latin American Countries By Green Energy Use

by Aran Ali
This post is by Aran Ali from Visual Capitalist

This graphic shows how much electricity production Latin American countries derive from green energy relative to fossil fuels

Ranked: Latin American Countries By Green Energy Use

The global push for increasing green energy use is well underway, as countries around the world are feeling pressure to revamp their climate-impacting practices.

But with different populations, energy use requirements, and access to natural resources, certain regions will have a more significant role to play. With a population of 664 million and an abundance of natural resources, Latin America (LatAm) is one such region.

How green is LatAm’s energy today? This graphic from Latinometrics charts countries’ electricity production from renewables relative to fossil fuels and highlights the significant disparities between certain nations.

Green Energy Use in Latin America

As of 2020, many LatAm countries actually produced 50% or more of their electricity from renewable sources including nuclear energy. Let’s take a deeper look at some of the outliers:

Paraguay

Hydropower is Paraguay’s primary renewable energy source, and plentiful. In fact, the country produces surplus electricity and exports the remainder to Argentina and Brazil. Altogether, 60% of Paraguay’s hydroelectric power is exported, contributing to 6% of its GDP.

The primary resource for this hydropower—the Itaipú Dam—sits between Paraguay and Brazil and is jointly owned by both. The dam is responsible for 79% of Paraguay’s total power capacity.

Costa Rica

Costa Rica has been running on at least 98% renewable energy since 2014. Both within the Americas and on a global scale, the country’s green energy usage ranks extremely high, primarily driven by hydropower:

Costa Rica's Renewable Energy Sources% of (Read more...)

Long Waves: The History of Innovation Cycles

by Dorothy Neufeld
This post is by Dorothy Neufeld from Visual Capitalist

Innovation Cycles

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Long Waves: How Innovation Cycles Influence Growth

Creative destruction plays a key role in entrepreneurship and economic development.

Coined by economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942, the theory of “creative destruction” suggests that business cycles operate under long waves of innovation. Specifically, as markets are disrupted, key clusters of industries have outsized effects on the economy.

Take the railway industry, for example. At the turn of the 19th century, railways completely reshaped urban demographics and trade. Similarly, the internet disrupted entire industries—from media to retail.

The above infographic shows how innovation cycles have impacted economies since 1785, and what’s next for the future.

Innovation Cycles: The Six Waves

From the first wave of textiles and water power in the industrial revolution, to the internet in the 1990s, here are the six waves of innovation and their key breakthroughs.

First WaveSecond WaveThird WaveFourth WaveFifth WaveSixth Wave
Water Power
Textiles
Iron
Steam
Rail
Steel
Electricity
Chemicals
Internal-Combustion Engine
Petrochemicals
Electronics
Aviation
Digital Network
Software
New Media
Digitization (AI, IoT, AV,
Robots & Drones)
Clean (Read more...)

Visualizing the Copper Intensity of Renewable Energy

by Sponsored Content

The following content is sponsored by Trilogy Metals.

Visualizing the Copper Intensity of Renewable Energy

The world is moving away from fossil fuels, towards large-scale adoption of clean energy technologies.

Building these technologies is a mineral-intensive process. From aluminum and chromium to rare earths and cobalt, the energy transition is creating massive demand for a range of minerals.

Copper is one such mineral, which stands out due to its critical role in building both the technologies as well as the infrastructure that allows us to harness their power.

The above infographic from Trilogy Metals highlights the role of copper in renewable energy, and how the adoption of wind and solar energy will affect its demand going forward.

Copper’s Role in Renewable Energy

Copper has one of the highest thermal and electrical conductivity of all metals. As a result, it’s the most widely-used mineral among energy technologies and is essential for all electricity-related infrastructure.

According to Navigant Research, here’s how much copper wind and solar farms use per megawatt:

TechnologyCopper Usage/MW (lbs)Copper Usage/MW (U.S. tons)Copper Usage/MW (tonnes)
Solar PV11,0005.54.99
Onshore Wind9,5204.764.32
Offshore Wind21,07610.549.56

Solar photovoltaics (PV) primarily rely on copper for cabling, wiring, and heat exchange due to its efficiency in conducting heat and electricity. Wind energy technologies make use of the red metal in their turbines, cables, and transformers. Offshore wind farms typically use larger amounts because they are connected to land via long undersea cables (Read more...)