Nuclear power is shown to need mainly copper, nickel and chromium. Figure 1: Growth in demand to 2040 for some critical minerals in IEA STEPS and SDS scenarios (source: IEA) According to the IEA, per MW of capacity, offshore wind requires about 15.5 tonnes of critical minerals.
Many energy technologies being deployed as part of the energy transition are material- and mineral-intensive. For example, electric vehicles (EVs) are six times more intensive for critical minerals than the fossil fuel alternatives they replace.
The report notes that nuclear, along with hydropower and biomass, have comparatively low critical mineral requirements. High-carbon sources such as coal and gas require much less of those critical minerals. Figure 2: Critical minerals required for different generating technologies (source: IEA)
The IEA considers copper, nickel, manganese cobalt, REEs, lithium and graphite as the minerals critical to an EV future. In general, the IEA says that building EVs requires six times the 'critical' mineral inputs of a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) car, most of this being in the battery.
To meet the Paris Agreement goals, more than three billion tonnes of energy transition minerals and metals is needed to deploy wind, solar and energy storage. However, critical energy
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