There's a major catch to the world's need for solar panels, a new analysis suggests. The booming solar panel market – which is critical for a clean energy future – could demand close to half the world's aluminum by 2050. Thankfully, there are way
"This represents an enormous manufacturing task that will create a demand for a variety of minerals," a team of photovoltaics researchers, led by Alison Lennon from the University of New South Wales in Australia,As the researchers outline, some solar roadmaps predict the world will need 85 times more solar energy than we currently produce to limit global warming to safe levels, although predictions vary and some projections might underestimate how much solar – and aluminum – we...
"This escalation in demand does not include the use of aluminum in other clean energy technologies," such as wind turbines and electric vehicles,"which is also expected to increase, or its continued use for transportation and building infrastructure,"What matters is how the aluminum is made. Making aluminum is an extractive and energy-intensive process, with most of the emissions coming from the electricity used to power its production.
Fortunately, aluminum is one of the most recycled and most recyclable materials around. In fact, nearly 75 percent of all the aluminum produced is still in use today. That's great news, because recycling aluminum uses a fraction of the energy required to make it anew, and just a smidgeon of the emissions.
"Owing to its 'infinite' recyclability, aluminum can play a critical role in the rapid growth of [solar cells] to terawatt levels by 2050 – growth that will be required to reduce emissions to net zero," Lennon and teamTheir analysis modeled various scenarios and pathways to 2050, the worst case being 'business as usual' where the emissions intensity of aluminum production remains unchanged and its demand adds close to 4,000 megatonnes of COFactored in were estimates of...
"We're not going to get rid of these emissions unless something is done about the process," engineer Guðrún Sævarsdóttir of the University of Reykjavik
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