Projecting the global impact of fossil fuel production from the Former Soviet Union.

Detailed projections of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) fossil fuel production has been created. Russian production has been modelled at the region (oblast) level where possible. The projections were made using the Geologic Resource Supply-Demand Model (GeRS-DeMo). Low, Best Guess and High scenarios were created. FSU fossil fuels are projected to peak between 2027 and 2087 with the range due to spread of Ultimately Recoverable Resources (URR) values used. The Best Guess (BG) scenario anticipates FSU will peak in 2087 with production over 170 EJ per year. The FSU projections were combined with rest of the world projections (Mohr et al. 2015b), the emissions from the High scenario for the world are similar to the IPCC A1 AIM scenario. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40789-021-00449-x.

Advanced household profiling using digital water meters.

Advanced householder profiling using digital water metering data analytics has been acknowledged as a core strategy for promoting water conservation because of its ability to provide near real-time feedback to customers and instil long-term conservation behaviours. Customer profiling based on household water consumption data collected through digital water meters helps to identify the water consumption patterns and habits of customers. This study employed advanced customer profiling techniques adapted from the machine learning research domain to analyse high-resolution data collected from residential digital water meters. Data analytics techniques were applied on already disaggregated end-use water consumption data (e.g., shower and taps) for creating in-depth customer profiling at various intervals (e.g., 15, 30, and 60 min). The developed user profiling approach has some learning functionality as it can ascertain and accommodate changing behaviours of residential customers. The developed advanced user profiling technique was shown to be beneficial since it identified residential customer behaviours that were previously unseen. Furthermore, the technique can identify and address novel changes in behaviours, which is an important feature for promoting and sustaining long-term water conservation behaviours. The research has implications for researchers in data analytics and water demand management, and also for practitioners and government policy advisors seeking to conserve valuable potable-water resources.

Global Metal Use Targets in Line with Climate Goals.

Metals underpin essential functions in modern society, yet their production currently intensifies climate change. This paper develops global targets for metal flows, stocks, and use intensity in the global economy out to 2100. These targets are consistent with emissions pathways to achieve a 2 °C climate goal and cover six major metals (iron, aluminum, copper, zinc, lead, and nickel). Results indicate that despite advances in low-carbon metal production, a transformative system change to meet the society's needs with less metal is required to remain within a 2 °C pathway. Globally, demand for goods and services over the 21st century needs to be met with approximately 7 t/capita of metal stock-roughly half the current level in high-income countries. This systemic change will require a peak in global metal production by 2030 and deep decoupling of economic growth from both metal flows and stocks. Importantly, the identified science-based targets are theoretically achievable through such measures as efficient design, more intensive use, and longer product lifetime, but immediate action is crucial before middle- and low-income countries complete full-scale urbanization.

Integrating Circular Economy Strategies with Low-Carbon Scenarios: Lithium Use in Electric Vehicles.

Electrification of the transport sector will support its decarbonization, yet significantly change material requirements. This calls for an integrated modeling approach internalizing metal demand-supply dynamics in low-carbon scenarios to support the Paris agreement on climate change and sustainable material circulation. Here we develop a step toward the integrated simulation of energy-materials scenarios by unifying a stock-flow dynamics model for low-carbon scenarios using linear programming. The modeling framework incorporates lithium supply from both mines and end-of-life (EoL) recycling for projected use in electric vehicles on a global basis. The results show that supply constraints, which could become apparent from around 2030 in the case of current recycling rates (<1%), would impede the deployment of battery electric vehicles (BEVs), leading to the generation of an additional 300 Mt-CO2 of emissions for vehicle operation in 2050. Another important finding is that increasing the recycling rate to 80% could substantially relieve restrictions on the introduction of BEVs without requiring primary supply from natural deposits far beyond historical rates of expansion. While EoL recycling is important from a long-term perspective, an EoL-oriented strategy has little effect on the short/medium-term (such as to 2030) lithium demand-supply balance because of exponential demand growth and long living batteries. Importantly, findings in this study emphasize the necessity of tackling climate change and resource circulation in an integrated manner.

Corrigendum: Mineral supply for sustainable development requires resource governance.

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/nature21359.

Mineral supply for sustainable development requires resource governance.

Successful delivery of the United Nations sustainable development goals and implementation of the Paris Agreement requires technologies that utilize a wide range of minerals in vast quantities. Metal recycling and technological change will contribute to sustaining supply, but mining must continue and grow for the foreseeable future to ensure that such minerals remain available to industry. New links are needed between existing institutional frameworks to oversee responsible sourcing of minerals, trajectories for mineral exploration, environmental practices, and consumer awareness of the effects of consumption. Here we present, through analysis of a comprehensive set of data and demand forecasts, an interdisciplinary perspective on how best to ensure ecologically viable continuity of global mineral supply over the coming decades.

Sustainable governance of scarce metals: the case of lithium.

Minerals and metals are finite resources, and recent evidence suggests that for many, primary production is becoming more difficult and more expensive. Yet these resources are fundamentally important for society--they support many critical services like infrastructure, telecommunications and energy generation. A continued reliance on minerals and metals as service providers in modern society requires dedicated and concerted governance in relation to production, use, reuse and recycling. Lithium provides a good example to explore possible sustainable governance strategies. Lithium is a geochemically scarce metal (being found in a wide range of natural systems, but in low concentrations that are difficult to extract), yet recent studies suggest increasing future demand, particularly to supply the lithium in lithium-ion batteries, which are used in a wide variety of modern personal and commercial technologies. This paper explores interventions for sustainable governance and handling of lithium for two different supply and demand contexts: Australia as a net lithium producer and Switzerland as a net lithium consumer. It focuses particularly on possible nation-specific issues for sustainable governance in these two countries' contexts, and links these to the global lithium supply chain and demand scenarios. The article concludes that innovative business models, like 'servicizing' the lithium value chain, would hold sustainable governance advantages for both producer and consumer countries.