The energy transition has allowed for decreasing dependency on oil-producing countries. However, neodymium is now needed for magnets in wind turbines, lithium, nickel, and cobalt for batteries, and copper for cables. For some metals, worldwide mining will even need to expand 20- to 50-fold by the year 2050. With China being the main producer of many of these metals, Europe needs to find strategies to circumvent these new dependencies.
VPRO Tegenlicht Meet Up: The Rare Metals War
Date: Thursday, 3rd of October, 12.00 – 14.00 (lunch included)
Location: SustainaLab, Matrix ONE, Amsterdam Science Park 301, 1098 XH Amsterdam.
Based on the VPRO Tegenlicht documentary “De schaduwkant van de energietransitie en digitalisering”, the meet up will delve into the geopolitical issue and present ideas from Amsterdam’s Science Park that tackle the conflict over rare metals.
Follow this link to watch the documentary.
We will explore Europe’s current trade relationships and its potential for greater independence. Particularly, Zuid Holland, with its involvement in the metals trade through the port of Rotterdam and as a hub for recycling companies, could play an important role. But also innovations from Amsterdam’s Science Park give hope: batteries made from abundant materials and batteries made from rare metals that can be mined in Europe. To find out more about how the Netherlands deals with the recycling of these critical materials, you can read this article from Financieel Dagblad (in Dutch), in which 2 of our speakers are also mentioned.
Line-up:
– Ilija Božović: VPRO, director of the documentary.
– Droovi de Zilva is a PhD-student Environmental Science at Leiden University, will give an overview of critical materials and their origins.
– Guusje Delen is the head of R&D at Ore Energy, a company at Amsterdam’s Science Park that has developed new batteries using the abundant materials iron, water and air.
– Steven Lans is the initiator of Back-to-battery, a company that designed a technology to recycle critical raw materials from used batteries.
Register by sending an email to freddie@sustainalab.nl