The Material Basis of Energy Transitions

Alena Bleicher is a senior sociology researcher. Between 2015 and 2019 she led a research group that investigated social scientific perspectives on technology development for critical raw material extraction at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig, Germany. Her research focuses on societal aspects of technological development in the contexts of geothermal energy systems and raw material provision. She has an interest in questions about non-knowledge in decision making, valorization of secondary raw materials, changing practices, and responsibility in technology development. Alexandra Pehlken is an expert in raw material engineering and recycling. She studied Mining and Mineral Processing at RWTH Aachen University in Aachen, Germany. She completed her Doctorate degree in the Mining Engineering Faculty in 2002. Her expertise lies in sustainable resource management, the cascade use of materials and its impact on life cycle performance. Between 2014 and 2019 she was head of the research group Cascade Use at Carl von Ossietzky University. Currently she is a member of the Energy division at OFFIS and a board member of the Energiecluster Oldenburg.

1. The Material Basis of Energy Transitions – An Introduction 2. Social Science Perspectives on the Energy-Climate-Metals Nexus 3. Metal-Energy Nexus in the Global Energy Transition Calls for Cooperative Actions 4. Dependency of renewable energy technologies on critical resources 5. Stationary battery systems: Future challenges regarding Resources, Recycling and Sustainability 6. Making Critical Materials Valuable: Decarbonization, Investment & ‘Political Risk 7. Environmental Impacts of Mineral Sourcing and their Impacts on Criticality 8. Limits of LCA in the context of energy transition and its material basis 9. Critical Resources, Sustainability and Future Generations 10. Conflicts related to resources: The case of cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo 11. Voluntary Sustainability Initiatives – an approach to make mining more responsible? 12. The role of a circular economy for energy transition 13. Substitution of critical materials – a strategy to deal with material needs of energy transition? 14. Renewable energy technologies and their implications for critical materials from a sociology of consumption perspective – The case of photovoltaic systems and electric vehicles 15. Renewable Energy and Critical Minerals – A Field Worthy of Interdisciplinary Research