Post by ehsanulh125 on Jan 9, 2024 7:17:47 GMT
In January 2022, a volcanic eruption devastated the islands of Tonga. The disaster also damaged the deep-sea pipeline connecting Tonga with the rest of the world, as a result of which the island nation lost all modern connections with the outside world for weeks. Cables like this currently carry 99 percent of the world's data traffic (Menon and Westbrook, 2022). This incident made it tangible that although we often think that the virtual space exists independently of the physical one, in fact all our digital solutions are based on the existence of some critical technical infrastructure. Critical raw materials are also needed to build critical infrastructures.
Rare earth metals and the Country Email List others: these are the raw materials of a sustainable economy As Szalai (2022) states, the achievements of the fifth technological revolution are individual microelectronic devices, semiconductors, or even transistors, which " enabled a very significant reduction in the weight and material requirements of products ". On the other hand, the fact that the raw material demand of the products could be reduced to such an extent, and that a significant slice of consumption could be transferred to the digital space, came at a price. The demand for many raw materials that were hardly used in the past skyrocketed, as they were needed for the production of new technologies. Source: own editing based on Zhou et al. (2017). Blengini and his co-authors (2020) identify 83 raw materials without which the green and digital transition cannot be realized.
Of these, 30 are considered critical raw materials in terms of economic importance and supply risks. Just to mention a few examples of these raw materials and their importance: rare earth metals are essential for the production of electric cars or systems based on renewable energy (Subin, 2021); and cobalt is the main raw material for battery production, along with lithium (Pop et al., 2022). Who does the sustainability revolution depend on? Looking at the supply chains of critical raw materials, a worrying picture emerges. The world is just about to stop using hydrocarbons, which are the basis of many international conflicts in addition to their harmful environmental effects, but the raw materials that form the basis of the technologies used to replace them may cause new conflicts.
Rare earth metals and the Country Email List others: these are the raw materials of a sustainable economy As Szalai (2022) states, the achievements of the fifth technological revolution are individual microelectronic devices, semiconductors, or even transistors, which " enabled a very significant reduction in the weight and material requirements of products ". On the other hand, the fact that the raw material demand of the products could be reduced to such an extent, and that a significant slice of consumption could be transferred to the digital space, came at a price. The demand for many raw materials that were hardly used in the past skyrocketed, as they were needed for the production of new technologies. Source: own editing based on Zhou et al. (2017). Blengini and his co-authors (2020) identify 83 raw materials without which the green and digital transition cannot be realized.
Of these, 30 are considered critical raw materials in terms of economic importance and supply risks. Just to mention a few examples of these raw materials and their importance: rare earth metals are essential for the production of electric cars or systems based on renewable energy (Subin, 2021); and cobalt is the main raw material for battery production, along with lithium (Pop et al., 2022). Who does the sustainability revolution depend on? Looking at the supply chains of critical raw materials, a worrying picture emerges. The world is just about to stop using hydrocarbons, which are the basis of many international conflicts in addition to their harmful environmental effects, but the raw materials that form the basis of the technologies used to replace them may cause new conflicts.