Center for Industrial Ecology, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2012 Jan 17;46(2):1071-8. doi: 10.1021/es203535w. Epub 2012 Jan 6.
Because modern technology depends on reliable supplies of a wide variety of materials, and because of increasing concern about those supplies, a comprehensive methodology has been created to quantify the degree of criticality of the metals of the periodic table. In this paper, we apply this methodology to the elements of the geological copper family: Cu, As, Se, Ag, Te, and Au. These elements are technologically important, but show a substantial variation in different factors relating to their supply risk, vulnerability to supply restriction, and environmental implications. Assessments are made on corporate, national, and global levels for year 2008. Evaluations of each of the multiple indicators are presented and the results plotted in "criticality space", together with Monte Carlo simulation-derived "uncertainty cloud" estimates for each of the aggregated evaluations. For supply risk over both the medium term and long term, As is the highest risk of the six metals, with Se and Ag nearly as high. Gold has the most severe environmental implications ranking. Vulnerability to supply restriction (VSR) at the corporate level for an invented solar cell manufacturing firm shows Se, Te, and Cu as approximately equal, Cu has the highest VSR at the national level, and Cu and Au have the highest VSRs at the global level. Criticality vector magnitudes are greatest at the global level for As (and then Au and Ag) and at the national level for As and Au; at the corporate level, Se is highest with Te and Cu lower. An extension of this work, now in progress, will provide criticality estimates for several different development scenarios for the period 2010-2050.
由于现代技术依赖于各种可靠的材料供应，并且由于对这些供应的日益关注，因此已经创建了一种全面的方法来量化元素周期表中金属的关键程度。在本文中，我们将该方法应用于地质铜族的元素：Cu、As、Se、Ag、Te 和 Au。这些元素在技术上很重要，但在与供应风险、供应限制的脆弱性以及环境影响相关的各种因素方面存在很大差异。我们在公司、国家和全球层面上对 2008 年进行了评估。对每个多指标进行了评估，并将结果绘制在“关键程度空间”中，并对每个综合评估进行了蒙特卡罗模拟衍生的“不确定性云”估计。对于中期和长期的供应风险，As 是六种金属中风险最高的，其次是 Se 和 Ag。金具有最严重的环境影响排名。对于一家虚构的太阳能电池制造公司，企业层面的供应限制脆弱性（VSR）显示 Se、Te 和 Cu 几乎相等，国家层面 Cu 的 VSR 最高，全球层面 Cu 和 Au 的 VSR 最高。关键程度矢量幅度在全球层面上对 As（其次是 Au 和 Ag）最高，在国家层面上对 As 和 Au 最高；在企业层面上，Se 最高，Te 和 Cu 较低。目前正在进行的这项工作的扩展将为 2010-2050 年期间的几种不同发展情景提供关键程度估计。
