Rahimpour Saeed, El-Wali Mohammad, Makarava Iryna, Tuomisto Hanna L, Lundström Mari, Kraslawski Andrzej
Hydrometallurgy and Corrosion, Circular Raw Materials Hub, Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering (CMET), School of Chemical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland.
School of Engineering Science, Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM), LUT University, Lappeenranta, Finland.
Nat Commun. 2024 Oct 29;15(1):9336. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-53652-0.
The social risks of green energy transition are underexplored. One of the important questions is which materials used in green energy technologies offer the greatest social benefits, such as ensuring decent living conditions, and which pose the most social risks. To address this issue, we develop a dynamic material-energy flow model integrating system dynamics, social life cycle assessment, and geometallurgical approaches. The analysis focuses on critical materials: Rare Earth Elements, Nickel, Silicon, Graphite, Magnesium, Gallium, Germanium, Indium, Aluminum, Cobalt, Lithium, Zinc, and Tellurium used in wind turbines, electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and solar photovoltaic panels. We assess their social impact on work safety, gender equality, informal employment, labor income share, employment rate, and child labor-key issues addressed by Sustainable Development Goals 1, 5, and 8. Here we show that Aluminum production for electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar photovoltaic panels generates the most jobs and income opportunities, while extraction of Cobalt, Lithium, Silicon, and Zinc carry the highest social risks.
绿色能源转型的社会风险尚未得到充分探讨。一个重要问题是，绿色能源技术中使用的哪些材料能带来最大的社会效益，比如确保体面的生活条件，而哪些材料带来的社会风险最大。为解决这个问题，我们开发了一个动态物质-能量流模型，整合了系统动力学、社会生命周期评估和地质冶金方法。分析聚焦于关键材料：用于风力涡轮机、电动汽车、锂离子电池和太阳能光伏板的稀土元素、镍、硅、石墨、镁、镓、锗、铟、铝、钴、锂、锌和碲。我们评估它们对工作安全、性别平等、非正规就业、劳动收入份额、就业率和童工等方面的社会影响——这些是可持续发展目标1、5和8所涉及的关键问题。我们在此表明，电动汽车、风力涡轮机和太阳能光伏板的铝生产创造了最多的就业和收入机会，而钴、锂、硅和锌的开采带来的社会风险最高。
