CRITICAL MATERIALSUkraine War’s Impact on Critical Materials Supply, Green Energy
The elephant in the room is Europe’s dependence on the vast quantities of hydrocarbons that flow from Russia into Europe, but Putin’s war on Ukraine has the potential to affect many key supply chains for materials that will contribute to the clean energy transition.
The human cost of Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is already incalculable, with human suffering and misery inflicted on many ordinary Ukrainians. The West has responded with a variety of sanctions and economic measures designed to starve the Russian war machine of funds and resources. Russia in turn will look to use whatever leverage it can muster in an economic counter offensive.
The elephant in the room is of course Europe’s dependence on the vast quantities of hydrocarbons that flow from Russia into Europe. Various noises have been made about stemming the flow, the UK has said it will end imports of Russia oil by the end of the year, but on those timescales, it is unclear what will be left of Ukraine by then. As Dieter Helm, has pointed out, with the spike to the price of oil, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may be in many ways ‘self-financing’.
The regular voices are using this opportunity as a lever for renewed support for the fossil fuel industry, but at a time when the IPCC issues it’s most dire warnings to date about the impacts of climate change and when renewable energy technologies are cheaper than ever before to double back on fossil fuels at a time when we should be reducing our use of them would be a grave mistake.
That said, Putin’s war on Ukraine has the potential to affect many key supply chains for materials that will contribute to the clean energy transition.
There is the potential for this moment to be a catalyst for step-change in efforts to decarbonize. The rise in fossil fuel prices could aid the push to switch to alternatives.
Unfortunately, catalysts themselves may also turn out to be one of the many critical materials challenges created by the Russian War in Ukraine.
Russia is a significant producer of Platinum Group Metals - whilst currently used in catalytic converters for emissions abatement for internal combustion engine vehicles, in the future these metals are essential to the catalysts used in electrolyzers and hydrogen fuel cells, and find application in many hydrogen technologies - one of our options for decarbonization in the post-fossil fuel era.
