REFINE Analysis of raw material demand and environmental impacts of the energy transition in a resource efficient and greenhouse gas neutral Germany

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Climate change is already visible. In order to identify still existing development pathways, very ambitious scenarios are researched. The project RESCUE identified six ambitious, possible pathways and analysed future greenhouse gas emissions and resource demand of Germany in the scenarios. However, the six German scenarios do not work as a global role model, although the most ambitious scenario GreenSupreme comes close. Unfortunately, current calculations have shown that global demand for several raw materials would require large amounts of currently known reserves or even exceed them. As a consequence, environmental impacts would be huge. REFINE starts at this point.

REFINE analyses specific aspects of raw material demand of the transition of the energy system and the linked environmental impacts. The following research questions will be addressed:

1. How does raw material demand for the energy system of Germany change, including all rucksacks, and will the raw materials be available?
2. How many greenhouse gas emissions will be avoided nationally and internationally considering the whole value chain of German energy imports?
3. What are the environmental impacts outside of Germany linked to the energy transition in Germany?
4. What is the raw material demand and what are the environmental impacts if the analysed German pathways were used as a role model globally?