Frank R. Field

Evaluating rare earth element availability: a case with revolutionary demand from clean technologies.

The future availability of rare earth elements (REEs) is of concern due to monopolistic supply conditions, environmentally unsustainable mining practices, and rapid demand growth. We present an evaluation of potential future demand scenarios for REEs with a focus on the issue of comining. Many assumptions were made to simplify the analysis, but the scenarios identify some key variables that could affect future rare earth markets and market behavior. Increased use of wind energy and electric vehicles are key elements of a more sustainable future. However, since present technologies for electric vehicles and wind turbines rely heavily on dysprosium (Dy) and neodymium (Nd), in rare-earth magnets, future adoption of these technologies may result in large and disproportionate increases in the demand for these two elements. For this study, upper and lower bound usage projections for REE in these applications were developed to evaluate the state of future REE supply availability. In the absence of efficient reuse and recycling or the development of technologies which use lower amounts of Dy and Nd, following a path consistent with stabilization of atmospheric CO(2) at 450 ppm may lead to an increase of more than 700% and 2600% for Nd and Dy, respectively, over the next 25 years if the present REE needs in automotive and wind applications are representative of future needs.

Life‐Cycle Assessment and Temporal Distributions of Emissions: Developing a Fleet‐Based Analysis

Although the product‐centered focus of life‐cycle assessment has been one of its strengths, this analytical perspective embeds assumptions that may conflict with the realities of environmental problems. This article demonstrates, through a series of mathematical derivations, that all the products in use, rather than a single product, frequently should be the appropriate unit of analysis. Such a “fleet‐centered” approach supplies a richer perspective on the comparative emissions burdens generated by alternative products, and it eliminates certain simplifying assumptions imposed upon the analysis by a product‐centered approach. A sample numerical case, examining the comparative emissions of steel‐intensive and aluminum‐intensive automobiles, is presented to contrast the results of the two approaches. The fleet‐centered analysis shows that the “crossover time” (i.e., the time required before the fuel economy benefits of the lighter aluminum vehicle offset the energy intensity of the processes used to manufacture the aluminum in the first place) can be dramatically longer than that predicted by a product‐centered life‐cycle assessment. The fleet‐centered perspective explicitly introduces the notion of time as a critical element of comparative life‐cycle assessments and raises important questions about the role of the analyst in selecting the appropriate time horizon for analysis. Moreover, with the introduction of time as an appropriate dimension to life‐cycle assessment, the influences of effects distributed over time can be more naturally and consistently treated.

End-of-life LCA allocation methods: Open loop recycling impacts on robustness of material selection decisions

Materials selection decisions exhibit great influence on the environmental performance of firms through their impact on processing technology, product form, and supply chain configuration. Consequently, materials dictate a products environmental profile via the burden associated with extraction and refining, transformation from material to product, product performance characteristics during use, and potential recovery at end-of-life (EOL). While lifecycle assessment (LCA) methods provide quantitative input to a product designers materials selection decision, LCA implementations are evolving and disparate. This work explores several analytical variations of LCA related to the allocation of recycling impacts at product EOL and the implications of these variants across a range of contexts. Stylized analyses across a range of materials are presented, focusing on materials with varying primary and secondary materials production burdens. This work illustrates that a) the application of distinct EOL allocation methods give different values of cumulative environmental impact for the same material, b) these impacts change at differing rates between the various methods, and c) these disparities can result in different rank ordering of materials preference. Characterizing this behavior over a range of parameters illustrates the potential trends in allocation method bias for or against particular materials classes.

Platinum availability for future automotive technologies.

Platinum is an excellent catalyst, can be used at high temperatures, and is stable in many aggressive chemical environments. Consequently, platinum is used in many current industrial applications, notably automotive catalytic converters, and prospective vehicle fuel cells are expected to rely upon it. Between 2005 and 2010, the automotive industry used approximately 40% of mined platinum. Future automotive industry growth and automotive sales shifts toward new technologies could significantly alter platinum demand. The potential risks for decreased platinum availability are evaluated, using an analysis of platinum market characteristics that describes platinums geophysical constraints, institutional efficiency, and dynamic responsiveness. Results show that platinum demand for an automotive fleet that meets 450 ppm greenhouse gas stabilization goals would require within 10% of historical growth rates of platinum supply before 2025. However, such a fleet, due largely to sales growth in fuel cell vehicles, will more strongly constrain platinum supply in the 2050 time period. While current platinum reserves are sufficient to satisfy this increased demand, decreasing platinum ore grade and continued concentration of platinum supply in a single geographic area are availability risk factors to platinum end-users.

Materials selection and multi-attribute utility analysis

SummaryMulti-attribute utility analysis (MAUA) has emerged as a powerful tool for materials selection and evaluation. An operations research technique, MAUA has been used in a wide range of engineering areas, of which materials science and engineering is one of the more recent. Utility analysis affords a rational method of materials selection which avoids many of the fundamental logical difficulties of many widely used alternative approaches. However, MAUA has traditionally been used in materials selection problems only, in which there is certainty regarding the attribute levels of the alternatives. For many new technologies this is not the case. Another operations research technique, subjective probability assessment (SPA), can be used to address this issue. SPA makes it possible to measure a probabilistic distribution describing the confidence of the decision maker in the levels of attributes for which there is a high degree of uncertainty. These probability distributions can be used in conjunction with MAUA to provide a consistent framework for making materials selection decisions. Furthermore, the use of these techniques extends beyond the problem of materials selection into the more speculative areas of materials competitiveness and market demand in cases involving new, unproven technologies.

Increasing Secondary and Renewable Material Use: A Chance Constrained Modeling Approach To Manage Feedstock Quality Variation

The increased use of secondary (i.e., recycled) and renewable resources will likely be key toward achieving sustainable materials use. Unfortunately, these strategies share a common barrier to economical implementation - increased quality variation compared to their primary and synthetic counterparts. Current deterministic process-planning models overestimate the economic impact of this increased variation. This paper shows that for a range of industries from biomaterials to inorganics, managing variation through a chance-constrained (CC) model enables increased use of such variable raw materials, or heterogeneous feedstocks (hF), over conventional, deterministic models. An abstract, analytical model and a quantitative model applied to an industrial case of aluminum recycling were used to explore the limits and benefits of the CC formulation. The results indicate that the CC solution can reduce cost and increase potential hF use across a broad range of production conditions through raw materials diversification. These benefits increase where the hFs exhibit mean quality performance close to that of the more homogeneous feedstocks (often the primary and synthetic materials) or have large quality variability. In terms of operational context, the relative performance grows as intolerance for batch error increases and as the opportunity to diversify the raw material portfolio increases.

Market model simulation: The impact of increased automotive interest in magnesium

Due to increasing energy and environmental concerns automakers have recently become more interested in lightweight alternatives to traditional component designs. Magnesium, the lightest standard engineering metal, has often been cited as showing potential in the automotive world, but has been resisted by automakers due to high prices and limited availability. Small production resources of magnesium limit the potential of magnesium in the automotive arena if growth in interest leads to material shortages and price volatility. To investigate the dynamics of the magnesium market, a system dynamics simulation model of the market was created. The model, which simulates supply, demand, and price interactions, was used to investigate market stability strategies that will benefit all market players

A case study of the availability of platinum group metals for electronics manufacturers

Platinum group metals, a key material group for electronics manufacturers, exhibit characteristics of a material with high scarcity risk based on Malthusian, Ricardian and structure metrics. This includes high potential future demand growth, high extraction costs and high market concentration of primary supply. The conditions that impact downstream firms are explored through the use of a dynamic material market model. In particular, the average spending over a period of time by downstream firms is proposed as a simple metric to compare the relative impacts of various scenarios on these firms. One scenario comparison showed that recycling could lower average spending as well as reduce price variance.

Life-cycle analysis of automobiles: A critical review of methodologies

Life-cycle analysis (LCA) has been described by its proponents as an environmental panacea, capable of providing engineers, designers, and managers with everything that they need to make environmentally correct decisions. Unfortunately, the goals of the technique and the reality of its application are very different. Like any analytical technique, its application requires the imposition of assumptions to accommodate limitations in budgets, resources, and know-how. Furthermore, the evaluation of the analytical results introduces questions of strategy and priority that are currently unresolved. Thus, while the concepts underlying LCA are readily understandable, the practical application of the method has substantial problems.

Defining markets for new materials: Developing a utility methodology with case application

Abstract A utility methodology to identify profitable market segments for the use of new materials is presented and illustrated by application to the automobile industry. The method has three parts: empirical, statistical and analytical. The first measures company preferences for the important attributes of a use of a material, applying single-attribute utility functions. The second identifies market segments, by determining significant differences between measured preferences with t -tests. The third estimates the premium these market segments would pay for a product made of a new material, using multiattributable utilities, and thus determines profitable market segments. The case study of valve trains containing ceramic components defined two market segments: companies with either a broad world market or a narrow speciality. The immediate buyers of these valve trains are likely to be producers of high-value, six-cylinder automobiles, who seem prepared to pay a significant premium for this product.