IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jresou/v2y2013i3p303-334d28319.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Material Flows Resulting from Large Scale Deployment of Wind Energy in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Till Zimmermann

    (Department of Technological Design and Development, Faculty of Production Engineering, University of Bremen, Bremen D-28359, Germany
    ARTEC—Research Center for Sustainability Studies, Bremen D-28359, Germany)

  • Max Rehberger

    (Department of Technological Design and Development, Faculty of Production Engineering, University of Bremen, Bremen D-28359, Germany)

  • Stefan Gößling-Reisemann

    (Department of Technological Design and Development, Faculty of Production Engineering, University of Bremen, Bremen D-28359, Germany
    ARTEC—Research Center for Sustainability Studies, Bremen D-28359, Germany)

Abstract

The ambitious targets for renewable energies in Germany indicate that the steady growth of installed capacity of the past years will continue for the coming decades. This development is connected with significant material flows—primary material demand as well as secondary material flows. These flows have been analyzed for Germany up to the year 2050 using a statistical model for the turbines’ discard patterns. The analysis encompasses the flows of bulk metals, plastics, and rare earths (required for permanent magnets in gearless converters). Different expansion scenarios for wind energy are considered as well as different turbine technologies, future development of hub height and rotor diameter, and an enhanced deployment of converters located offshore. In addition to the direct material use, the total material requirement has been calculated using the material input per service unit (MIPS) concept. The analysis shows that the demand for iron, steel, and aluminum will not exceed around 6% of the current domestic consumption. The situation for rare earths appears to be different with a maximum annual neodymium demand for wind energy converters corresponding to about a quarter of the overall 2010 consumption. It has been shown that by efficiently utilizing secondary material flows a net material demand reduction of up to two thirds by 2050 seems possible, ( i.e. , if secondary material flows are fully used to substitute primary material demand).

Suggested Citation

  • Till Zimmermann & Max Rehberger & Stefan Gößling-Reisemann, 2013. "Material Flows Resulting from Large Scale Deployment of Wind Energy in Germany," Resources, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-32, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jresou:v:2:y:2013:i:3:p:303-334:d:28319
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/2/3/303/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/2/3/303/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kagawa, Shigemi & Tasaki, Tomohiro & Moriguchi, Yuichi, 2006. "The environmental and economic consequences of product lifetime extension: Empirical analysis for automobile use," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 108-118, June.
    2. Weinzettel, Jan & Reenaas, Marte & Solli, Christian & Hertwich, Edgar G., 2009. "Life cycle assessment of a floating offshore wind turbine," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 742-747.
    3. Wagner, Hermann-Josef & Baack, Christoph & Eickelkamp, Timo & Epe, Alexa & Lohmann, Jessica & Troy, Stefanie, 2011. "Life cycle assessment of the offshore wind farm alpha ventus," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 2459-2464.
    4. Oguchi, Masahiro & Kameya, Takashi & Yagi, Suguru & Urano, Kohei, 2008. "Product flow analysis of various consumer durables in Japan," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 463-480.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Islam, Md. Monirul & Sohag, Kazi & Alam, Md. Mahmudul, 2022. "Mineral import demand and clean energy transitions in the top mineral-importing countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    2. Andrew J. Curtis & Benjamin C. McLellan, 2023. "Potential Domestic Energy System Vulnerabilities from Major Exports of Green Hydrogen: A Case Study of Australia," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-34, August.
    3. Islam, Md. Monirul & Sohag, Kazi & Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Mariev, Oleg & Samargandi, Nahla, 2022. "Minerals import demands and clean energy transitions: A disaggregated analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    4. Till Zimmermann & Stefan Gößling-Reisemann, 2014. "Recycling Potentials of Critical Metals-Analyzing Secondary Flows from Selected Applications," Resources, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-28, March.
    5. Li, Chen & Mogollón, José M. & Tukker, Arnold & Dong, Jianning & von Terzi, Dominic & Zhang, Chunbo & Steubing, Bernhard, 2022. "Future material requirements for global sustainable offshore wind energy development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lombardi, Lidia & Mendecka, Barbara & Carnevale, Ennio & Stanek, Wojciech, 2018. "Environmental impacts of electricity production of micro wind turbines with vertical axis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 128(PB), pages 553-564.
    2. Nurullah Yildiz & Hassan Hemida & Charalampos Baniotopoulos, 2021. "Life Cycle Assessment of a Barge-Type Floating Wind Turbine and Comparison with Other Types of Wind Turbines," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-19, September.
    3. Nian, Victor & Liu, Yang & Zhong, Sheng, 2019. "Life cycle cost-benefit analysis of offshore wind energy under the climatic conditions in Southeast Asia – Setting the bottom-line for deployment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 233, pages 1003-1014.
    4. Roger Samsó & Júlia Crespin & Antonio García-Olivares & Jordi Solé, 2023. "Examining the Potential of Marine Renewable Energy: A Net Energy Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-35, May.
    5. Louise Christine Dammeier & Joyce H. C. Bosmans & Mark A. J. Huijbregts, 2023. "Variability in greenhouse gas footprints of the global wind farm fleet," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 27(1), pages 272-282, February.
    6. Till Zimmermann & Stefan Gößling-Reisemann, 2014. "Recycling Potentials of Critical Metals-Analyzing Secondary Flows from Selected Applications," Resources, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-28, March.
    7. Arvesen, Anders & Hertwich, Edgar G., 2012. "Assessing the life cycle environmental impacts of wind power: A review of present knowledge and research needs," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(8), pages 5994-6006.
    8. Mendecka, Barbara & Lombardi, Lidia, 2019. "Life cycle environmental impacts of wind energy technologies: A review of simplified models and harmonization of the results," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 462-480.
    9. Nugent, Daniel & Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2014. "Assessing the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from solar PV and wind energy: A critical meta-survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 229-244.
    10. Summerfield-Ryan, Oliver & Park, Susan, 2023. "The power of wind: The global wind energy industry's successes and failures," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    11. Campos-Guzmán, Verónica & García-Cáscales, M. Socorro & Espinosa, Nieves & Urbina, Antonio, 2019. "Life Cycle Analysis with Multi-Criteria Decision Making: A review of approaches for the sustainability evaluation of renewable energy technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 343-366.
    12. Kaldellis, J.K. & Apostolou, D., 2017. "Life cycle energy and carbon footprint of offshore wind energy. Comparison with onshore counterpart," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 72-84.
    13. Nishijima, Daisuke, 2017. "The role of technology, product lifetime, and energy efficiency in climate mitigation: A case study of air conditioners in Japan," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 340-347.
    14. Rashedi, A. & Sridhar, I. & Tseng, K.J., 2013. "Life cycle assessment of 50MW wind firms and strategies for impact reduction," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 89-101.
    15. Niklas Andersen & Ola Eriksson & Karl Hillman & Marita Wallhagen, 2016. "Wind Turbines’ End-of-Life: Quantification and Characterisation of Future Waste Materials on a National Level," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-24, November.
    16. Li, Jinying & Li, Sisi & Wu, Fan, 2020. "Research on carbon emission reduction benefit of wind power project based on life cycle assessment theory," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 456-468.
    17. Hong, Sanghyun & Bradshaw, Corey J.A. & Brook, Barry W., 2014. "Nuclear power can reduce emissions and maintain a strong economy: Rating Australia’s optimal future electricity-generation mix by technologies and policies," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 712-725.
    18. Tsiliyannis, Christos Aristeides, 2015. "Sustainability by cyclic manufacturing: Assessment of resource preservation under uncertain growth and returns," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 155-170.
    19. Richa, Kirti & Babbitt, Callie W. & Gaustad, Gabrielle & Wang, Xue, 2014. "A future perspective on lithium-ion battery waste flows from electric vehicles," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 63-76.
    20. Rueda-Bayona, Juan Gabriel & Cabello Eras, Juan Jose & Chaparro, Tatiana R., 2022. "Impacts generated by the materials used in offshore wind technology on Human Health, Natural Environment and Resources," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 261(PA).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jresou:v:2:y:2013:i:3:p:303-334:d:28319. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.