IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-02446805.html

Mineral resources for renewable energy: Optimal timing of energy production

Author

Listed:
  • Adrien Fabre

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Mouez Fodha

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Francesco Ricci

    (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - UM - Université de Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro - Montpellier SupAgro - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement)

Abstract

The production of energy from renewable sources is much more intensive in minerals than that from fossil resources. The scarcity of certain minerals limits the potential for substituting renewable energy for scarce fossil resources. However, minerals can be recycled,while fossil resources cannot. We develop an intertemporal model to study the dynamics of the optimal energy mix in the presence of mineral intensive renewable energy and fossil energy. We analyze energy production when both mineral and fossil resources are scarce,but minerals are recyclable. We show that the greater the recycling rate of minerals, the more the energy mix should rely on renewable energy, and the sooner should investment in renewable capacity take place. We confirm these results even in the presence of other better known factors that affect the optimal schedule of resource use: expected productivity growth in the renewable sector, imperfect substitution between the two sources of energy, convex extraction costs for mineral resources and pollution from the use of fossil resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Adrien Fabre & Mouez Fodha & Francesco Ricci, 2020. "Mineral resources for renewable energy: Optimal timing of energy production," Post-Print hal-02446805, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02446805
    DOI: 10.1016/j.reseneeco.2019.101131
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02446805v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-02446805v1/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.reseneeco.2019.101131?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Chazel, Simon & Bernard, Sophie & Benchekroun, Hassan, 2023. "Energy transition under mineral constraints and recycling: A low-carbon supply peak," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    2. Pommeret, Aude & Ricci, Francesco & Schubert, Katheline, 2022. "Critical raw materials for the energy transition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    3. Gueye, Seynabou & Karanfil, Fatih & Omgba, Luc Désiré, 2025. "Navigating the energy transition in the EU: Renewables, critical raw materials and emerging vulnerabilities," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    4. Ni, Peiyong & Hua, Ruidong & Jiang, Hangyu & Wang, Xiangli & Zhang, Xuewen & Li, Xiang, 2024. "Thermal flow and thermoelectricity characteristics in a sandwich flat plate thermoelectric power generation device under diesel engine exhaust conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    5. Zhou, Sophie & Smulders, Sjak, 2021. "Closing the loop in a circular economy: Saving resources or suffocating innovations?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    6. Daw, Georges, 2025. "Revising the ‘Economic importance’ dimension: The European framework for critical raw materials, completed and illustrated using lithium," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    7. Liu, Yang & Dong, Kangyin & Taghizadeh-Hesary, Farhad & Dong, Xiucheng, 2024. "How do minerals affect the global energy transition? Metallic versus non-metallic mineral," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    8. Aldakhil, Abdullah Mohammed & Nassani, Abdelmohsen A. & Zaman, Khalid, 2020. "The role of technical cooperation grants in mineral resource extraction: Evidence from a panel of 12 abundant resource economies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    9. Ba, Bocar Samba & Soubeyran, Raphael, 2023. "Hotelling and recycling," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    10. Rahat, Birjees & Nguyen, Pascal, 2023. "Does ESG performance impact credit portfolios? Evidence from lending to mineral resource firms in emerging markets," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PB).
    11. Paul Belleflamme & Huan Ha, 2024. "Improving Recycling: How Far Should We Go?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 87(7), pages 1993-2033, July.
    12. Han, Zhanbing & Zakari, Abdulrasheed & Youn, Ik Joong & Tawiah, Vincent, 2023. "The impact of natural resources on renewable energy consumption," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    13. Egger, Peter H. & Keuschnigg, Christian, 2024. "Resource dependence, recycling, and trade," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    14. He, Ruifang & Zhong, Meirui & Huang, Jianbai, 2021. "Technological progress and metal resource consumption in the electricity industry—A cross-country panel threshold data analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • Q3 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation
    • Q2 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation
    • Q42 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Alternative Energy Sources
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:hal:journl:hal-02446805. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.