IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2021-243.html

Energy Transition Metals

Author

Listed:
  • Lukas Boer
  • Mr. Andrea Pescatori
  • Martin Stuermer

Abstract

The energy transition requires substantial amounts of metals such as copper, nickel, cobalt and lithium. Are these metals a key bottleneck? We identify metal-specific demand shocks, estimate supply elasticities and pin down the price impact of the energy transition in a structural scenario analysis. Metal prices would reach historical peaks for an unprecedented, sustained period in a net-zero emissions scenario. The total value of metals production would rise more than four-fold for the period 2021 to 2040, rivaling the total value of crude oil production. Metals are a potentially important input into integrated assessments models of climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • Lukas Boer & Mr. Andrea Pescatori & Martin Stuermer, 2021. "Energy Transition Metals," IMF Working Papers 2021/243, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2021/243
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=465899
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Hugh Miller & Simon Dikau & Romain Svartzman & Stéphane Dees, 2023. "The Stumbling Block in the Race of our Lives : Transition-Critical Materials, Financial Risks and the NGFS Climate Scenarios," Working papers 907, Banque de France.
    2. Allen, Thomas & Boullot, Mathieu & Dées, Stéphane & de Gaye, Annabelle & Lisack, Noëmie & Thubin, Camille & Wegner, Oriane, 2025. "Using short-term scenarios to assess the macroeconomic impacts of climate transition," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    3. Alessi, Lucia & Ossola, Elisa & Panzica, Roberto, 2023. "When do investors go green? Evidence from a time-varying asset-pricing model," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    4. Etienne ESPAGNE & Hugo LAPEYRONIE, 2023. "Energy transition minerals and the SDGs. A systematic review," Working Paper ebe0968c-fce0-4ce9-b3b6-b, Agence française de développement.
    5. Jiang, Zhuhua & Dong, Xiyong & Yoon, Seong-Min, 2025. "Impact of oil prices on key energy mineral prices: Fresh evidence from quantile and wavelet approaches," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    6. Committeri, Marco & Brüggemann, Axel & Kosterink, Patrick & Reininger, Thomas & Stevens, Luc & Vonessen, Benjamin & Zaghini, Andrea & Garrido, Isabel & Van Meensel, Lena & Strašuna, Lija & Tiililä, Ne, 2022. "The role of the IMF in addressing climate change risks," Occasional Paper Series 309, European Central Bank.
    7. George Yunxiong Li & Simona Iammarino, 2024. "Critical Raw Materials and Renewable Energy Transition: The Role of Domestic Supply," Discussion Paper series in Regional Science & Economic Geography 2024-04, Gran Sasso Science Institute, Social Sciences, revised Oct 2024.
    8. Chávez,Paulo & Daniel Francisco Barco Rondan & Bledi Celiku & Arthur Galego Mendes & Steven Michael Pennings & Elena Resk, 2024. "Long-Term Growth Prospects in Peru : Leveraging the Global Green Transition and the Reforms Needed to Become a High-Income Country," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10900, The World Bank.
    9. Francisco Ríos Muñoz & Camilo Peña Ramírez & José Meza & Tenzin Crouch, 2024. "Platinum Group Metals Extraction from Asteroids vs Earth: An Overview of the Industrial Ecosystems, Technologies and Risks," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 37(3), pages 681-700, September.
    10. Viet Nguyen-Tien, 2025. "Cleaner energy, higher risk? Firm-level exposure to critical minerals," CEP Discussion Papers dp2133, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Ghosh, Bikramaditya & Pham, Linh & Teplova, Tamara & Umar, Zaghum, 2023. "COVID-19 and the quantile connectedness between energy and metal markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    12. Agnese, Pablo & Rios, Francisco, 2024. "Spillover effects of energy transition metals in Chile," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    13. Naegler, Tobias & Rauner, Sebastian & Dirnaichner, Alois & Jochem, Patrick & Schlosser, Steffen & Luderer, Gunnar, 2025. "Raw material demand and geopolitical risk in carbon-neutral futures," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    14. Alberto Prina Cerai, 2024. "Geography of control: a deep dive assessment on criticality and lithium supply chain," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 37(3), pages 499-546, September.
    15. Kirsch, Florian & Schmidt, Torsten, 2024. "Kurzfristige Perspektiven ausgewählter Rohstoffpreisentwicklungen - ein Update: Gutachten für das Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Industrie, Klimaschutz und Energie des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen," RWI Projektberichte, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, number 313401.
    16. Martin Stuermer, 2022. "Non-renewable resource extraction over the long term: empirical evidence from global copper production," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 35(3), pages 617-625, December.
    17. Zhang, Hongwei & Zhang, Yubo & Gao, Wang & Li, Yingli, 2023. "Extreme quantile spillovers and drivers among clean energy, electricity and energy metals markets," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    18. Vlado Vivoda & Ron Matthews, 2024. "“Friend-shoring” as a panacea to Western critical mineral supply chain vulnerabilities," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 37(3), pages 463-476, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • Q3 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation
    • Q4 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    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:imf:imfwpa:2021/243. 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    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.