Specific programme: Societal Challenges – SC5. Greening the economy in line with the Sustainable Development Goals
UPV/EHU Partner Status: Beneficiary
UPV/EHU PI: Encarnacion Roda
Project start: 01/06/2020
Project end: 31/05/2024
Brief description: The manufacture of devices for green energy production and storage in Europe is a strategic, fast-growing sector which is essential in ensuring that the EU meets its energy and climate targets for 2030. It is worth an estimated €30 Bn in turnover, with investments of €4 Bn in the EU27, and is likely to create c.a. 100,000 jobs over the next 10 years. A major limitation to this is that 95% of the key raw materials for green energy devices are currently imported from outside the EU. Securing domestic deposits is therefore urgent for sustainable industrial development, mainly in retaining a large part of the added value, reducing supply risks and ensuring EU environmental standards for the production of raw materials. Exploration investment in Europe has declined in recent years due to increased technical demand and socio-political debate. Private sector engagement will increase only when technical solutions allow economically viable and environmentally friendly exploration and mining. Geologically, lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) and niobium-yttrium-fluorine (NYF) pegmatites are relatively common in Europe, enriched in many CRM needed for energy technologies but difficult to explore because most are buried, small and clustered. The GREENPEG approach will develop and test a set of high-level exploration technologies and algorithms to be integrated and upscaled into flexible, ready-to-use (TRL 7) toolsets for the identification of buried pegmatite ores. Validation of the new approach will be ensured from industry-led trials at locations in Austria, Ireland and Norway, while application studies will also be done in Finland, Portugal and Spain. Many of these target areas have established downstream processing industry, thus extending their value chains. The data acquired will enhance European databases, e.g. adding new petrophysical properties for pegmatite ores, making the toolsets also important for geological surveys and increasing the competitiveness of EU companies.
