A pivot from fossil fuels to clean energy technologies by 2060 would improve energy security and reduce trade risks for most nations, according to a new study.
Lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, and rare earth elements are among the prized materials for countries and corporations racing to secure supplies for energy systems that do not add greenhouse gases to our atmosphere.
Unlike fossil fuels, natural reserves of these materials are most concentrated in the Global South, shuffling the geopolitics of energy and global trade.
“For most countries in a net-zero emissions system in the future, trading off the reduced dependence on imported fossil fuels and increased dependence on these new materials is actually a win for energy security,” explained Steve Davis, the study’s senior author and a professor of Earth system science in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
The impact of decarbonisation on oil-rich nations
Even for the United States, which has some of the world’s largest fossil fuel reserves but only a sliver of critical mineral deposits, decarbonisation could boost energy security, especially if the country cultivates new trade partners, the researchers found.
Since 2020, the US has exported more crude oil and petroleum products than it has imported, but it still imports millions of barrels daily, mostly from Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Colombia.
“Generating electricity with solar and wind will require more imports than using abundant gas and coal resources in the US, but reduced dependence on foreign oil will be a big advantage as transportation is electrified,” Davis said.
Oil-rich nations, including Russia and Saudi Arabia, are among the minority of countries that would see energy security decline in net-zero scenarios, even with expanded trade networks.
Levels of energy security change in each country
To reach their conclusions, the scientists systematically analysed the range of each country’s potential new vulnerabilities under decarbonisation relative to those associated with continued reliance on fossil fuels.
As a first step, lead author Jing Cheng, a postdoctoral scholar in Davis’s Sustainable Solutions Lab at Stanford, built a database of countries with reserves of oil, gas, coal, uranium, biofuels, and any of 16 materials that are critical for clean energy technologies, along with the trade flows of these resources between countries.
The researchers calculated how much of these resources would be required to meet energy demand in each of 236 countries in 1,092 different scenarios for reaching net-zero carbon emissions globally by 2060.
For the thousands of combinations of trade relationships and resource needs, the team estimated the level of risk in each country’s transportation and electricity sectors, as well as the overall energy system.
They quantified these risks using a new “trade risk index” based on the availability of domestic reserves, the share of demand for a given fuel or material met by imports, the economic value of the imports, and a measure of market concentration widely used to quantify energy security.
Countries benefit from bigger cuts to fossil fuel reliance
The researchers found that if all countries maintain their current networks, trade-related risks to energy security would decline on average by 19% in net-zero scenarios.
If countries expand their networks and trade with all resource owners, then trade risks, on average, would fall by half.
Reducing the need for imported virgin materials – whether by making technologies last longer, ramping up recycling, or developing less material-intensive designs – is another way for mineral-poor countries to minimise trade risks while eliminating fossil fuels.
According to the study, trade risks fall on average by 17% – and by more than 50% for the US – with a quadrupling of today’s meagre recycling rates for critical minerals such as lithium, nickel, and indium.
They also found a US energy mix made up of approximately 70-75% renewables like solar, wind, and biomass; 15-20% fossil fuels; and 10% nuclear would minimise the country’s trade risks across all the modelled scenarios for reaching net-zero by 2060, although other mixes could offer advantages such as lower costs or less air pollution.
However, the security benefits of diversification have limits. The study results indicate that keeping fossil fuels in the mix generally drags down nations’ energy security.
“It is ultimately encouraging that most countries’ trade risks decrease in net-zero scenarios,” the authors conclude, “and that the greatest improvements often occur in the countries which most drastically reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.”
