Categorizing carrier-byproduct metal pairs to assess materials critically - Focus on price elasticity of photovoltaics related metals

Clean energy technologies, such as photovoltaics, wind turbines, efficient lighting systems and electric vehicles, are key players in moving towards a sustainable future. However, each of these technologies relies on significant use of specialized metals, raising materials criticality concerns as th...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Polli, Adriano
Tipo de recurso: tesis de maestría
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/117477
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/117477
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Renewable energy sources
Energies renovables
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Desenvolupament humà i sostenible
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spelling Categorizing carrier-byproduct metal pairs to assess materials critically - Focus on price elasticity of photovoltaics related metalsPolli, AdrianoRenewable energy sourcesEnergies renovablesÀrees temàtiques de la UPC::Desenvolupament humà i sostenibleClean energy technologies, such as photovoltaics, wind turbines, efficient lighting systems and electric vehicles, are key players in moving towards a sustainable future. However, each of these technologies relies on significant use of specialized metals, raising materials criticality concerns as the demand for these devices (and the materials they contain) increases. In addition to low ore concentrations and missing trade at major public exchanges, one of the main sources of concern is their byproduct nature. In many cases, in fact, such metals are obtained as minor products of more abundant materials, which are referred as carrier metals. Some examples include cadmium, gallium, germanium, indium, selenium and tellurium. The point discussed within the current literature is that the maximum supply potential of byprod-uct metals is limited by the supply of carrier metals. Moreover, price inelasticity of byproducts (supply not responding to price changes) have been cited as proof of such constraint. The first part of the present work aims to categorize forty-seven carrier-byproduct pairs according to byproduct fraction and value ratio to assess criticality. Both a qualitative and a quantitative evaluation of the obtained matrix are performed, using hierarchical clustering for the quantitative analysis. The objective of the second part of the study is to verify whether the supply of byproduct metals is inelastic and, if so, understand whether this is caused by carriers’ supply limiting byproduct sup-ply. Indium and tellurium are used as case studies. The selection of those elements is driven by their wide application in clean energy technologies, from thin-film photovoltaics cells to nuclear power control rods. Econometric analyses including ordinary least squares, autoregressive distrib-uted lag and two stages least square models are performed. Five similar groups are identified in both the qualitative and quantitative evaluation. Each cluster consists of pairs with similar overall criticality that impact market players in a similar way. Two groups are found to be critical for consumers, one for producers, one for both and one for none. For what concerns supply inelasticity, econometric analyses suggest that both indium and tellu-rium are price inelastic to supply. However, while in the first case the reason is found to be limita-tion of the carrier metal, for tellurium this seems not to be the case. Non-transparent trading, monopolistic character of supply and other factors are indeed expected to be the major causes. Future work will investigate additional byproduct pairs using similar econometric models. The final aim of the project is to produce outcomes which will be useful for decision making of both metals producers and consumers.Universitat Politècnica de CatalunyaValderrama Ángel, César Alberto20162016-07-0120182018-05-25master thesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_bdccNAhttp://purl.org/coar/version/c_be7fb7dd8ff6fe43info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesisapplication/pdfhttps://hdl.handle.net/2117/117477reponame:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPCinstname:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)Inglésengopen accesshttp://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Spainhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/1174772026-05-27T15:37:01Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Categorizing carrier-byproduct metal pairs to assess materials critically - Focus on price elasticity of photovoltaics related metals
title Categorizing carrier-byproduct metal pairs to assess materials critically - Focus on price elasticity of photovoltaics related metals
spellingShingle Categorizing carrier-byproduct metal pairs to assess materials critically - Focus on price elasticity of photovoltaics related metals
Polli, Adriano
Renewable energy sources
Energies renovables
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Desenvolupament humà i sostenible
title_short Categorizing carrier-byproduct metal pairs to assess materials critically - Focus on price elasticity of photovoltaics related metals
title_full Categorizing carrier-byproduct metal pairs to assess materials critically - Focus on price elasticity of photovoltaics related metals
title_fullStr Categorizing carrier-byproduct metal pairs to assess materials critically - Focus on price elasticity of photovoltaics related metals
title_full_unstemmed Categorizing carrier-byproduct metal pairs to assess materials critically - Focus on price elasticity of photovoltaics related metals
title_sort Categorizing carrier-byproduct metal pairs to assess materials critically - Focus on price elasticity of photovoltaics related metals
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Polli, Adriano
author Polli, Adriano
author_facet Polli, Adriano
author_role author
dc.contributor.none.fl_str_mv Valderrama Ángel, César Alberto
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Renewable energy sources
Energies renovables
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Desenvolupament humà i sostenible
topic Renewable energy sources
Energies renovables
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Desenvolupament humà i sostenible
description Clean energy technologies, such as photovoltaics, wind turbines, efficient lighting systems and electric vehicles, are key players in moving towards a sustainable future. However, each of these technologies relies on significant use of specialized metals, raising materials criticality concerns as the demand for these devices (and the materials they contain) increases. In addition to low ore concentrations and missing trade at major public exchanges, one of the main sources of concern is their byproduct nature. In many cases, in fact, such metals are obtained as minor products of more abundant materials, which are referred as carrier metals. Some examples include cadmium, gallium, germanium, indium, selenium and tellurium. The point discussed within the current literature is that the maximum supply potential of byprod-uct metals is limited by the supply of carrier metals. Moreover, price inelasticity of byproducts (supply not responding to price changes) have been cited as proof of such constraint. The first part of the present work aims to categorize forty-seven carrier-byproduct pairs according to byproduct fraction and value ratio to assess criticality. Both a qualitative and a quantitative evaluation of the obtained matrix are performed, using hierarchical clustering for the quantitative analysis. The objective of the second part of the study is to verify whether the supply of byproduct metals is inelastic and, if so, understand whether this is caused by carriers’ supply limiting byproduct sup-ply. Indium and tellurium are used as case studies. The selection of those elements is driven by their wide application in clean energy technologies, from thin-film photovoltaics cells to nuclear power control rods. Econometric analyses including ordinary least squares, autoregressive distrib-uted lag and two stages least square models are performed. Five similar groups are identified in both the qualitative and quantitative evaluation. Each cluster consists of pairs with similar overall criticality that impact market players in a similar way. Two groups are found to be critical for consumers, one for producers, one for both and one for none. For what concerns supply inelasticity, econometric analyses suggest that both indium and tellu-rium are price inelastic to supply. However, while in the first case the reason is found to be limita-tion of the carrier metal, for tellurium this seems not to be the case. Non-transparent trading, monopolistic character of supply and other factors are indeed expected to be the major causes. Future work will investigate additional byproduct pairs using similar econometric models. The final aim of the project is to produce outcomes which will be useful for decision making of both metals producers and consumers.
publishDate 2016
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2016
2016-07-01
2018
2018-05-25
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv master thesis
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_bdcc
NA
http://purl.org/coar/version/c_be7fb7dd8ff6fe43
dc.type.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis
format masterThesis
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv https://hdl.handle.net/2117/117477
url https://hdl.handle.net/2117/117477
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
eng
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
language eng
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Spain
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/
dc.rights.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Spain
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
instname:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
instname_str Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
reponame_str UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
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