Project description
Solving the global energy–material nexus
The shift to clean energy requires new technologies and raw materials. This demand creates the risk of material bottlenecks. For example, some green energy technologies need rare metals that smartphones also use. Other materials, like gypsum from coal plants, disappear as fossil fuels phase out. Limits on recycling and waste handling further strain the system. The ERC-funded MATERIALIZE project aims to design a new way to understand these risks by combining energy models with material systems. This method tracks how different drivers affect the global energy transition. It considers hidden shortages and identifies strategies to fix them. The project’s goal is to detect potential bottlenecks in supply chains. It will also measure how these changes impact the whole energy system.
Objective
The urgent need for a global energy transformation requires major and rapid shifts in energy technologies, accompanied by changes in material demand and supply, which can potentially result in material bottlenecks. Despite great interest from policy and research, current approaches fail to account for key drivers of material bottlenecks, such as: (i) new material demands of specific energy technologies (e.g. iridium for electrolysis), (ii) phased-out material supply (e.g. gypsum from fossil power plants), (iii) competing material demand beyond the energy system (e.g. iridium for smartphones), and (iv) limits in material availability and disposability (e.g. recyclability, carbon-neutral waste handling) resulting in an underestimation of bottlenecks, while even more importantly integrated mitigation strategies are not investigated at all.
MATERIALIZE will generate this urgently needed new holistic understanding about how these drivers can affect the global energy transformation and which mitigation strategies are best suited to pave the way towards a material realizable energy transformation. The key novelty of MATERIALIZE will be to transform elements of the yet disparate fields of energy and material system modelling at unprecedented levels of detail into one innovative interdisciplinary, scalable, nested, and prospective model framework. MATERIALIZE aims to conduct boundary-pushing research on the global scale of the whole energy system with 3 objectives: (i) unveil potential material bottlenecks, (ii) identify alternatives navigating these, and (iii) assess the impacts of alternatives on the energy and material systems. The deeply advanced understanding of the energy-material nexus will produce timely insights about most robust transformation pathways, which will ultimately open up new frontiers to develop new alternatives and navigation strategies and to explore spatially-explicit economic and political implications of a material realizable energy transformation.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels renewable energy
- natural sciences chemical sciences electrochemistry electrolysis
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry transition metals
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering information engineering telecommunications mobile phones
- natural sciences computer and information sciences software software applications simulation software
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2022-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
52428 JULICH
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.