IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jcltec/v7y2025i1p5-d1563295.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessment of Scarcity, Toxicity, and Circularity Risks in the European Thermoelectric Market: A Focus on Tellurium, Antimony, Bismuth, and Lead

Author

Listed:
  • Unza Jamil

    (UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering, University College Dublin, Belfield, 4 Dublin, Ireland
    Biorbic Bioeconomy, SFI Research Centre, Belfield, 4 Dublin, Ireland)

  • Nicholas M. Holden

    (UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering, University College Dublin, Belfield, 4 Dublin, Ireland
    Biorbic Bioeconomy, SFI Research Centre, Belfield, 4 Dublin, Ireland)

Abstract

This study assesses supply risks for critical raw materials (CRMs) essential to Europe’s thermoelectric (TE) technology, which transforms heat into electricity. Given the EU’s heavy reliance on imports for key materials like tellurium, antimony, bismuth, and lead, the analysis incorporates market forecasting, scarcity quantification, and Monte Carlo simulations to model demand and supply risks. This study reveals that tellurium poses high risks due to scarcity and potential geopolitical impacts, with antimony and bismuth at moderate risk, and lead presenting notable health hazards. The findings suggest the necessity of circular supply chains and material alternatives to mitigate resource, environmental, and geopolitical challenges for sustainable TE development in Europe. Moreover, there is a pressing need to update and expand data availability for materials like tellurium to enable more robust risk assessments in the immediate future.

Suggested Citation

  • Unza Jamil & Nicholas M. Holden, 2025. "Assessment of Scarcity, Toxicity, and Circularity Risks in the European Thermoelectric Market: A Focus on Tellurium, Antimony, Bismuth, and Lead," Clean Technol., MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-17, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jcltec:v:7:y:2025:i:1:p:5-:d:1563295
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-8797/7/1/5/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-8797/7/1/5/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eleonora Riva Sanseverino & Le Quyen Luu, 2022. "Critical Raw Materials and Supply Chain Disruption in the Energy Transition," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-5, August.
    2. Rabe, Wiebke & Kostka, Genia & Smith Stegen, Karen, 2017. "China's supply of critical raw materials: Risks for Europe's solar and wind industries?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 692-699.
    3. Koyamparambath, Anish & Santillán-Saldivar, Jair & McLellan, Benjamin & Sonnemann, Guido, 2022. "Supply risk evolution of raw materials for batteries and fossil fuels for selected OECD countries (2000–2018)," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    4. Matteo d’Angelo & Carmen Galassi & Nora Lecis, 2023. "Thermoelectric Materials and Applications: A Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-50, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guo, Tianjiao & Geng, Yong & Song, Xiaoqian & Rui, Xue & Ge, Zewen, 2023. "Tracing magnesium flows in China: A dynamic material flow analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    2. Emblemsvåg, Jan, 2022. "Wind energy is not sustainable when balanced by fossil energy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 305(C).
    3. Caravella, Serenella & Crespi, Francesco & Cucignatto, Giacomo & Guarascio, Dario, 2023. "Technological Sovereignty and Strategic Dependencies: The case of the Photovoltaic Supply Chain," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1330, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    4. Saka, Umut Mete & Duzgun, Sebnem & Bazilian, Morgan D., 2024. "Analysis of world trade data with machine learning to enhance policies of mineral supply chain transparency," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    5. Vicente Ferreira & Joao Pedro Ferreira & Dario Guarascio & Francesco Zezza, 2024. "Shockflation in the EU: sectoral shocks, cost-push inflation and structural asymmetries in core and periphery countries," LEM Papers Series 2024/31, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    6. Nwaila, Glen T. & Bourdeau, Julie E. & Zhang, Steven E. & Chipangamate, Nelson & Valodia, Imraan & Mahboob, Muhammad Ahsan & Lehohla, Thakaramahlaha & Shimaponda-Nawa, Mulundumina & Durrheim, Raymond , 2024. "A systematic framework for compilation of critical raw material lists and their importance for South Africa," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    7. Francesco Montana & Maurizio Cellura & Maria Luisa Di Silvestre & Sonia Longo & Le Quyen Luu & Eleonora Riva Sanseverino & Giuseppe Sciumè, 2024. "Assessing Critical Raw Materials and Their Supply Risk in Energy Technologies—A Literature Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(1), pages 1-14, December.
    8. Thomas Puschmann & Christian Hugo Hoffmann & Valentyn Khmarskyi, 2020. "How Green FinTech Can Alleviate the Impact of Climate Change—The Case of Switzerland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-30, December.
    9. Kyounga Lee & Jongmun Cha, 2020. "Towards Improved Circular Economy and Resource Security in South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, December.
    10. Zhou, Mei-Jing & Huang, Jian-Bai & Chen, Jin-Yu, 2022. "Time and frequency spillovers between political risk and the stock returns of China's rare earths," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    11. Augusto Ninni & Ping Lv & Francesca Spigarelli & Pengqi Liu, 2020. "How home and host country industrial policies affect investment location choice? The case of Chinese investments in the EU solar and wind industries," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 47(4), pages 531-557, December.
    12. Islam, Md. Monirul & Sohag, Kazi & Hammoudeh, Shawkat & Mariev, Oleg & Samargandi, Nahla, 2022. "Minerals import demands and clean energy transitions: A disaggregated analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    13. Ewa Lewicka & Katarzyna Guzik & Krzysztof Galos, 2021. "On the Possibilities of Critical Raw Materials Production from the EU’s Primary Sources," Resources, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-21, May.
    14. Yufeng Chen & Biao Zheng, 2019. "What Happens after the Rare Earth Crisis: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-26, March.
    15. Antoine Boubault & Nadia Maïzi, 2019. "Devising Mineral Resource Supply Pathways to a Low-Carbon Electricity Generation by 2100," Resources, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-13, February.
    16. Rybak, Aurelia & Rybak, Aleksandra & Kolev, Spas D., 2024. "Development of wind energy and access to REE. The case of Poland," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    17. Xia, Qifan & Du, Debin & Yu, Zihao & Li, Xiya & Zhang, Qiang, 2024. "Coins have both sides: Revealing the structure and pattern of global interdependence network for five critical metals," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    18. Wang, Kai-Hua & Wen, Cui-Ping & Liu, Hong-Wen & Liu, Lu, 2023. "Promotion or hindrance? Exploring the bidirectional causality between geopolitical risk and green bonds from an energy perspective," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PB).
    19. Lekavičius, Vidas & Balsiūnaitė, Rimantė & Bobinaitė, Viktorija & Konstantinavičiūtė, Inga & Rimkūnaitė, Kristina & Štreimikienė, Dalia & Tarvydas, Dalius, 2024. "The diversification of energy resources and equipment imports in the European Union," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    20. Reboredo, Juan C. & Ugolini, Andrea, 2020. "Price spillovers between rare earth stocks and financial markets," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).

    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:gam:jcltec:v:7:y:2025:i:1:p:5-:d:1563295. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.