A new report from the International Aluminium Institute outlines how the industry can decarbonise while simultaneously meeting massive increases in anticipated demand
Aluminium is a key resource not just for homes and consumer goods, but also for many clean technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles. And yet at the same time, the metal presents a major decarbonisation challenge.
Not only is the aluminium industry a significant CO2 emitter - responsible for around three per cent of total direct CO2 emissions, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) - but it is anticipating a steep increase in demand over the same timeframe that it needs to decarbonise. Through to 2050, global demand for primary aluminium is expected to increase by 40 per cent, while demand for recycled aluminium from post-consumer scrap is expected to more than triple.
As such, the industry's decarbonisation journey will require huge technical innovation and massive investment in new production technologies if the sector is to deliver net zero emissions. Now a new report released today provides the most detailed picture yet of how such deep decarbonisation might be achieved.
Published by the International Aluminium Institute (IAI), Aluminium Sector Greenhouse Gas Pathways to 2050 sets out three potential routes for the decarbonisation of the aluminium industry, laying out detailed blueprints to tackle head-on one of the biggest single-industry challenges in the net zero transition.
The first pathway focuses on electricity decarbonisation. More than 60 per cent of the aluminium sector's 1.1 billion tonnes of CO2e emissions recorded in 2018 are from the production of electricity consumed during the smelting process, according to the IAI. Decarbonised power generation or the deployment of carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) therefore offer a significant opportunity to reduce these emissions close to zero by 2050.
The second pathway targets direct emissions, i.e. emissions from fuel combustion, which make up 15 per cent of the industry's total emissions, according to the IAI. Here, electrification, fuel switching to green hydrogen, and CCUS offer the most credible pathways for deep emission reductions, the report finds.
Process emissions make up a further 15 per cent of the sector's carbon footprint and require new technologies, such as inert anodes, the report adds, estimating that these emissions and those associated with the transport of finished products and the extraction and processing of raw materials will need to be reduced by 50 to 60 per cent compared to business as usual by 2050.
Finally, the third pathway focuses on enhancing recycling rates and resource efficiency. Increasing aluminium collection rates to near 100 per cent as well as wider progress on resource efficiency by 2050 would reduce the need for primary aluminium by 20 per cent compared to business as usual, the report estimates, which in turn would cut the sector's emissions by an additional 300 million tonnes of CO2e per year - a figure second in magnitude only to the electricity decarbonisation mapped out by the report's first pathway.
"Emissions reduction is a challenge for every sector. It is, however, a challenge that the aluminium sector is poised to address," said IAI secretary general Miles Prosser, launching the report.
"Over the last two years, a Greenhouse Gas Pathways Working Group made up of IAI member companies and regional associations has been working to articulate credible ways to achieve global climate goals. This collaboration is what has resulted in the industry's most comprehensive pathways, which we have published today."