Understanding key mineral supply chain dynamics using economics‐informed material flow analysis and Bayesian optimization

John Ryter, Karan Bhuwalka, Michelena O'Rourke, Luca Montanelli, David Cohen‐Tanugi, Richard Roth and Elsa Olivetti

Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2024, vol. 28, issue 4, 709-726

Abstract: The low‐carbon energy transition requires significant increases in production for many mineral commodities. Understanding demand, technological requirements, and prices associated with this production increase requires understanding the supply chain dynamics of many minerals simultaneously, and via a consistent framework. A generalized economics‐informed material flow method, global materials modeling using Bayesian optimization, captures the market dynamics of key mineral commodities. The method relies only on a limited set of widely available historical data as input, enabling quantification of economic relationships (elasticities) for supply chain components where data are sparse, and relationships cannot be obtained via traditional statistical approaches. Building upon established material flow analysis (MFA) and economic modeling techniques, Bayesian optimization was applied to fit an economics‐informed MFA model to global historical demand, supply, and price for aluminum, copper, gold, lead, nickel, silver, iron, tin, and zinc. This approach enables estimates for the evolution of ore grades, mine costs, refining charges, sector‐specific demand, and scrap collection for each commodity. Economic relationships were quantified and compared with a database compiled from the literature, including 1333 values from 213 analyses across 65 publications. Discrepancies in methods and limited coverage make use of these parameters in modeling efforts difficult. This work provides a single, homogeneous, probabilistic approach to identifying economic relationships across mineral supply chains, with uncertainty quantification, a literature database for comparison, and a modeling framework in which to use them. This article met the requirements for a Gold‐Gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges.

Date: 2024
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