Low-carbon technologies and Russian imports - How far can recycling reduce the EU’s raw

As recognised by the revised EU industrial strategy adopted in May 2021 and reflected in the lessons learnt from the crisis, the disruptions due to the pandemic (of which some were unexpected) highlight the need to better understand the EU’s strategic dependencies and how they could further evolve in the coming years. [...] Assuming an average EV lifetime of 10 years10 and an EV market trend based on an average of estimates available in the literature11, the amount of material potentially recovered through recycling in 2030 ranges between 9 and 24 % of the requirements for LIB production that year, depending on the specific material and the scenario considered. [...] The scenarios presented in Table 3 show the quantity of selected materials that could potentially be recovered from the recycling of wind turbines reaching their end of life in 2030 and 2040, compared with the estimated material demand from wind turbine production of the same years. [...] An important driver of the difference in the figures between the two scenarios is the collection rate for recycling these batteries in the EU (50 % in scenario 1 vs 90 % in scenario 2). [...] Overall, the above estimates indicate that accelerating the establishment of collection and recycling facilities in the EU for the above technologies, through the appropriate policy frameworks in place, can support the EU’s strategic autonomy objectives and reduce import dependency on non-EU countries.