Material Flow Analysis of the global Aluminium cycle - Development of scenarios for future demand in technologies

The overall objective of this project is to improve the understanding of the relationships between metal cycles and the society.

Aluminium is a metal of choice for this study: after steel, this is the second most used metal worldwide, and its production is highly energy intensive. Recycling of post-consumer scrap enables substantial energy savings, but it requires a better understanding of the stocks and flows of aluminium in our society.

In this regard, a global model of aluminium flows has already been developed by NTNU. It has become a reference used by the International Aluminium Institute to build visualizations on the historic distribution of global mass flows. This project aims to improve the forecasting capabilities of this model, following these steps:

1. Refine the existing model and implement forecasting tools based on stock dynamics to study future scenarios.
2. Expand the scope to include indirect components of the metal cycles, such as technology, capital and labour stocks.
3. Communicate the results: in addition to publishing in scientific journals, design innovative visualizations and simple forecasting tools to foster the dissemination of this research.

The developed knowledge will generate insights for strategy planning in industry and public institutions, by (1) forecasting how the current stock patterns will drive the future investments in technologies and (2) improving the understanding of the impacts on society, in areas such as land or energy use or changes in the structure of the workforce.

Resource Group: Professor Leiv Kolbeinsen (NTNU), Professor Daniel Mueller (NTNU)

Contact: romain.billy@ntnu.no