Overlooked Potential of Energy Transition Mineral Supply from Above-Ground Sources

Overlooked Potential of Energy Transition Mineral Supply from Above-Ground Sources | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Overlooked Potential of Energy Transition Mineral Supply from Above-Ground Sources John Uponi, Julie Klinger, Gwendolyn Murphy, Kyle Davis This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7951945/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Large amounts of additional minerals and metals are required to meet the rising demands of the renewable energy transition. While conventional means of increasing supply suggest the need for opening new mines to exploit remaining deposits of energy transition minerals (ETMs), post-consumption stages of multiple supply chains - including mine tailings, landfills, ship-breaking yards, and airplane boneyards - contain large quantities of above-ground ETM resources. Yet analyses to date on the extent to which these above-ground resources can potentially contribute to meeting future ETM demand have been incomplete and fragmented by geography or source type. Here we first present findings from a comprehensive global assessment of the best available geospatial data on four types of above-ground resources, identifying 5747 distinct locations. We also find that these above-ground resources occur less frequently within Indigenous lands (27%) or forests (18%) as compared to economically viable deposits of many of the same minerals. We then leveraged large language models - trained on published estimates - to quantify the amount of 15 key ETMs contained within documented above-ground resources, and then estimated the percentage they could contribute to cumulative ETM demand by 2050. We found small volumes 0.3% (Lithium) to 0.5% (Cobalt) in comparison to cumulative projected ETM demand by 2050. However, we estimate that our dataset - representing the best available georeferenced data - only encompasses <1%-4% of the global total of four types of above-ground resource locations. This strongly suggests that the currently estimated volumes of ETM available from above-ground resources are likely more than an order-of-magnitude lower than what is actually available, with the implication that circular economy potential is severely underestimated. Taken together, our findings indicate substantial and widespread opportunity for ETM sourcing from above-ground resources, with the opportunity to avoid the socio-environmental impacts of opening new ETM mines in Indigenous lands or forested areas. Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Sustainability Earth and environmental sciences/Solid Earth sciences Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files SI2a.docx References for ETM estimations in Ships AirplaneboneyardReferences.xlsx References for Airplane ETM estimations Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7951945","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":535186034,"identity":"dca1bf01-f337-464b-b143-7a9b145413a4","order_by":0,"name":"John 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While conventional means of increasing supply suggest the need for opening new mines to exploit remaining deposits of energy transition minerals (ETMs), post-consumption stages of multiple supply chains - including mine tailings, landfills, ship-breaking yards, and airplane boneyards - contain large quantities of above-ground ETM resources. Yet analyses to date on the extent to which these above-ground resources can potentially contribute to meeting future ETM demand have been incomplete and fragmented by geography or source type. Here we first present findings from a comprehensive global assessment of the best available geospatial data on four types of above-ground resources, identifying 5747 distinct locations. We also find that these above-ground resources occur less frequently within Indigenous lands (27%) or forests (18%) as compared to economically viable deposits of many of the same minerals. We then leveraged large language models - trained on published estimates - to quantify the amount of 15 key ETMs contained within documented above-ground resources, and then estimated the percentage they could contribute to cumulative ETM demand by 2050. We found small volumes 0.3% (Lithium) to 0.5% (Cobalt) in comparison to cumulative projected ETM demand by 2050. However, we estimate that our dataset - representing the best available georeferenced data - only encompasses \u003c1%-4% of the global total of four types of above-ground resource locations. This strongly suggests that the currently estimated volumes of ETM available from above-ground resources are likely more than an order-of-magnitude lower than what is actually available, with the implication that circular economy potential is severely underestimated. Taken together, our findings indicate substantial and widespread opportunity for ETM sourcing from above-ground resources, with the opportunity to avoid the socio-environmental impacts of opening new ETM mines in Indigenous lands or forested areas.","manuscriptTitle":"Overlooked Potential of Energy Transition Mineral Supply from Above-Ground Sources","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-10-28 16:34:27","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7951945/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"f8085676-1364-434b-9262-5783c6d73db6","owner":[],"postedDate":"October 28th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[{"id":56895300,"name":"Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Sustainability"},{"id":56895301,"name":"Earth and environmental sciences/Solid Earth sciences"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-01-07T22:55:15+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-10-28 16:34:27","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-7951945","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-7951945","identity":"rs-7951945","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}