Europe is facing a set of challenges to its open strategic autonomy, which have been exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Among the areas under pressure are energy and food supply, access to raw materials, and democratic values. This increased urgency has prompted a reevaluation and acceleration of existing European policies, such as the launch of REPowerEU or the revision of the EU’s raw materials strategy. 

The research, innovation and education community is essential in navigating the current and future challenges through developing the knowledge and technologies we need. The NTNU European conference explored present-day challenges for our continent and, in dialogue with top Brussels policy-makers, and attempt to chart a way into the future, looking at particular at four thematic areas: Energy; Food; Raw materials and Fair and inclusive society.



The Conference was opened by NTNU Pro-Rector Tor Grande, followed by several plenary key-note presentations, incl. a representative from the EU-commission focusing the current two major EU priority areas, the green transition and the digital transition and by the Norwegian Ambassador to Belgium on the topic:  How to boost the green transition and resilience - Norway as a key partner!

Session on Critical Raw Materials

The session on Critical Raw Materials addressed the following question: Meeting the increasing demand for raw materials needed in the Green Transition: Is Europe up to the task?
The first speaker was Peter Handley, Head of Unit, Energy Intensive industries – Raw Materials, EU commission. He started by stating that the overall objective for EU was to ensure that the relevant industries stay in Europe. To realize this objective, help from authorities (both nationally and EU) are important and needed. And it is Important to stimulate Research and Innovation, as relevant competence and skills are required. Here the Raw Materials Act and the Net-zero industry Act important tools from the EU.

Associate Prof. Kurt Aasly, process mineralogy, NTNU, also addressed the critical need for skilled people (researchers and competent work force) and thus higher degree education on topics, which are currently rare around Europe, and which also have a somewhat low standing in the society. It was pointed out that NTNU is in a good position, providing teaching on all subjects on the primary side from exploration to mineral processing. However, it as challenge to recruit good students, which also imply the need to educate the general society on the importance of these topic (incl. ‘responsible mining) as a necessary enabler for the green shift.
 
However, it is generally acknowledged that EU can never be self-supporting in terms of critical raw materials (and metal resources in particular). To mitigate this problem, diversity in metal resources is important.  Further, it is important to build a more robust metallurgical infrastructure in the EU to enable a more circular economy. This emphasizes the importance of recycling as well as technological innovations which reduce the needs for critical raw materials, through substitutions and generally less materials demands.
 
Thomas Garabetian, R&I manager Solar Power Europe, discussed this with respect to the status of the Solar PV industry. While Si solar cells involve several critical raw materials, material supply is not urgently critical, as many R&I initiatives have already made solar PV industry more efficient, in which e.g. Si content has already and is further expected to decrease. Still recycling is an overall challenge for a more circular solar industry. However, further work should focus on quality (in recycling) rather than quantity/volume, to avoid down-cycling.
 
The focus on quality in recycling was also emphasized by the final speaker, Markus Reuter, Chief expert and professor of the SMS group (and also a member of the International Scientific Advisory Board of SFI Metal Production, NTNU/SINTEF). In his opinion current approaches to recycling is too simplistic. There is need for a more system-approach – covering all aspect along the value chain from raw material to recycling. Only comprehensive physics-based simulations (taking all aspects into account) can provide the basis for a reliable process design which guarantees quality. In the end one always has to balance the output of recycling with cost (and possible other negative factors).

Panel debate: Is Europe up to the task? 

The key-note presentations were followed by an interesting and constructive panel debate, re-emphasizing many of the points addressed by the speakers.

In general, it is difficult to evaluate the outcome and usefulness of such a conference. Still, it is important to meet policy makers and stakeholders, and in general ‘to see and be seen’, as a basis for establishing new relations and relevant networking.

As a ‘fun fact’, it can be mentioned that conference took place on the same date(s) as the EU European Summit in Brussel and at same day as the Ukrainian president Zelenskyj visited the European Parliament, which was actually in the neighboring building to Residence Palace. This involved a lot of police and security, which also implied that we felt very well taken care in terms of security.