PostDoc - Electrification and impact on Materials - 2 Geological Engineering

23 Jan 2024
Job Information

Organisation/Company

Mines Paris - PSL

Department

Department of Geoscience

Research Field

Engineering » Geological engineering

Researcher Profile

Recognised Researcher (R2)

Country

France

Application Deadline

31 Mar 2024 - 23:59 (Europe/Paris)

Type of Contract

Temporary

Job Status

Full-time

Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?

Not funded by an EU programme

Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?

No

Offer Description

Context and challenges

In the context of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the electrification of uses represents a fundamental lever. In addition, the development of the circular economy, associated with an objective of reindustrializing France, will also be a source of an increase in carbon-free energy needs. One of the consequences will be an increase in the importance and size of the electricity transmission and distribution network. With the increase in the quantity of electrical energy to be transported, there will be added both higher consumption peaks and the need to accommodate a greater share of renewables, so production will be more uncertain.  This project, conducted in parallel by ERSEI and Geosciences research departments of Mines Paris PSL, aims to (i) assess the network expansions to be considered, (ii) identify the potential evolutions of technologies for the transmission of electricity, (iii) estimate the associated storage capacity needs, and (iv) identify the issues relating to the metals involved in these technologies. Metals considered will be the main conductive metals (copper and aluminium), rare earths used in electromagnets, metals used in electrochemical storage systems, or any other metal involved in a component of electrical networks. Financed by the Carnot MINES Institute, the MatElec project will involve two PostDocs, who will be immerged in the teams composed by experts in the electric and mining industry of ERSEI and Geosciences research departments. This PostDoc position description concerns the PostDoc at Geosciences research department, who will focus on point (iv), based on the results of the PostDoc who will work at ERSEI department.

Scientific objectives

The project objectives can be summarized as follows:

• Analyse world markets of metals involved in the energy transmission network (demand and production evolution, geographical and company concentration for primary production and transformation steps) and estimate the share of todays and future demand for electricity transmission networks.
• Analyse the market specificities for the different metals and evaluate the feasibility of the expected demand growth.
• Identify the mineral resources problems that may occur for the electricity transmission network, and the parts of the network for which alternative technologies will be necessary.

Methodology

The work will be organized in three major stages.

The first step will be a knowledge acquisition phase: become familiar with metals markets (geology, mining and processing, related geopolitics, markets, …) and evaluate their market growth on uses other than electricity transmission networks.

The second step will aim to develop an approach that allows to estimate the production growth capacity for the considered metals, considering their characteristics and the specificities of their markets.

The third phase will involve comparison of production and demand scenarios, in order to evaluate the criticality of the studied metals for the development of the electricity distribution networks.

Expected results

At the end of the research, it is expected a series of studies on:

• Material requirements for network expansion under different scenarios.
• Material requirements for network expansion considering innovative technologies in the networks.
• A critical analysis of the envisaged needs in relation to the availability and dynamics of the materials markets. 

Requirements

Research Field

Engineering » Geological engineering

Education Level

PhD or equivalent

Skills/Qualifications

Engineer, PhD in mineral resources (geology or mining and processing, economic geology). Programming in Python or Matlab. An experience in the field of the relation between energetic transition and mineral resources is considered a plus. 

Specific Requirements

Send CV and motivation letter to [email protected] . Applications will be analyzed on an ongoing basis. The post-doc will start after the post-doc that is foreseen in parallel in PERSEE research team will have started (see Context and challenges here under).  

Additional Information
Benefits

 Salary: about 35k€/year gross salary (i.e. 27 k€/year net salary before income tax); Employer: Centre de Géosciences, Mines Paris – PSL; Location: Fontainebleau, possible remote working 

Website for additional job details

https://www.geosciences.minesparis.psl.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/231106_Pos…

Work Location(s)

Number of offers available

1

Company/Institute

Mines Paris - PSL

Country

France

City

Fountainbleu

Postal Code

77305

Street

35 St Honoré

Where to apply

E-mail

[email protected]

Contact

City

Fontainebleau

Website

https://www.minesparis.psl.eu/

Street

35 rue Saint Honoré

Postal Code

77305

E-Mail

[email protected]

Phone

0493678977

STATUS: EXPIRED