Critical minerals: Iren opens a plant to emancipate Italy from abroad

One third of GDP, or EUR 690 billion. This is the enormous weight of critical raw materials on Italian industrial production, which is thus increasingly dependent on foreign countries (+51% in the last five years) to operate in key segments such as energy, renewables, aerospace, electronics and automotive. It is on the basis of this monstrous figure that Iren, after having set up the circular economy hub Rigenerare in recent months, has decided to be a pioneer in this sector, where it aims to play a leading role. This is why, in December, it will inaugurate in Tuscany the first Italian plant with hydrometallurgical technology for the recovery of critical raw materials - in general, rare earths, but also niobium, cobalt, silicon, graphite, manganese, molybdenum, gallium and nickel, to name but a few - starting from the so-called WEEE, an acronym for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment.

Meanwhile, in collaboration with Teha Group, the multi-utility has carried out a study outlining the way forward to reverse course. That is: grounding 1.2 billion in investments between collection systems, treatment assets and the creation of a market, in order to reduce Italy's dependence on foreign countries, particularly China, by about one third, and at the same time valorise almost 6 billion euro of secondary raw materials (i.e. the critical raw materials extracted from WEEE) by 2040.

But it is not just a question of numbers. "All this also and above all requires a system effort, in which Confindustria can play a pivotal role,' emphasises Iren chairman Luca Dal Fabbro. 'We need a strong alliance between industry and multi-utility, which must work more together than in the past, and in this context the Mattei Plan can certainly play an important role. Opening a mine, he continues, takes a long time: instead, it is quicker, also from a circular economy perspective, to recover critical raw materials from our electrical and electronic waste. "To do this, however, we need to forge alliances in the territory and create a marketing market: both are not there today," Dal Fabbro adds. An issue that arises for Italy, second only to Germany in terms of the absolute weight of critical raw materials on GDP, but also for the Old Continent, which imports 56% of it from China.

Our country suffers from chronic inefficiencies, given that in July the EU Commission opened an infringement procedure for our excessively low WEEE collection rates (30% with decreasing dynamics against a target of 65%). Hence Iren's decision to build and inaugurate next month a plant near Arezzo, where there is a strong metallurgical and gold hub, which will allow the extraction, selection, and recovery of precious metals and critical raw materials found inside WEEE electrical boards.

More than 200 kilos of gold and silver will come out of the plant every year, as well as copper and palladium, thanks to a technology that is unique in Europe and has very low carbon dioxide emissions. "A project carried out in tune with the government's policy aimed at reducing the country's dependence on foreign countries for this type of material," Dal Fabbro points out, "and which will act as a forerunner, for Iren and for the market. Depending on the yields and the evolution of the scenario, we will decide whether to build others. At a national level, 8-10 would be needed to break the dependence on foreign countries, but this is obviously not something we can do alone'. This is against the backdrop of a multi-utility industrial plan that out of 8.2 billion in total investments by 2030 will dedicate 1.3 billion to the circular economy.