Source: sciencedirect
By: Adam C. Simon, Lawrence M. Cathles, Dan Wood, Morgan Bazilian
Abstract
Copper is essential for modern economies including: energy systems, data centers, defense applications, space cooling and heating, heavy industry, smart agriculture, transportation, and consumer goods. The presumption persists that the copper needed for all these purposes will be readily available. However, we show that copper is unlikely to be mined fast enough to meet all these needs in the short to medium term. Despite the recent and rapid copper price rise, we suggest that it will have to continue to rise significantly and provide robust price signals for a significant number of known copper deposits to be developed into mines. This price signal will need to be associated with permitting reforms to be successful in several cases. The widening gap should be a matter of political prioritization both in the USA and globally.
Introduction
Copper is arguably the most important metal for economic growth and global development due to its indispensable role in electrification, infrastructure and technology [1]. Modern economies use copper in wiring for electricity distribution and telecommunications, air conditioning and space heating, plumbing, industrial equipment, rail and public transportation systems, and vehicles [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. Copper is also essential for manufacture and deployment of low-carbon electricity generation, transmission and storage, data centers, and vehicle electrification [10], [11], [12], [13]. We will refer to traditional demand as the business-as-usual baseline demand. Most of this demand will be driven by the developing world.1 Consider that the United States built environment contains ∼200 kg copper per capita, whereas the built environment in India is 0.5 kg copper per capita [14], [15]. Extensive discussion of the traditional needs for copper is offered in Cathles et al. (2025) [16].
The essential question addressed in this paper is how much and how quickly the copper mining rate can be increased. The red curve in Fig. 1 (and its inset) shows that historical copper mine production increased from 0.5 Mtpy (million tonnes per year) in 1900 to 20.4 Mtpy in 2018 [17]. Projecting this historic production in the customary fashion [13] (curve labeled baseline in Fig. 1), mined copper demand will be 37.1 Mtpy in 2050. Between 2018 and 2050, 1104 Mt. of copper will be mined which is 115% more copper than was mined from 1900 to 2018 (784 Mt). If, on top of this, the global economy manufactures 100% battery electric vehicles (EV) after 2035 and builds the electrical grid to charge them (curves labeled EV and EV + grid in Fig. 1), we must mine 13% more copper over this period (1248 Mt) and mine at a rate of 45.7 Mtpy in 2050 (23% faster). If we replace fossil fuels with electrical power generated by renewable energy (green line labeled Net zero by 2050 in Fig. 1), we must mine almost twice as much copper between 2018 and 2050 (2304 Mt) and mine 2.5 times faster than business-as-usual (91.7 Mtpy) in 2050. These aspects of Fig. 1 are based on calculations in Cathles & Simon [13] and Cathles et al. [16]. Fig. 1 assumes 24 kg Cu per internal combustion vehicle and 29 kg Cu per hybrid vehicle as in [13] but [16] shows taking copper contents suitable for plug-in hybrid vehicles would make little difference.
This journal has covered issues around supply and demand of critical minerals in several papers, such as: Boafo et al. [18], Deberdt et al. [19], Hua et al. [20], Braunstein et al. [21], and Shannak et al. [22]. These studies offer a broad perspective on what makes a mineral “critical” in the context of demand for energy transition minerals. Our perspective focuses only on the deep and widening supply-demand gap for copper.
Access through your organization
Check access to the full text by signing in through your organization.
Section snippets
Scenarios
We address whether copper can be supplied at the rates needed to meet the baseline business-as-usual demand and the additional demands for electrification and zero-carbon energy generation. Looking at the lifetime of the copper mines now in operation and at the mines in various stages of development, we gauge what mined copper production is plausible between 2018 and 2050 and how much it might be accelerated. Mining is not the only source of copper. Copper can be recycled. Over the last several
Projecting global copper supply
The lower short-dashed green dashed curve in Fig. 1 shows how production from porphyry copper mines will decrease after 2018 due to planned mine closures, and the upper green long-dashed curve shows how production could increase as new mines begin operation.
In 2018 there were 112 porphyry copper mines producing 15.66 Mtpy copper. The lower short-dashed green line in Fig. 1 shows how copper production will decline from 20.4 Mtpy in 2018 to 17.8 Mtpy in 2050 based on the anticipated closure of
The needed rise in copper price (and better market signals)
A second near-certainty is that copper price must rise substantially if mining rates are to meet as-usual expectations – even from their highs currently.1
Currently known projects need not become mines on the plausible schedule assumed in our calculations, nor automatically follow the historic trends. Community support may be lacking, and the price of copper may not
How will substitution impact supply?
The decision to substitute copper depends on many factors and requires cost analysis of the physical and chemical properties of competing materials. The decision to substitute a metal such as aluminum must consider material flexibility and strength, relative conductivity, surface behavior, durability, weldability, relative weight, corrosion resistance, resistance to high temperatures, and connectivity with other systems [29]. Net substitution of aluminum for copper in applications such as
How will mining low-grade mineralized rock impact supply?
Low-grade mineralized rock generated during copper mining represents a potentially significant source of copper, if it can be mined and processed economically [38]. This material is usually separated and stored in a low-grade stockpile during mining for later processing if economic. Low-grade mine-tailings are another potential source of copper supply if they can be treated economically. Freeport-McMoRan, one of the world’s largest copper mining companies, announced plans to produce as much as
Conclusions
This Perspective shows that meeting future baseline business-as-usual copper demand is possible, but will require a substantial increase in copper price and active encouragement of mining.
Translating mining aspirations to investments and copper production remains plagued by a variety of obstacles ranging from social license and community engagement [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46] to difficulties in raising capital [25], [26], to permitting [47], and market functioning [48], [49], [50], [51].
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Adam C. Simon: Investigation, Conceptualization. Lawrence M. Cathles: Formal analysis, Data curation. Dan Wood: Formal analysis, Data curation. Morgan Bazilian: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Conceptualization.
Funding statement
ACS acknowledges funding from U.S. National Science Foundation grants 2233425 and 2419986
Declaration of competing interest
No conflicts of interest.
