The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Metal Tech News - June 2, 2025
As an essential metal for clean water, sanitation systems, schools, health care facilities, and telecommunications networks, copper usage is considered a proxy for the level of human development.
The research paper indicates that it will require roughly 10,000 mines the size of Kennecott, the second-largest copper mine in the U.S., to supply the copper needed for both the currently envisioned energy transition and basic human needs.
The world can mine enough copper over the next 25 years to wire the energy transition or mine enough to raise living standards in developing nations – but not both, according to a sobering study by researchers from leading universities in the United States and Australia.
"A noncarbon transition that involves a large contribution from wind and solar electricity generation will require a quantity of copper that is impossible for mine production to meet," the researchers from the University of Wisconsin, Cornell University, and the University of Queensland wrote in the report.
The researchers found that a more modest energy transition – such as hybrid instead of battery electric vehicles and increasing nuclear to the zero-emissions energy mix – would decrease the nearly unachievable demands for copper.
"The copper mining challenge associated with reducing fossil-fuel electricity generation is severe, and ensuring a stable electricity supply will require resource-realistic policies," the researchers wrote.
The study finds that resource-realistic energy transition policies by global governments would leave more copper to build critical infrastructure in less developed nations.
"We suggest that the demand for copper for economic development, which is in essence global human development, should take priority over various electrification scenarios," said Adam Simon, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Michigan and co-author of the study. "If it comes down to a competition between 'Are you going to build health care in Africa or are more people going to drive a Tesla?' I would vote for health care in Africa."
While much of the copper supply and demand discussion in recent years has been centered on how many billions (or trillions) of pounds of the energy metal are required for the energy transition, less attention has been given to the more basic copper needs of a growing population and bettering the living conditions for people in developing nations.
Simon and his research colleagues – Lawrence Cathles, professor emeritus in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell, and Daniel Wood, a professor in the Sustainable Minerals Institute at Queensland – found that the per capita use of copper is intricately connected to the standard of living.
With copper being essential for clean water distribution, sanitation systems, schools, healthcare facilities, and telecommunications networks, the amount of this metal in a country's infrastructure serves as a proxy for the level of human development, life expectancy, education, and prosperity for the people living there.
"In the United States, from 1900 to 2000 – 100 years of development of the United States – we went from no plumbing to plumbing, from no electricity to electricity. Right now, for every man, woman, and child in the United States, we've got more than 400 pounds of copper behind the wall," Simon said. "If we look at that number globally, in places like India, it's probably at best 40 pounds of copper."
The research paper indicates that it will require roughly 10,000 mines the size of Kennecott, the second-largest copper mine in the U.S., to supply the copper needed for both the currently envisioned energy transition and basic human needs.
The researchers developed a model to calculate how much copper is needed to meet "business as usual" population growth and standard of living increases, as well as various energy transition scenarios.
Under the business-as-usual scenario, global mines will need to produce 1.1 billion metric tons (2.4 trillion lb) of copper over the next 25 years. If all the current copper mines on Earth kept producing the metal at current volumes – a highly unlikely scenario – the research team estimates that the equivalent of 78 new large mines capable of producing 500,000 metric tons of copper per year would need to be built by 2050 just to meet the world's basic needs.
The copper demand over the next 25 years becomes even more staggering as you factor in the energy transition:
• With the addition of fully electric EVs and the infrastructure to support them, the copper demand jumps to 1.25 billion metric tons (2.8 trillion lb).
• Powering the world completely with wind and solar pushes the number up to 2.3 billion metric tons (5.1 trillion lb).
• Using batteries to stabilize global grids fed by intermittent energy sources puts the total copper demand number between now and 2050 at 3 billion metric tons (6.6 trillion lb).
The upper-end scenario means that an average of 120 million metric tons (265 billion lb) of copper would need to be produced annually between now and 2050 – nearly six times more than was produced at all the world's mines in 2024.
With these upper-end copper demand projections falling somewhere in the improbable to impossible range, the researchers also modeled ways copper could be used strategically in different electrification scenarios.
Mixing in baseload nuclear, backup natural gas for grid stabilization, and hybrid electric vehicles could significantly lower copper demand toward business-as-usual levels.
Even with more resource-realistic energy policies, the study indicates an enormous increase in copper demand over the next 25 years. The authors believe that copper prices above $9.00/lb, or roughly double current levels, are required to incentivize the new mines needed to meet this demand.
The researchers also point out that copper recycling has grown at 0.53% annually in recent years. At this rate, recycling will contribute about 13.5 million metric tons of copper in 2050, a little more than a third of what is required to meet business-as-usual demands.
The research team has also included their data in an Excel spreadsheet, which allows users to dig deeper into copper demand outlooks under various energy transition scenarios.
"First of all, users can fact-check the study, but also they can change the study parameters and evaluate how much copper is required if we have an electric grid that is 20% nuclear, 40% methane [natural gas], 20% wind, and 20% hydroelectric, for example," Simon said. "They can make those changes and see what the copper demand will be."
The full study can be read at SEG Discovery, on the GeoScienceWorld website.
With more than 17 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration, and technology metals.
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