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Replies to post #26752 on The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence
isn't growth of copper use tied directly to the availability of additional lithium?
To put that figure in perspective, 9.7mt is equivalent to nearly a third of current refined consumption, says Woodmac, a Verisk business (Nasdaq:VRSK). That is also the equivalent of putting a new La Escondida, the world’s largest copper mine by a country mile, into production each year.
The reality on the ground is far removed from the copper demand created by electric cars and renewable energy generation and storage.
Woodmac figures show despite historically strong copper prices, mining project approval rates have dwindled to cyclical lows. In the first half of 2022, the volume of committed copper projects totalled an average annual production of just 260,000 tonnes per year.
Key findings
• Copper—the “metal of electrification”—is essential to all energy transition plans. But the
potential supply-demand gap is expected to be very large as the transition proceeds. Substitution
and recycling will not be enough to meet the demands of electric vehicles (EVs),
power
infrastructure, and renewable generation. Unless massive new supply comes online in a timely
way, the goal of Net-Zero Emissions by 2050 will be short-circuited and remain out of reach.
• Copper demand is projected to grow from 25 million metric tons (MMt) today to about 50 MMt
by 2035, a record-high level that will be sustained and continue to grow to 53 MMt by 2050.
Power and automotive applications will have to be deployed at scale by 2035 in order to meet the
2050 net-zero targets.1
• The chronic gap between worldwide copper supply and demand projected to begin in the middle
of this decade will have serious consequences across the global economy and will affect the
timing of Net-Zero Emissions by 2050.
• The shortfall will reach as high as 9.9 MMt in 2035 in the Rocky Road Scenario, which is based
on a continuation of current trends in capacity utilization of mines and recycling of recovered
copper. This would mean a 20% shortfall from the supply level required for the Net-Zero
Emissions by 2050 target.
• The gap arises even under assumptions of aggressive capacity utilization rates and all-time-high
recycling rates in the High Ambition Scenario. Even with these aggressive assumptions, refined
copper demand will outpace supply in the forecast period up to 2035.
• In the 21st century, copper scarcity may emerge as a key destabilizing threat to international
security. Projected annual shortfalls will place unprecedented strain on supply chains.
The challenges this poses are reminiscent of the 20th-century scramble for oil but may
be accentuated by an even higher geographic concentration for copper resources and the
downstream industry to refine it into products.
• In the United States, the nexus between a politicized regulatory process and the ubiquity
of litigation makes it unlikely that efforts to expand copper output in the United States
would yield significant increases in domestic supply within the decade. The prospects for any
expansions are higher on state and private lands.
• Under the Rocky Road Scenario, the United States will have to import 67%—that is two-
thirds—of its refined copper demand by 2035. Even in the High Ambition Scenario, the United
States will still need to import 57% of the refined copper during the years of highest energy
transition–related copper demand.
• The complexity of permitting mines in the United States is reinforced by the long lead times
also required elsewhere around the world. Multidimensional challenges make the development
of mines a generational endeavor, spanning decades and requiring hundreds of billions of
dollars. Projects under development today would likely not be sufficient to offset the projected
shortfalls in copper supply, even if their permitting and construction were accelerated
