New research suggests that there is enough copper available to be mined for the green energy transition or building infrastructure in developing countries. Doing both, however, will be extraordinarily difficult.
A study published in the journal SEG Discovery – the quarterly publication for members of the international Society of Economic Geologists (SEG) – describes: “the unavoidable conflict between the copper demands of electrification and achieving equitable living standards for the developing world underscores the importance of resource-realistic policies.”
Copper is central to most electrical technologies.
The geologists modelled how much copper is necessary to carry on supplying for electrical technology and components as the population grows.
They also modelled the necessary amount needed for different green energy scenarios including an all-electric vehicle (EV) fleet and the necessary grid updates to support it, replacing fossil fuels with solar and wind energy production, and solar and wind production that depends on battery systems to store energy.
The numbers are staggering.
For “business-as-usual”, about 1.1bn metric tons of copper needs to be mined by 2050. This would require 78 new mines to produce 500,000 tons of copper a year.
Transitioning to an EV fleet requires 1.248bn tons. Wind and solar requires 2.304bn tons of copper, while building a power grid that relies on batteries requires 3bn tons.
Putting those figures into perspective, companies mined about 23 million tons of copper in 2024.
But the researchers emphasise that infrastructure also needs to be built in developing parts of the world including India and Africa.
Copper is important not just for electrical technologies, but is also essential for clean water distribution, sanitation systems, education and health care facilities, and telecommunications networks. In fact, the amount of copper in infrastructure is an indication of overall human development, education level and even life expectancy.
India alone would require 227 million tons of copper to build and modernise its infrastructure. Building this infrastructure in Africa’s 54 countries would require about 1bn tons.
“The world needs more and more and more copper for business-as-usual economic development, and that creates tension,” says co-lead researcher Adam Simon from the University of Michigan in the US.
“We suggest that the demand for copper for economic development, which is in essence global human development, should take priority over various electrification scenarios,” Simon says. “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.”
The authors have made their data available in an excel spreadsheet for further investigation by other researchers.
“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, 20% wind and 20% hydroelectric, for example,” Simon says. “They can make those changes and see what the copper demand will be.”
