Running on Empty: Copper

> Bah! Who needs copper anyway, when we have so much aluminum?! > Have you thought about how aluminum is made? Well, by driving immense electric currents through carbon anodes made from petroleum coke (or coal-tar pitch) to turn molten alumina into pure metal via electrolysis. Two things to notice here. First, the necessary electricity (and the anodes) are usually made with fossil fuels, as “renewables” cannot provide the stable current and carbon atoms needed to make the process possible. Second, all that electricity, even if you generate it with nuclear reactors, have to be delivered via copper wires.

This seems to be trying to say that we can't make aluminum without copper, but that seems nonsensical. First, power can be delivered by wires made out of aluminum and indeed, it often is - I don't think that much of the transmission grid is copper. Second, the comparatively tiny amount of material needed for electrodes is a completely wacky argument. And renewables not being able to provide "the stable current" needed for smelting?

I'm not cherrypicking here, there's a lot of assertions of this type in the article. Essentially, everything is doomed and there's nothing we can do, because we're going to run out of copper. And fossil fuels. And there's absolutely nothing that can replace them, ever. And therefore, we shouldn't build AI datacenters? That's what it says...

> “renewables” cannot provide the stable current and carbon atoms needed to make the process possible

This is untrue. Iceland has a huge aluminum industry, using mainly geothermal power: https://energytransition.org/2023/03/geothermal-iceland-this...

Iceland alone accounts for 1/10th of global aluminum production! https://www.riotinto.com/en/operations/iceland/isal

You do need constant, reliable power, as even a brief interruption makes a huge mess when the aluminum/slag freezes in the processor.

We’re collectively sitting atop every piece of copper we’ve ever refined, they’re just sitting and rotting in landfills instead of mines.

If I were a gambling dinosaur, I’d wager that landfill mining in developed economies will be a decently-sized business in a few decades, as we seek to recapture minerals and materials we once felt were disposable - but whose easily-available raw amounts we’d gradually withered down via mining or extraction. Depending on how material science and metal valuation goes, it might become practical or necessary to extract those metals from water sources or industrial waste sites.

It ain’t pretty, but we were never going to be able to mine Earth indefinitely - and we’re already at a point where, as a planetary species, we need to be more organized and restrictive about the use of non-renewable resources for optimal outcomes and long device/product lifespans.

The era of disposability has passed, we just need more companies to swallow that bitter pill and start adapting.

> Even though the industry would be willing to pay top dollar for each pound of metal delivered, there is simply not much more to be found. Copper bearing formations are not popping up at random, and there is no point in drilling various spots on Earth prospecting for deposits, either. The major formations have already been discovered, and thus the ever increasing investment spent on locating more copper simply does not produce a return.

How do we "know" there isn't any major formations we haven't found yet? I find it hard to believe we've prospected every possible area.. or are deposits more predictable than it seems?

Other headlines currently present from the frontpage of this same site:

> Collapse Will Look Nothing Like the Movies

> How I Came To Believe That Civilization Is Unsustainable

> 2025: A Civilizational Tipping Point

Even if you find that content compelling, it's dishonesty and objective inaccuracy in which it substantiates its points suggests you shouldn't waste your time.

* Total global copper demand has grown at a 3.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the last 75 years – but this growth rate has been slowing. It was only 1.9% over the 15 years to 2021. Looking to 2035, however, we expect this growth rate to jump back to 2.6% annually.

Considering global demand expectations, electrification trends, etc. this moves to:

* Putting all these levers together, we project global copper demand to grow by around 70% to over 50 Mt per annum by 2050 – an average growth rate of 2% per year.

On the supply side, considering recycling, the aluminium usage transition point, etc:

* We estimate that the world will need about 10 Mtpa new mined copper supply in the next 10 years.

To get this ...

* Copper reserves and production are concentrated in Latin America, Australia and Africa.

* We expect supply growth over the next 10 years to be dominated by the same regions – Latin America Africa and Asia Pacific – with Africa having the highest growth rate (albeit off a much lower base than Latin America), and Latin America continuing to make the most significant contribution in absolute terms.

Existing mines are falling off (they always are!):

* Currently operating copper mines are expected to provide more than half of the copper required to meet future global demand over the next decade. Even so, we estimate existing mines to be producing around 15% less copper in 2035 than they do today.

* We expect between one-third and one-half of global copper supply to face grade decline and ageing challenges over the next decade, which will drive increased unit costs and the requirement for capital reinvestment. While an incredible orebody can make a big difference, many older operations move up the cost curve as they progress through their life cycle. Given the strong demand signals, however, we expect the industry to vigorously pursue options to extend the life of these copper mines.

Brownfield developments will expand old mines; the practice of processing satellite deposits ignored early on.

Truly new mines:

* Greenfield projects continue to attract significant excitement and interest from developers and investors. They can avoid the challenges of aging facilities and grade decline and can unlock large and higher-grade copper deposits, develop new frontiers, and allow for the application of technology advances without the challenge of retrofitting.

* But they also have potentially even greater challenges to brownfield developments, such as long lead times with environmental and social concerns needing to be navigated for the first time, and uncertainties associated with new jurisdictions or regions. And not all problems can be solved with money. For some projects, it is not a question of investability, but of executability.

* The current pipeline of ‘all possible’ greenfield deposits are generally at the higher-difficulty end of the spectrum – and many are experiencing delays. When we investigated a selection of today’s 30 largest (by expected production volume) undeveloped greenfield projects, we found that analysts (ourselves included) had continually moved the forecast supply stack out in time. We expect these projects to contribute around 5 Mtpa of copper by 2035, or 14% of total possible supply.

The report, in full, is: https://www.bhp.com/news/bhp-insights/2024/09/how-copper-wil...

There are other similar reports from the IEA and other majors.

This is the literal ever ongoing dance of extraction, exploration, and development.

Every cent that goes to exploration is whinged over and penny pinched - it's all buckets of money out the door with no return other than bluesky hope.

As prospects appear and are firmed out, speculative money starts to flow, once Technical Feasibility Reports are in the works a frenzy begins, the bets may or may not pan out when such reports land in a Prospectus seeking forward capital investment.

Googling: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003206332...

> Asteroids have since long been considered to host significant resources of siderophilic elements such as Fe, Ni, Co, Cu, that could be exploited in situ. However bulk rock mining would be largely impractical. In this paper, we report on abundance and mineral occurrences of copper in H chondrites, identify Cu carrier minerals and interpret their distribution in the context of processes that must have affected parent bodies. This leads us to suggestion that some parts of S-type asteroids contain Cu in a form and amount that would satisfy requirements of potentially economically and environmentally more efficient exploitation.