At ARPN, we have long touted Copper’s versatility – its traditional uses, new applications and Gateway Metal status – but for those who still struggle to see more in Copper than your old school industrial metal, some visual help has arrived in the form of yet another impressive infographic from Visual Capitalist.

The comprehensive infographic zeroes in on Copper applications in renewable energy systems and visualizes how the metal is driving the green energy revolution:

The infographic also provides a snapshot into the looming Copper supply crunch, which, as some observers have argued, may come sooner than expected, in part because “Copper projects are notoriously large-scale in size, and the pipeline of new projects is the lowest in a century:”

While this is a daunting proposition, there is reason to hope that going forward, the United States will be in a better position to confront looming supply shortages head-on.

The Department of Interior may have stopped short of including Copper in its list of 35 minerals deemed critical from a national security perspective. However, the growing awareness of mineral resource security and supply issues can be a catalyst for meaningful policy reforms (such as the Amodei amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act) aimed at creating a framework to safely and efficiently harness our nation’s own vast mineral resource potential.