Copper prices may have dropped, however demand for the metal, which is not only a key mainstay metal, but also an indispensable component in green energy technology, is expected to increase drastically to keep pace with the material requirements of the global push towards net zero carbon emissions.

According to the Financial Times, its growing application in this field will result “in it being dubbed the ‘metal of electrification’, with forecasts that it will double to a 50mn tonne market by 2035 compared with 2021 levels, according to S&P Global, which predicts a ‘chronic gap’ between supply and demand.”

While U.S. import reliance for copper hovered around 30 to 35 percent in the 2010s, that number has gone up to more than 40 percent in the 2020s, according to the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries. 

Miners are pointing out that a confluence of complex permitting timelines, rising inflation and the fact that the commodity is “harder to find in high quantities in the ground” may have led to a situation “where it’s likely there won’t be enough copper to meet decarbonization goals in the next few decades.”

As the Wall Street Journal outlined earlier this month, these circumstances have prompted mining companies to target “a new but also old source – closed mines, also known as brownfield sites.” The Wall Street Journal points to Sweden-based miner Bluelake Mineral, seeking to reopen a mine site in northern Norway that closed 25 years ago, as well as to Rio Tinto’s Resolution Copper project near Superior, Arizona, which is considered one of the most significant undeveloped copper deposits in the world and would reuse the historic Magma Mine which started production in 1910 and operated until 1996. While the project has strong support from the surrounding community, and began the permitting process in 1997, it is still awaiting permits to begin operation.

With Copper becoming increasingly critical in the context of decarbonization efforts – the material has not (yet) been added to the overall U.S. government’s critical minerals list, the Department of Energy recently designated the material a critical material as part of its 2023 Critical Materials Assessment – and with geopolitical volatility reaching heights not seen in decades with this month’s Hamas assault on Israel, securing key mineral supply chains becomes all the more pertinent, and U.S. stakeholders should look to embrace domestic opportunities to unleash our mineral potential where possible.

The post More Mines Needed to Provide Enough Copper, the “Metal of Electrification,” for Green Energy Shift appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

During her State of the Union address on September 14, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen announced plans to introduce legislation to identify potential strategic critical raw material projects along the supply chain and build up reserves in areas where supply is at risk.

Highlighting that almost 90% of rare earths and 60% of lithium are currently being processed in China, Von der Leyen said “[a] single country currently dominates almost the entire market. We must avoid becoming dependent again, as with oil and gas.”

She added:

“We know this approach can work. Five years ago, Europe launched the Battery Alliance. And soon, two third of the batteries we need will be produced in Europe.

Last year I announced the European Chips Act. And the first chips gigafactory will break ground in the coming months.”

The announcement is more than timely.  The European Union expects its own demand for rare earths alone to increase fivefold by 2030.  And the latest analysis by ARPN’s friends at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence finds that more than 300 new mines for graphite, lithium, nickel and cobalt would “need to be built over the next decade to meet [global] demand for electric vehicle and energy storage batteries,” and that is already taking into account the recycling of raw materials — without factoring in closed loop solutions, the number shoots up to almost 400.

In the U.S., the energy provisions in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, following on the heels of the invocation the Defense Production Act for the “battery criticals” lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite and manganese, are expected to send a strong signal to investors that the United States, too, is serious about “building the secure, responsible industrial base our economy and national security needs.”

However, many issues remain.

One of them is the “costly and inefficient permitting process” making it “difficult for American businesses to invest in the extraction and processing of critical minerals in the United States,” as Ford Motor Company’s chief government affairs officer Christopher Smith lamented in a recent letter to the U.S. Department of Interior.

The other challenge is an “inter-departmental tug-o-war” that hinders actual progress.  As Shane Lasley  wroterecently for North of 60 Mining News:

“While the departments of Commerce, Defense, and Energy are forging ahead with programs and investments aimed at ensuring America has the minerals and metals needed to support the clean energy objectives outlined by the White House, and enabled by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, DOI is pumping the breaks on a domestic project that would produce the requisite raw materials.”

It remains to be seen if stakeholders on both sides of the Atlantic are able to advance their critical mineral ambitions, but one thing, in the words of Forbes contributor Wal van Lierop, is clear: “[W]ithout massive investments in base metals and key minerals, Europe and North America will fail to meet their carbon emission targets and face a new form of energy insecurity.” 

The post European Union to Step Up its Critical Minerals Game against the Backdrop of Surging Demand Forecasts appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Less flashy and headline-grabbing than some of its tech metal peers, this mainstay mineral deserves far more credit and attention than it is currently getting.  Followers of ARPN will know that we have long touted the versatility, stemming from its traditional uses, new applications and Gateway Metal status.

Copper is also an irreplaceable component for advanced energy technology, ranging from EVs over wind turbines and solar panels to the electric grid.   The manufacturing process for EVs requires four times more Copper than gas powered vehicles, and the expansion of electricity networks will lead to more than doubled Copper demand for grid lines, according to the IEA.

A recent graphic by Visual Capitalist depicts the Copper intensity of the energy transition with a view towards solar and onshore and offshore wind energy technology:

Add in Copper’s Gateway Metal status — the processing of the metal yields access to a host of co-products essential to “manufacturing the advanced technologies that will power our economy for generations to come”  such as Cobalt, Tellurium, Molybdenum, Rhenium, Arsenic and REEs  — and a 2019 mining executive’s projection that “[t]he world will need the same amount of copper over the next 25 years that it has produced in the past 500 years if it is to meet global demand.

Recent developments in Washington, D.C. — movement on a bipartisan infrastructure package and announcements of new EV goals and fuel efficiency standards — will only add to the outlined Copper demand scenarios.

And the challenge is not just mining, but also processing, as Laura Skaer, a member of the board of directors of the Women’s Mining Coalition and former director of the American Exploration & Mining Association, outlined in a recent piece for Morning Consult:

“Last year, the United States imported 37 percent of the copper we used. China already refines 50 percent of the world’s copper and the United States only refines about 3 percent. National security experts have warned that relying on China for critical supply-chain materials like refined copper poses a serious threat to America’s national security interests.”

The United States Government failed in 2018 to include Copper in its official Critical Minerals list, a faux pas the Canadian government did not commit with the release of its own Critical Minerals list earlier this year, which included Copper along with fellow key Gateway Metals Nickel and Zinc in its list of 31.

Meanwhile, the Biden Administration’s 100-Day Supply Chain Review highlights Copper as an integral component of Lithium-ion battery technology, in the context of being what we have called a “gateway metal” to other critical materials, and for its “use across many end-use applications aside from lithium-ion cells, including building construction, electrical and electronic products, transportation equipment, consumer and general products, and industrial machinery and equipment.” 

Here’s hoping that the greater prominence given to Copper — both as a standalone material and Gateway Metal — by the White House 100-day report is an indication that a forthcoming updated U.S. Critical Minerals List will acknowledge the metal’s ever-growing importance.  Until then, Copper will remain one of the most “Critical Non-Criticals,” as we note in ARPN’s recent report, Critical Mass.

The post The Mineral Intensity of a Carbon-Neutral Future – A Look at Copper appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

For electric cars, a statistic illustrates the magnitude of the change. Writes Clemente:

“[W]e have 270 million oil-based cars (i.e., internal combustion engine) and only around 2 million that run on electricity. The amount of electricity that could be needed to change this may be incalculable but we know it is immense.”

Clemente cites an analysis by experts at the University of California, Berkeley, which estimates that by 2035 the U.S. will need almost 90% more electricity than in 2018. This number assumes a scenario in which all passenger vehicles sold by 2030 are electric, and buildings and factories are also electrifying quickly.

The challenge is compounded by the fact that “as we turn toward more intermittent renewables, electrification and the need for much more electricity must be met with reliability and resiliency,” which in turn “will require an immense build-out in new generation capacity.”

“Scarily unmentioned,” according to Clemente – and of direct interest to all friends of ARPN — is the fact that the electric car and renewable power revolutions are “far more mineral intensive than the fossil fuel counterparts,” which has far-reaching national security implications because of the United States’ unnecessarily high degree of import reliance for critical minerals.

And while the U.S. has been making progress with partnership agreements to manufacture lithium-ion batteries in the U.S., writes Clemente, “the bigger challenge for us than battery production is accessing the raw materials. For the energy transition, the Biden administration will need to support the full battery supply chain.”

Clemente concludes with a nod to a 2019 Wall Street Journal piece by Mark Mills:

“Overall, the U.S. has been appraised at ~$6.2 trillion in mineral resources, but we need a more streamlined permitting process. For example, considerable lithium reserves have been identified in Arkansas, California, Nevada, North Carolina and Utah.

Indeed, if we truly want to fight climate change, it’s time to dig.”

The post Commentary: Fighting Global Climate Change Through Electrification is a Herculean Task appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Citing ARPN’s Dan McGroarty, Earth Magazine contributor Veronica Tuazon zeroes in on this omission in a recent piece for the American Geosciences Institute’s monthly publication.

“Copper is essential in electrical wiring and transportation and is playing an increasingly large role in alternative energy, as it is a crucial component in wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles, which require four times as much copper as conventional gas vehicles. But it is also the gateway to several elements on the critical list that are produced as a byproduct of copper mining, as Daniel McGroarty of the American Resources Policy Network, a virtual think tank focused on resource development, pointed out in a series of comments submitted about the DOI’s draft critical minerals list. He also noted that zinc, nickel and lead should be included on the list for the same reason. McGroarty argued that copper is of the highest priority because it ‘is the practical access point to at least four minerals on the DOI List,’ referring to cobalt, rhenium, tellurium and, potentially, the rare earths.”

Tuazon points out that while USGS, which worked with DoI to put together the list of 35, acknowledged the “co-production issue,” Copper was excluded from the list because the risk of supply disruptions for Copper was considered “very low,” according to Steven Fortier, director of the USGS National Minerals Information Center.

However, says Tuazon:

“[W]ith rapid technological advancement and growth, what actually is and isn’t critical changes over time and often eludes simple categorizations. Or as McGroarty puts it, ‘as technology changes, what was once considered minor can have major impacts.’ For example, there was virtually no demand for strontium in the United States before the 1960s, when it was suddenly needed in relatively large quantities to reduce radiation emitted by early televisions.”

While the United States’ net import reliance for copper may currently be pegged at 34 percent it should be noted that we also have a 600,000 MT copper gap each year – the gap between what we consume and what we produce.

Against the backdrop of Copper’s growing list of applications and increased usage in one of the key growth markets – EV battery technology (as visualized here) – analysts anticipate Copper consumption to greatly “outstrip supply as it is slated to increase more than six times.”

On a global scale, with over 200 currently-operating Copper mines slated to reach the end of their production cycle before 2035, CRU analyst Hamish Sampson estimated in the spring of 2018 that “unless new investments arise, existing copper mine production will drop from 20 million tonnes to below 12 million tonnes by 2034, leading to a supply shortfall of more than 15 million tonnes.”

Sampson argued that only if “every single copper project currently in development or being studied for feasibility is brought online before then, including most discoveries that have not yet reached the evaluation stage, the market could meet projected demand.”

With a lack of mega-projects coming on stream before the mid-2020s and global production for Copper expected to peak by the second half of 2019 one thing is clear: Whether or not Copper (and its fellow gateway metals) is excluded from the list of 35 critical minerals — It cannot be excluded from policy considerations in 2019.

The post Copper and the 2018 Critical Minerals List – Considerations for Resource Policy Reform appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Dr. Chris Stanley, a mineralogist at London’s Natural History Museum, whose help researchers enlisted when they found themselves unable to match their discovery with anything scientifically-known, told the BBC he was “shocked to discover this formula was already referenced in the literature – albeit literary fiction,” and said:

“The new mineral does not contain fluorine (which it does in the film) and is white rather than green but, in all other respects, the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite.”

As Jadarite has nothing to do with the real element Krypton, an colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas often used in fluorescent lamps, the mineral could not be called “kryptonite.” Instead, Jadarite, which contains Boron and Lithium, both of which are known to followers of ARPN for a number of applications, received its official name thanks to the geographic location of its discovery, the  Jadar Valley.

The reason why most people will not have heard of the mineral is that Serbia is the only place in the world where Jadarite has been found – and to date, it has not been commercially developed.

Courtesy of the ongoing materials science revolution, which yields research breakthroughs on a daily basis, this may soon change, however. As Mining Review Africa reports, researchers at Rio Tinto’s Technical Development Centre in Bundoora outside of Melbourne, Australia, are working to develop a new chemical procedure to process the material.  A pilot processing plant has been housed within a large shipping container, to allow it to be deployed to the mine site in Serbia.

Against the backdrop of the current EV battery technology fueling demand for Lithium, these efforts, if successful, could help alleviate mineral supply concerns in the long run.

While recent stories about an oversupply have caused Lithium prices to slide, analysts believe that the fundamentals for Lithium are strong and long-term demand will shore up again. As Benchmark Mineral Intelligence’s Andrew Miller recently told Reuters:

“The demand for lithium isn’t really in question, it’s just a matter of when that demand really kicks in. (…) You just have to look at the number of battery factories that are being built around lithium-ion technology.” 

As for Borates, while arguably considered the less “sexy” component in the Jadarite mix, fundamentals may be changing here, too.  As Chris Cann recently noted for Mining Journal, while the borates space has “historically, closely tracked global GDP numbers as the ability of the world’s population to buy more household products has driven the use of boric acid, (…), Borates are now linked to two areas of potentially strong growth.” 

The two areas he references are the traditional application in agriculture/household, as well as the lesser-known use of Borates in electronics, “where Boron-laden permanent magnets are widely consumed, including as the most commonly used magnets for hybrid and electric vehicles.” 

The bottom line is this – with advances in materials science disrupting and fundamentally altering the supply and demand picture for metals and minerals on a regular basis, the time to devise a comprehensive mineral resource strategy that accounts for these fast-paced changes has come.  Our nation’s competitiveness and national security depends on it.

The post Jadarite and the Materials Science Revolution – “Kryptonite” to Alleviate Mineral Supply Concerns? appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

A California-based company has announced that it has found a way to accelerate chip performance using Cobalt instead of more traditional materials used as conducting materials in transistor contacts and interconnects such as Tungsten and Copper.

Says Dr. Prabu Raja, senior Vice President of Applied Science’s Semiconductor Products Group:

“Five years ago, Applied anticipated an inflection in the transistor contact and interconnect, and we began developing an alternative materials solution that could take us beyond the 10nm node. (…) Applied brought together its experts in chemistry, physics, engineering and data science to explore the broad portfolio of Applied’s technologies and create a breakthrough Integrated Materials Solution for the industry. As we enter the big data and AI era, there will be more of these inflections, and we are excited to be having earlier and deeper collaborations with our customers to accelerate their roadmaps and enable devices we never dreamed possible.”

One benefit of using Cobalt over the traditionally used materials is that these were “no longer scalable beyond the 10nm foundry node because their electrical performance has reached physical limits for transistor contacts and local interconnects.” The use of Cobalt removes a bottleneck that prevented the achievement of “full performance potential of FinFET transistors.” 

According to the company, Cobalt may be “challenging to integrate,” but yields “lower resistance and variability at small dimensions, improved gapfill at very fine dimensions; and improved reliability.”

The ongoing revolution in materials science – which we have previously characterized as “a rapidly accelerating effort that is unlocking the potential of scores of metals and minerals long known but seldom utilized in our tools and technologies” — represents a paradigm shift for traditional supply and demand scenarios for the raw materials that fuel it.

This specific new application will not change the supply and demand scenario for Cobalt overnight, but it is another reminder that the continued advance of technology underscores the need for comprehensive policy reform rather than a patchwork of piecemeal approaches.

The post Cobalt’s Star Rising Even Further in Light of Breakthrough New Applications? appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Both pieces draw attention to China’s mineral resource dominance and point to current efforts to curb China’s leverage.

Writes Perry:

“Imagine a scenario where the U.S. is entirely dependent on a single nation for oil. You can’t. It’s inconceivable. We would never let one nation — much less a sometimes adversarial rival — dominate our supply of a critical resource. Or would we?

Astoundingly, we have. We are completely import-dependent for 21 mineral commodities, and imports account for more than half of our consumption for 50 critical minerals. Who’s our largest supplier? China.”

Citing USGS numbers highlighting our dependence on materials sourced from China, Green agrees:

“We have gifted China robust trade leverage should they chose to use it. In 2010, during a geopolitical spat over disputed waters, China cut its exports of rare earth elements to Japan. China could easily cripple American supply chains and significantly limit our ability to produce advanced radar and weapon systems by limiting or disrupting the supply of any one of these minerals. Allowing a non-allied foreign nation to control such a broad swathe of critical minerals is a significant security threat to the U.S. and its warfighters.”

The growing awareness of these issues in the mainstream media thanks to experts like Green and others spreading the word is a welcome development. However, whether we succeed in reducing Chinese leverage over our domestic industrial production and national security will depend in large part on how policy makers respond.

Both authors cite recent legislative language pending in Congress that would go far in streamlining our outdated and duplicative permitting framework for mining projects that has so far hampered responsible domestic resource development.

But while the U.S. House of Representatives has passed said provisions, the U.S. Senate has already failed to include them in its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), once more underscoring that while awareness is growing, meaningful change will still face an uphill battle.

In Perry’s words:

“The opportunity to put a halt to our deepening reliance on imports for dozens of critically important minerals is within reach. Let’s ensure we have the robust domestic supply chain to guarantee our military has the supply of materials it needs when it needs them.”

The post A “Dangerous Dependence:”  Mineral Resource Security Goes Mainstream appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

“A new report published by the Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU) finds that “there is great potential for prospecting for many innovation critical resources in Sweden, including graphite, lithium, Rare Earth Metals (REE), volfram etc”. Now the Swedish government has jumped on those findings and funds further research with 10 million kronor, reasoning that the growth in e-mobility and other industries will spike demand.”

An indispensable component for EV battery technology, and largely sourced from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the origination point of roughly 62 percent of global refined Cobalt – which is also a Nickel and Copper co-product –  has quickly become one of the hottest commodities.

Meanwhile, sourcing from the DRC has long been fraught with challenges with production conditions commonly known to involve child labor and poor environmental standards.   A recently mulled (and since decided) designation of Cobalt as a “strategic material” on the part of the DRC, leading to a higher tax rate of 5 instead of so far 2 percent, has thrown another wrinkle in the already challenging global Cobalt supply picture.

Sweden is home to automaker Volvo, which in 2017 made headlines when it announced that all newly-launched vehicles from 2019 onward will be “partially or completely battery-powered.”

The move to explore for domestic Cobalt and Lithium also fits in the overall context of the country’s mineral strategy, unveiled in 2016.

Thankfully, from a U.S. perspective, policy makers are beginning to wake up to the global resource race and the need to formulate a critical mineral strategy and a national action plan to secure critical resources.   Here’s hoping the movement set in motion late last year with Executive Order 13817 will not fizzle. As the case of Sweden shows, other nations will not sit idly at the sidelines.

As Simon Moores, Managing Director of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence and member of the ARPN panel of experts, testified before  U.S. Senators in the fall of 2017:

“This energy storage revolution is global and unstoppable. For countries and corporations, positioning themselves accordingly to take advantage of this should be of paramount importance and longer term (~10 year) decisions need to be made.”

The post Sweden Tosses Hat Into Ring In Race For Materials Underpinning EV Revolution appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.

Speakers for the event, which discussed “efforts to gather information and develop tools that can be used to ensure a secure national and global supply of mineral resources, and identify and quantifying vulnerabilities in this supply, among others,” included:

• Nedal Nassar, Chief of the Materials Flow Analysis Section at the USGS’s National Minerals Information Center, and
• Vitor Correia, President of the European Federation of Geologists, and coordinator of the EU’s INTRAW project.

If you missed it, the video and supporting documents are now online:

Of particular interest for ARPN followers, Mr. Nassar, who authored a study on the issue of what he and his co-author Prof. Thomas Graedel called “byproduct metals” in 2015,  also highlighted the crucial nature and inter-relationship between Gateway Metals and their Co-Products.

The video and slides serve as a great resource for stakeholders looking to engage in the national policy discourse over the formulation of a federal action plan to implement the recent executive order on critical minerals.

The post ICYMI – Video and Supporting Documents for AGI Webinar on “Tracking the Global Supply of Critical Materials” appeared first on American Resources Policy Network.