The amount of copper needed to build EVs is ‘impossible for mining companies to produce’
By Paul Homewood
Copper cannot be mined quickly enough to keep up with current policies requiring the transition to electric vehicles (EVs), according to a University of Michigan study.
Copper is fundamental to electricity generation, distribution and storage. According to GlobalData, there are more than 709 copper mines in operation globally, with the largest being the Escondida mine in Chile, which produced an estimated 882,100 tonnes of copper in 2023.
This may sound like a lot but with electrification ramping up globally it is not. The Michigan study, Copper mining and vehicle electrification, has focused on the copper required just for the production of EVs over the coming years.
Many countries across the world are putting forward policies for EVs. For instance, in the US the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in 2022, calls for 100% of cars manufactured by 2035 to be electric.
However, an EV requires three to five times more copper than petrol or diesel cars, not to mention the copper required for upgrades to the electricity grid.
“A normal Honda Accord needs about 40 pounds of copper. The same battery electric Honda Accord needs almost 200 pounds of copper,” said Adam Simon, professor of earth and environmental studies at the University of Michigan.
“We show in the paper that the amount of copper needed is essentially impossible for mining companies to produce.”
The researchers examined 120 years of global data from copper production dating back to 1900. They then modelled how much copper is likely to be produced for the rest of the century and how much copper the US electricity infrastructure and fleet of cars would need to upgrade to renewable energy.
The study found that renewable energy’s copper needs would outstrip what copper mines can produce at the current rate. Between 2018 and 2050, the world will need to mine 115% more copper than has been mined in all of human history up until 2018 just to meet current copper needs without considering the green energy transition.
To meet the copper needs of electrifying the global vehicle fleet, as many as six new large copper mines must be brought online annually over the next several decades. About 40% of the production from new mines will be required for EV-related grid upgrades.
The research concluded that instead of fully electrifying the entire US fleet of vehicles, they should focus on manufacturing hybrid vehicles.
“We know, for example, that a Toyota Prius actually has a slightly better impact on climate than a Tesla. Instead of producing 20 million EVs in the US and, globally, 100 million battery EVs each year, would it be more feasible to focus on building 20 million hybrid vehicles?”
Apart from EVs, copper is, of course, vital in other sectors: for instance, building infrastructure in the developing world such as an electricity grid for the approximately one billion people who don’t yet have access to electricity.
“What we will end up with is tension between how much copper we need to build infrastructure in less developed countries versus how much copper we need for the energy transition,” warned Simon.
“We are hoping this study gets picked up by policymakers who should consider copper as the limiting factor for the energy transition, and to think about how copper is allocated.”
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
“to think about how copper is allocated“: call me a Red Radical but how about allocating it by free market competition?
Aren’t you overlooking the Government planners and controllers are in charge, not the free market?
Who’d a thunk it!!!!
But will the virtue-signalling politicians or their global backers take any notice? Don’t hold yer breath…..
I’m sure the supply of all the minerals needed to reach Net Zero by 2050 was fully researched and costed by the ptb in Whitehall and Westminster.
of course of course of course…..and the weasels who first came up with this way to collapse our systems.
The virtue signalling politicians won’t even understand, or be in any way interested, in the world supply of copper – or indeed any of the other moinerals needed to convert the world to EVs.
They are incapable of understanding anything even remotely “technical” and seem to take pride in their total lack of understanding of anything related to engineering or science
As has always been the case, an increase in demand leads to an increase in price of the commodity and sources of copper that are currently considered uneconomic, due to ore grade or metallurgical characteristics or depth of mineralization will now become potentially mineable. There are many mining companies who will be out looking for such opportunities!
That is how it works but the capital and other resources have to be available to expand mining output. But it’s not just scaled up mining output, also needed is scaled up processing and manufacturing – again dependent on availability of capital and other resources.
And unlike normal market response which takes place on its own timescale, the response in this instance is to meet arbitrary mandated deadlines which take no account of real World capability to meet them.
Pricing also reduces demand so supply can catch up.
What is sure is prices will rocket making it likely that manufacturers using copper cannot profitably produce their products. Governments can’t subsidise everybody. Net Zero will grind to a halt.
In the end it is always the natural market process that thwarts Government ambitions.
Various problems exist in ‘copper world’ so to speak. Some of those could be sorted out, in theory at least. Hoarding by some of the big players for example…
https://oilprice.com/Metals/Commodities/A-Looming-Copper-Bottleneck-Could-Derail-the-Energy-Transition.html
Deep sea mining. It’s all down there. Billions of tonnes of everything.
The UK currently supports a moratorium on exploitatition, although other countries are granting licenses for exploration.
Needless to say, the Beeb and the Grauniad are up in arms about the potential for environmental destruction while simultaneously virtue signalling the need for ever more windmills, solar panels, EVs and batteries that require vast amounts of rare earth minerals more than your average gas stove, boiler and petrol-engined vehicle.
CK
There are some excellent videos by Mark P Mills of the Manhattan Institute about the problems of sourcing many of the minerals needed for the Energy Transition. Not just copper.
I mentioned this to my son in law who is something of a green zealot. He said “Well we can just recycle, can’t we”. At that point I gave up. He sees the problem of achieving net zero as one of political will
Interesting idea. In the history of mankind 700 million tonnes of copper have been mined. The estimated annual usage in an NZ world is around 100 million tonnes. The global copper reserves are estimated at 886 million tonnes. All underestimates in all probability.
As copper has been used since pre-history I can’t imagine any other material has such a large amount available for recycling.
Saw a suggestion that I liked that stripping copper out of the ghost cities in China would be a major future resource.
One of the important questions is always: at what cost?
The telecoms companies as they have transitioned to fibre optics are leaving the copper cables in the ground, it being uneconomical to remove them, reprocess them.
If stripping out copper cables becomes more economical than using virgin copper, then you will know how exorbitant the price of copper will be, and the consequences of that for consumers and taxpayers.
Copper is one of the most recycled metals we use. I read somewhere – it might even have been in E&T before I left the IET due to its global warming zealotry – that 95% of the copper produced since 1900 is still in use so it doesn’t leave much left.
So the mining maths show that there will be a shortage in supply, shortage=demand, demand=price, price demand=increase, so a limited supply will be available at higher prices, which makes all the estimated costing’s for transition to Nett Zero HV Electrical Energy under costed and another “computer model” Will be needed to show that the demand curve will actually show that the price of copper will actually drop to zero as so much will be mined thus proving that Nett Zero is the cheapest form of Energy ever, especially now that Unicorn horns have been found to be just as effective as copper.
Yet another example of how the Government failed to do a What If chain with truly independent input- what happens if we decarbonise the Steel industry for example- you need to import high grade steel for construction etc; what happens if we do that- the steel will come from China, India or Brazil by boat using diesel engines creating CO2 both in manufacturing and transportation; what do we do with the unemployed steel workers, nothing, they have no other jobs, so on benefits- hmmmmm, this What If lark doesn’t give the answers we expect, let’s get a computer “model” to give us the correct answers.
We always looked at What If when planning growth strategies, sometimes we got the results we wanted, other times we got a clear warning that things may just not work out and therefore we revisited, revised, reviewed and came back with something that added up……………but then again, we were not looking to the future where we would be taking “consultancy” directorships with Companies that benefited from our decisions regardless of the damage those decisions caused.
Also Lithium, Cobalt, Graphite, Neodymium, China has a good percentage of producing these, as well as copper. So what do you think they will do, after Biden put 100% duty.on Chinese BEVs, answers to Sleepy Jo.
Together with 10% for The Big Guy.
Naturally.
You missed a few. Antimony,Gallium, Germanium, Magnesium, Bismuth, Tungsten, Scandium Silicon Metal and Natural Graphite – for all of these China has over 60% of the world’s resources and for Light and Heavy Rare Earths it has 95% of the world’s resources.
For Indium, Phosphorous and Vanadium it has over 50% of the world’s resources.
Inserting here an historical footnote:
“In 1924 geologist and copper-mining expert Ira Joralemon warned:”
Copper extraction – Wikipedia
Not forgetting the resources to smelt it and produce the components.
Net Zeroids see only their fantasy outcome with no insights into how exactly to get there and whether it is actually possible.
I blame Kennedy and his pledge that by the end of the decade the US would land a man on the Moon and return him safely.
Now every loon imagines it just needs the commitment, spend the money, set a deadline and everything will magically happen and make it so.
Hi Mike
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Copper isn’t used in HT lines.
Strip the copper out of all the unsold EV’s.
This is interestin;
Toyota shuns electric cars with new generation of combustion engines https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/28/toyota-shuns-electric-cars-new-generation-combustion-engine/
Interesting even!!!
Never fear EV revolution is stuttering.
EV revolution is stuttering
It can’t be allowed to stutter, too many political faces to be saved !!
Copper is not used for HT grid lines.