Recently Bernstein, a research company, estimated that the world’s offshore wind capacity could hit 254 Giga Watts by 2030, seven times what it is today.
That is world changing. Already many developed and developing countries, including Australia, are announcing new projects, some of them absolutely massive with towering, high tech turbines.
The cost of wind driven electricity to consumers—along with all renewables in fact—is fast approaching (or is there already) the cheapest energy they can use
But they’ll also need a hell of a lot of copper to make it happen. As the Economist recently pointed out “the veins and arteries of the green economy run with copper”.
The Economist also pointed out that investment in metals mining still lags woefully behind what it is for oil and coal. Investment in new projects for lithium, nickel and copper was under $25B in 2019, “only about 5% of the amount invested on upstream oil and gas”.
Financials aside, one of the biggest obstacles to new mines—which can take a decade to get up & running—is community (and by default government) opposition due to environmental concerns. In fact a U.S. Government review of a proposed copper & nickel mine in Minnesota picked out limited environmental impact as key.
The other issue is the availability of a grid network (also built around copper) suited to transporting intermittent & generally remote renewable energy like offshore wind. The International Energy Agency says annual spending on electricity grids will have to triple by 2030 to make them much smarter & bigger.
We need to tackle these issues if the world has any hope of meeting its carbon neutral goals in any realistic time frame. Without innovative solutions the green economy may get more distant & way more expensive to achieve.
Cheers, John Fennell