A new study has raised doubts the world has enough mineable copper to sustain the demands of both human development and the green economy.
The report by the Society of Economic Geologists points out there’s “unavoidable conflict between the copper demands of electrification and achieving equitable living standards for the developing world.”
They came to the sobering conclusion by modelling how much copper is necessary for electrical technology and components as the population grows, as well as the amount needed for a range of different green energy scenarios as the world moves from a fossil to a non carbon future.
The numbers they project are vast. For example, for “business-as-usual”, about 1.1B metric tons of copper must be mined by 2050 or something like 78 new mines to produce 500,000 tons of copper a year. There was only about 23M million tons of copper mined in 2024.
A greener world will require even more copper. Transitioning to an EV fleet requires 1.248B tons, wind and solar requires 2.30B tons of copper, and building a power grid that relies on batteries requires 3B tons.
But copper is important in nearly every part of human development, from clean water distribution, sanitation systems, education and health care facilities, and telecommunications networks. Infrastructure that most of the world still needs to put in place especially in so-called developing countries.
India alone would require 227M tons of copper to build and modernise its infrastructure. Building this infrastructure in Africa’s 54 countries would require about 1B tons.
The report said there’s an inbuilt tension between the two copper demands, one the world will have to sustainably resolve if it can’t find more copper quickly enough.