When I heard one of the world’s biggest car makers wants to go all electric by 2035 I knew this was going to be a very disruptive bit of news.
Global auto giant GM—which had sales of over 2.5M cars and light trucks last year—announced last week that it aims to stop selling all gasoline & diesel vehicles on the way to being carbon neutral by 2040.
Its obviously a wish list at this stage, but the company is committing $27B to the effort, having already said they’d offer 30 all-electric models globally by mid-decade. And of course what that will do to copper demand is anyone’s guess.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog this is all sounding like the tipping point. Carbon neutral or net zero energy are literally everywhere at the moment as the world is taking the Covid-19 disaster as a time for the “Big Reset” and a time to “Build Back Better”.
You know it’s getting traction when politicians join in. President Biden is proposing spending $1.7T on a range of clean energy initiatives, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is calling for a “green industrial revolution” and Justin Trudeau in Canada plans to build a greener economy to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Is it doable? Well a new snapshot by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory—or Berkeley Lab—says getting the U.S. energy & industry to net zero emissions by mid Century is doable, and what’s more very affordable. They say it will cost about $1 per person per day!
“By methodically increasing energy efficiency, switching to electric technologies, utilizing clean electricity (especially wind and solar power), and deploying a small amount of carbon capture technology, the United States can reach zero emissions,” the authors wrote.
Could that be any more copper heavy if it tried? Nice to know copper is a big part of the answer to carbon neutrality.