What ever happens to Australia’s climate goals-or even the world’s- electrification & clean energy are here to stay.
In theory we’re all heading to a cleaner, greener world with lower climate gas emissions. But creating the so called circular economy-where we minimise waste & make the most of our resources-is proving challenging despite its obvious worth.
Copper is already in a great position. 100% recyclable, its one of the world’s most reusable metals without losing any features-the so called “infinite life”.
Recovering copper from motors, transformers and cables requires up to 85% less energy than primary production. Europe says it already gets almost 50% of its copper demand with recycled material, but it’s a very mixed bag everywhere else.
We obviously need to do more to get copper recycling rates up, especially here in Australia or the Asia Pacific. But re-use also has its limits due to a host of issues like regulations, product design or commercial market forces and can no way meet the world’s growing demand for copper.
Smarter, cleaner mining is obviously one answer to that.
The copper industry is energy intensive and ICA’s own research says our members already invest more than $20 Billion in improving the environmental performance of their operations.
Technological innovation is also key. At last year’s South Australian Copper To The World Conference I ran a session showcasing new developments across the world aimed at harnessing technology to make mines far more environmentally sustainable.
I’ll be doing the same again in June where companies like BHP, Oz Minerals , Newcrest and others will talk about what they’re doing in this space. Obviously driver-less trucks, smart software and robots are one aspect of this, but so too are new efforts to improve what happens as the ore is processed, stored and transported.
Both the front and back ends of copper-its extraction and its final use for electric gadgets or cars-can be rethought, disrupted and improved. The circular economy may be a tough call in many areas of life, but for copper the basis is already there.
Cheers
John Fennell
08/04/2019
