Last fall, world leaders converged in Glasgow for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to accelerate action toward the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement. While the efficacy of the outcomes of COP26 will continue to be the subject of debate, the global discourse around the energy transition has changed. True, the scale and scope of such a transition are as polarizing and emotive as ever, but a decarbonization of the global energy sector is almost universally recognized as an important step to reducing global carbon emissions and mitigating the effects of climate change. Can the required supply of the key metals and minerals needed for this transition keep up?
The clean energy transition needed under the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) landmark Net Zero by 2050 Roadmap would see the share of power generated by solar, wind and hydropower rise to 60%, from 10% today. This requires a rapid scaleup of renewable energy capacity over the next decade. To give a sense of magnitude, for solar alone, the IEA estimates that this would mean adding the equivalent of the world’s largest solar park roughly every day for the next 10 years. As the electrification of the economy takes hold, downstream applications would also need to adjust. Electric vehicles (EV), for instance, would go from around 9% of global car sales to more than 30% over that period.
This would lead to a surge in demand for copper, silicon, silver, zinc, iron ore and aluminum. Add to that the demand for lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt required in EV batteries; to say nothing of the metals needed for transmission and distribution grids, charging stations and other infrastructure adaptations. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), metals demand could surge by as much as three billion tons in the coming decades, as a result. Under a 1.5 C scenario, Wood Mackenzie, a leading consultancy company for the global energy, chemicals, metals and mining industries, expects copper and aluminum demand to increase by more than 60% by 2040, nickel demand to more than double, and cobalt and lithium demand to surge by four and 12 times, respectively.
Even a less-ambitious pathway, still calls for demand growth of a truly transformative nature. And, given current production rates, supplies are likely to significantly undershoot demand. The shortfall is further complicated by the geographical concentration of natural reserves, potentially pushing mining companies into more complex jurisdictions, from both a political and regulatory risk perspective. The world’s largest cobalt producing country, for example, is the Democratic Republic of Congo, responsible for more than 70% of the world’s cobalt supplies. Increased commercial interests have also raised the specter of nationalization in some countries endowed with these critical resources.
