Elsevier

Global Environmental Change

Volume 39, July 2016, Pages 305-315
Global Environmental Change

Copper demand, supply, and associated energy use to 2050

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.06.006Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Four scenarios for copper demand and supply, and the energy required for copper production have been developed.

  • The cumulative demand for copper is expected to exceed its Reserves and Reserve Base in most scenarios by 2050.

  • The supply of metals co-mined with copper will decrease unless their extraction efficiencies from copper ore are substantially increased.

  • Most of the copper producing countries will not be able to sustain their production until 2050.

  • The energy required to produce copper is expected to constitute between 1.0 and 2.4% of the total energy demand by 2050.

Abstract

To a set of well-regarded international scenarios (UNEP’s GEO-4), we have added consideration of the demand, supply, and energy implications related to copper production and use over the period 2010–2050. To our knowledge, these are the first comprehensive metal supply and demand scenarios to be developed. We find that copper demand increases by between 275 and 350% by 2050, depending on the scenario. The scenario with the highest prospective demand is not Market First (a “business as usual” vision), but Equitability First, a scenario of transition to a world of more equitable values and institutions. These copper demands exceed projected copper mineral resources by mid-century and thereafter. Energy demand for copper production also demonstrates strong increases, rising to as much as 2.4% of projected 2050 overall global energy demand. We investigate possible policy responses to these results, concluding that improving the efficiency of the copper cycle and encouraging the development of copper-free energy distribution on the demand side, and improving copper recycling rates on the supply side are the most promising of the possible options. Improving energy efficiency in primary copper production would lead to a reduction in the energy demand by 0.5% of projected 2050 overall global energy demand. In addition, encouraging the shift towards renewable technologies is important to minimize the impacts associated with copper production.

Introduction

Copper is one of the most widely-used metals in society. Due to its unique properties copper is essential for several economic sectors, including infrastructure, wiring, plumbing, transportation, and consumer and industrial electrical and electronic equipment (EEE). In recent years, the demand for copper has grown rapidly (USGS, 2009) as a result of the increasing global population, economic growth (especially in emerging economies), and the transition to a more sustainable society. This growth in copper demand is higher than the increasing supply of copper from secondary resources, explaining the growing demand for primary copper (ICSG, 2006, cited in Gomez et al., 2007, ICSG, 2012, ICSG, 2015). This has raised concern regarding the future availability of copper and its companion metals including tellurium, selenium, silver, cobalt, and molybdenum, which are necessary for construction activities as well as for the transition to sustainable energy, transportation, and industrial systems (Elshkaki and Graedel, 2015, Nassar et al., 2012, Nassar et al., 2015).

In addition to resource availability concerns, there is increasing concern related to the energy requirement to produce metals and to the associated environmental impacts. The mining industry is one of the most energy-intensive industrial sectors, and thus one of the largest contributors to global CO2 emissions. This is mainly due to the amount of metals produced and the low concentration of most metals in ore deposits, which led to the mining of large quantities of the ore. The global energy consumption for the principal primary metals (iron, aluminum, copper, manganese, zinc, lead) has increased from 32 EJ/y in 2007–52 EJ/y in 2012 (Norgate and Jahanshahi, 2011), which is about 10% of the total 2012 primary energy production (Fizaine and Court, 2015). Copper is one of the metals whose production is highly energy intensive, and consequently has high environmental impacts. In Chile, the world’s largest copper producing country, the copper industry is by far the largest energy consumer and the largest GHG emitter (Alvarado et al., 2002). As the demand for copper increases, its ore grade is expected to decrease, and the energy required for copper production and the related CO2 emissions are thus expected to increase fairly rapidly (Ayres et al., 2001, Kuckshinrichs et al., 2007, Mudd, 2010, Northey et al., 2014, Valero and Valero, 2014).

Several studies have attempted to assess the future demand for a number of different metals (Allwood, 2014, Elshkaki et al., 2005, Elshkaki and Van der Voet, 2006, Gerst, 2009, Halada et al., 2008, Hatayama et al., 2010, Kleijn and van der Voet, 2010 (who find a potential supply limitation for copper due to renewable energy deployment); Liu et al., 2013, Pauliuk et al., 2012, Stamp et al., 2014, Van der Voet et al., 2002, Van Vuuren et al., 1999). However, these metal demand scenarios tend to be limited to a focus on specific technologies rather than on more general uses. In addition, none follow from a foundational set of scenarios generated by specialists in such disciplines as demography, economics, and assessments of industrial limitations and opportunities. Thus, there remains a need for scenario approaches to metal futures that emphasize breadth in the choice of metals and employ a widely recognized family of scenarios as a starting point.

In the present study, we develop four scenarios for the global demand for copper, the global and regional supply of copper, and the energy required for primary and secondary copper production. The foundation for these metal scenarios is the Fourth Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-4) set of scenarios of the United Nations Environment Program, which are based on the Global Scenario Group (GSG) approaches and related scenarios (Jan Bakkes et al., 2004, Electris et al., 2009, Kemp-Benedict et al., 2002, UNEP, 2007). A detailed discussion of the GEO scenarios and comparison with other scenarios can be found in Raskin et al. (2005) and Van Vuuren et al. (2012). The GEO-4 scenarios, termed Market First (MF), Policy First (PF), Security First (SF), and Equitability First (EF), are briefly described in Box 1. Each includes global and regional projections of population, per capita income, and source-specific energy demand. These well-vetted scenarios have been extensively employed in the past at global and regional levels to examine possible futures of such variables as atmospheric emissions, food availability, water withdrawals, and species abundance changes (UNEP, 2006, UNEP, 2007, UNEP, 2010, Van Vuuren et al., 2012). To those scenarios we add copper-relevant technology demand, primary and secondary copper supply, and related energy use. The period of study is 2010–2050, with one year time resolution.

Section snippets

Copper demand

Regression analysis is used in many scientific fields as a statistical tool to estimate and analyze the relation between a dependent variable and a number of independent, explanatory variables. It identifies the variables that are significant and that contribute the most to the dependent variable. The approach further examines the separate and combined effects of significant variables. The optimal regression model, the adequacy of the model, and the significance of the variables are

The historical demand for copper

We analyzed the historical demand for copper in different industrial sectors using regression analysis with per capita GDP, the level of urbanization, and the time as explanatory variables and found that each one of these variables is significant when used individually (Tables S1-S7 in the Supplementary Information). However, the most significant variable in explaining the total demand for copper and its demand in different sectors on a global level is the per capita GDP, in accordance with the

Policy implications

Given the unpromising nature of these results, it seems appropriate to explore possible policy options in response to a copper supply challenge. First, enhancing copper supply could be achieved by locating and developing new copper deposits. This activity is already in progress by the mining industry, so the potential for a major revision of copper mineral resouces seems unlikely (note that a 50% resource change in the model of Northey et al. (2014) does not produce qualitative changes in

Conclusions

This study has developed four scenarios for the demand and supply of copper and the associated energy required for copper production. The scenarios are enhancements of the widely-used GEO-4 scenarios of the United Nations Environment Programme. The main conclusions of the analysis are

  • The demand for copper is expected to increase by between 275 and 350% by 2050, depending on the scenario

  • The highest demand for copper is expected to be in the Equitability First scenario and the lowest in the

Acknowledgements

We thank the United Nations Environment Programme, the US National Science Foundation, BP International, General Electric Global Research Center, and Shell Global Solutions, for useful comments and financial support.

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