'We don't need to dig new holes'
'We don't need to dig new holes'
How to reduce metal demand, and your news round-up in mining for climate tech
Climate technologies require enormous amounts of metal. I’m Ian Morse, and this is Green Rocks, a newsletter that doesn’t want dirty mining to ruin clean energy.
The energy transition, we are told, will require huge amounts of new metal scooped up from the earth. Batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines are meticulous metal machines that are set to replace our energy infrastructure. Government and industry say those necessary technologies will require new mines on a scale never before seen in the history of the planet.
What if those mines weren’t actually necessary? How do we reduce the need for mining? We’ve heard of recycling, but what else can reduce demand?
Those are the questions of a report released Tuesday from the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney. The report, sponsored by the nonprofit Earthworks, tackles the actions that consumers and consuming countries can take to make sure the negative effects of mining can be minimized.
“There are potentially adverse social and environmental impacts associated with supply of new materials, and there is a significant opportunity to minimise these impacts by reducing demand for new mining,” Nick Florin, an author on the report, told me in an email.
The report does two things. It identifies possible strategies to reduce demand, and it assesses the impact of those strategies.
Take copper. Some industry players believe rising copper demand will require eight new mines that are the size of the largest ones in the world. The report found, however, that with better recycling, total copper demand could be reduced by more than half. For lithium, recycling could reduce demand by 25%. Cobalt and nickel: 35%.
Those are huge proportions. To visualize, the graph below accumulates total predicted demand for copper up to 2040. The red bar shows the reduction in demand if copper recycling from electric cars can be improved. For general copper uses, the blue bar shows how much demand can be displaced with recycling.
And that’s just recycling. Reduced demand could also come from longer battery lifetimes, reuse, and limiting private car ownership by expanding public transit.
“Recycling is the most developed approach. However, there is also significant interest in extending battery lifetimes and reuse. In the case of reuse, the major opportunity is for a ‘second-life’ in stationary applications,” Florin says.
Stationary, grid-level batteries, which would provide electricity when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining, will likely be a hefty portion of demand. (This was last week’s topic!) When you’re done with your electric vehicle battery, you could send it off to your energy provider, who could stick it in a large battery installation. Some companies are exploring whether to send depleted batteries to places where people aren’t buying batteries with capacity as high as in the US, for example.
“More fundamental systemic changes are needed to support a shift away from private car ownership and improved public transport; these may be more difficult to implement and will require policy support to, for example, promote expansion of public and bike transit infrastructure and also shift consumer preferences,” Florin says. (As I noted in a February Green Rocks edition, reducing consumer demand may also speed up the transition.)
How can consumers adjust their activities to ensure only the most necessary mines are built? Tackling that question surprised Florin.
“There is a surprising paucity of data to quantify the relative impact of the non-recycling demand reduction strategies, and more research to better understand this potential will be important to build the case for better policy to promote these options,” he wrote.
One possibility: people could rent a car only when they really need it, say for a road trip or shopping at that one special store so far away. However, there hasn’t been much research into whether these rental car schemes can really benefit the climate or reduce resource use. Here are some other, rather wonky, options:
Collection networks and incentives can do better to ensure that batteries don’t go to the landfill.
Battery makers may also take responsibility to design their batteries with recycling in mind, particularly because there is little standardization across the industry, which makes it difficult for recyclers to recover metals.
The transportation of potentially combustible batteries is also presenting barriers for recyclers who need access to batteries.
Standards, definitions and liability that determine second use options vary across jurisdictions and confuse recyclers.
In sum, the ways we use cars and energy, including the legal rules in place, haven’t been tailored to reduce consumption. (In fact, it may be the opposite.) But there are lots of possibilities.
“This research proves that we don’t need to dig new holes in the ground to power the clean energy transition,” said Payal Sampat, Earthworks’ Mining Program Director. “We can accelerate the transition to a sustainable materials economy by ensuring that the minerals in electric vehicle batteries are sourced responsibly.”
Climate going metal
The Philippines’ nine-year ban on new mines has been lifted as the government searches for revenue in a pandemic-stricken economy. Advocates say that instead, a new mining law should be drafted that protects human rights and the environment.
Anglo American, which has vowed to be carbon neutral by 2040, is close to making all of their Latin America operations run on renewable power. The company is spinning off its coal operations into new companies supported by its shareholders.
Portugal will likely cancel a lithium mining project that locals spent years fighting.
As people buy more sports cars, batteries with nickel and cobalt get added boosts.
Argentina’s Orocobre and Australia’s Galaxy Resources, both major lithium producers, merged in the biggest mining deal so far this year.
Roskill believes artisanal mining could make the DRC’s state-owned miner one of the biggest cobalt producers.
Mining giant Glencore has taken flak for offering a new CEO a salary maximum of $10.4 million.
A Brazilian court decided a Vale tailings dam was too risky to allow mining resume operations. The company’s dam collapse in 2019 killed 250 people.
Greenland Minerals, which has invested in a proposed rare-earths-uranium project in Greenland, is keen to speak with the new government that has been against the project.
Bauxite mine workers in India ended a protest over wages after 83 days in front of a district office.
The Minnesota Supreme Court officially stalled a copper-nickel project after an investigation found that the EPA mishandled permits the mine that has conservationists worried about destruction to the Boundary Waters.
Chile Court Cases
A Chilean court ordered a re-evaluation of the environmental impacts of a gold-copper project due to fears that it could significantly alter lives for a nearby Indigenous community
A Chilean court ordered a re-vote on a copper-iron project, saying that the previous denial of permits was undue. The previous decision cited proximity to penguin communities and failure to consult local communities.
A Chilean court ordered a copper mine owned by BHP to stop taking water from a nearby river due to complaints from locals.
Reads
≠ endorsement
Electric cars: What will happen to all the dead batteries? (BBC)
Brine to Batteries (Thea Riofrancos, Harvard Radcliffe Institute video)
Vanadium exploration booms in North Queensland with rise of battery storage of renewable energy (ABC News)
Battery Metals Are Hot, but These Miners Can’t Get Investors (Wall Street Journal)
India to explore if there can be co-development of mining and ecology (Mongabay India)
Rio Tinto’s 26-year struggle to develop a massive Arizona copper mine (Reuters)
Mining companies’ struggle to reduce Scope 3 emissions may jeopardize ability to survive (The Globe and Mail)
More transparency, data usage expected from the mining industry of the future — report (Mining.com)
Battery metal rush pits miners against marine biologists (Bloomberg)
Nickel-rich Indonesia draws global suppliers of EV battery materials (Nikkei Asia)
As Auto Industry Goes Electric, Can It Avoid A Battery Bottleneck? (NPR)
The Battery-Powered Future Depends on a Few Crucial Metals (Bloomberg)
Sustainable transport can’t just depend on batteries. Here’s why (World Economic Forum)
The Hidden Science Making Batteries Better, Cheaper and Everywhere (Bloomberg)
The race for rare earth minerals: can Australia fuel the electric vehicle revolution? (The Guardian)
Podcast: Surging demand for battery metals drives push to mine ocean floor (S&P Global)