Historical, Current, and Future Energy Demand from Global Copper Production and Its Impact on Climate Change

Nadine Rötzer,Mario Schmidt

doi:10.3390/resources9040044

Nadine Rötzer, Mario Schmidt

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/resources9040044

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Abstract

Copper has always played an important role in human development. Demand for copper is going to rise, which makes its future supply a key issue for society. However, the oft-discussed declining ore grade and, therefore, the assumed enormous increase in energy demand and global warming potential could lead to a supply constraint. To develop suitable strategies to ensure copper availability, it is important to better understand the relationship between energy and ore grade and also its development. Therefore, in this paper we describe the development of the cumulative energy demand of copper production over the last eight decades and give an outlook into the future using a holistic process-based modelling approach. We also discuss how technological progress has thus far been able to offset the decreasing ore grade. However, if geological factors are becoming less favorable, technological improvements such as renewable energies are vital to keep this trend going.

Highlights

Copper has always been an indispensable part of our development, and the demand for copper increased continuously throughout the 20th century
Since the 1970s, approximately 90% of copper ore has been taken from open pit mines [40,41,42]
The results presented here give an estimation of the development of the cumulative energy demand (CED) and global warming potential (GWP) of Discussion global primary copper production

Summary

Introduction

Copper has always been an indispensable part of our development, and the demand for copper increased continuously throughout the 20th century. Primary resources will still be necessary to meet demand in the foreseeable future [2]. We researched time-specific literature data for the CED of all input materials. This was not possible in all cases; current data or data from similar years were used, and if possible, these data were adjusted . The CED and GWP of the time-specific electricity mixes are calculated on the basis of data from the International Energy Agency (IEA). In the first step the amount of electricity produced by the different energy carriers, hydro, coal, gas, oil, nuclear, and others (assumed to be 100% renewable but of minor importance due to the small share) was calculated using the total production and the individual shares of the stated energy carriers. Ventilation Requirement for ‘Electric’ Underground Hard Rock Mines—A Conceptual

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