Sustaining the United States’ copper resource supply

Abstract

A secure supply of copper resource is crucial for socio-economic development. To better understand the relationship between urban mining and resource security, it is essential to conduct an integrated analysis of above-ground and underground copper supply, demand, and import/export at the national level. The study quantified the copper resource from multiple sources in the U.S. spanning from 1950 to 2021. Above-ground copper reserves exceed underground reserves by 1.8 times. Net-import dependence of refined copper has risen to 45%. Only 6% of EOL scrap was recycled, and the collection rate declined to 38% by 2021. To prepare for potential bans in China and Malaysia, the U.S. should boost its domestic copper scrap smelting capacity. The current recycling condition poses a challenge for the U.S. to achieve a sustainable supply of copper resource. Future predictions indicate that copper demand would steadily rise to approximately 5 Mt annually by the second half of this century. However, scenario analysis indicates that the total U.S. copper resources can be sustainably supplied by increasing the rate of copper scrap recovery, reducing scrap exports, and exploiting hibernating copper.