Critical materials for energy: aluminum, cobalt, copper, dysprosium, electrical steel, fluorine, gallium, iridium, lithium, magnesium, natural graphite, neodymium, nickel, platinum, praseodymium, silicon, silicon carbide and terbium.
From Watts Up With That?
Guest “There’s copper in them thar hills” by David Middleton
Copper Is Critical for America’s New Energy Economy
By Andy Kireta, Jr.
October 18, 2023The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) new designation of copper as a critical material follows the lead of the EU, China, Japan, and others in labeling the metal as critical – and shows copper is on the cusp of a generational shift from an everyday material to a geopolitically significant commodity.
This new strategic importance stems from copper’s criticality to a wide range of clean and renewable energy technologies, such as waste heat recovery and electric vehicles, which can reduce global GHG emissions by two-thirds. As a result, experts estimate copper demand is set to double between 2035 and 2050 as industries work to meet their climate goals.
It is no wonder, then, that some are referring to copper as “the new oil.”
[…]
The shift from a global economy built entirely on oil to a digitized and electrified future, with copper at its foundation, has already begun. If Washington wants the U.S. to lead this global shift, it must recognize copper as a critical material for the nation’s future economic and national security.
Andy Kireta, Jr., is the President and CEO of the Copper Development Association and the North American Regional Director of the International Copper Association. RealClearEnergy
The notion that we are transitioning from fossil fuels to an electrified future is nonsense. However, technological advances and government policies are increasing the demand for many mineral resources. This is having an effect on the mineral resource criticality matrix. Non-critical mineral resources are shifting towards becoming critical materials.
Critical Materials
The Energy Act of 2020 defines a “critical material” as:
- Any non-fuel mineral, element, substance, or material that the Secretary of Energy determines: (i) has a high risk of supply chain disruption; and (ii) serves an essential function in one or more energy technologies, including technologies that produce, transmit, store, and conserve energy; or
- A critical mineral, as defined by the Secretary of the Interior.
The Energy Act of 2020 defines a “critical mineral” as:
- Any mineral, element, substance, or material designated as critical by the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey.
The US DOE’s 2023 critical materials report is an odd combination of wishful thinking and reality checks.
Wishful Thinking
Executive Summary
The global effort to curb carbon emissions is accelerating demand for clean energy technologies and the materials they rely on. Demand for these materials will only continue to grow, especially as some nations aim to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. While some major materials like steel, copper, and aluminum are already powering the fossil fuel economy, others are more minor materials with potential supply risks. These risks could jeopardize the ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the desirable timeframe to avoid significant climate change. In some cases, it may be necessary to take action to improve the resilience of these material supply chains and mitigate supply risks. Understanding the importance of individual materials to clean energy and the supply risks associated with them is necessary to identifying which materials may serve as potential roadblocks to a clean energy future.
[…]U.S. Department of Energy, Critical Materials Assessment 2023
Pretty well all of the assessed individual materials face roadblocks, irrespective of the government’s clean energy wishes.
Reality Checks
The report assesses the supply of critical materials under four scenarios:
Demand trajectories were developed for each material that passed the screening in Chapter 3. For each material, four trajectories were developed using high and low market penetration and material intensity assumptions for different energy technologies/applications, shown in Table 4.1. The goal of these trajectories is not to predict the future, but to outline various possibilities of material demand that can inform RD&D strategies.U.S. Department of Energy, Critical Materials Assessment 2023
DOE forecasts that the demand for copper for uses other than energy (gray curve) will exceed current production by 2035. They forecast that copper demand will exceed current production capacity by the end of this decade.
DOE forecasts that cobalt demand will exceed production capacity by 2025 in three of the four trajectories. Cobalt is a key ingredient in long-range electric vehicle batteries.
The demand for almost all of the assessed materials quickly exceeds production capacity in almost all of the scenarios.
You Can’t Get There From Here
Identified world terrestrial cobalt resources are about 25 million tons. The vast majority of these resources are in sediment-hosted stratiform copper deposits in Congo (Kinshasa) and Zambia; nickel-bearing laterite deposits in Australia and nearby island countries and Cuba; and magmatic nickel-copper sulfide deposits hosted in mafic and ultramafic rocks in Australia, Canada, Russia, and the United States. More than 120 million tons of cobalt resources have been identified in polymetallic nodules and crusts on the floor of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans.USGS
The USGS estimates the current global cobalt reserves to be 8,300,000 tonnes. Trajectory D would burn through the global cobalt reserves by the end of this decade. At the 2035 rate of 2,700,000 tonnes/year, Trajectory D would eat up the entire terrestrial resource in less than a decade.
Who’s up for Deep-Sea Mining?
Although the nodules appear in various places around the deep ocean, the primary target of potential mining is the Pacific’s Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a 5,000-kilometer stretch of seafloor between Hawaii and California that extends 4,000–5,500 meters deep. The CCZ hosts trillions of mineral-rich nodules.
Reaching the nodules involves a three-stage process: First, a support ship lowers a remotely operated vehicle to the seafloor. Next, the vehicle—like a Roomba vacuum for seafloor mining—drives around through the soft sediments scooping up nodules. Last, a large pipe sucks the nodules to the ship above. Cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, and nickel can then be extracted from the nodules during onshore processing and refining.
A dozen European and Asian countries and several island nations have sponsored companies for exploration permits so far. The United States cannot apply for permitting through ISA because it has not ratified the treaty that presides over it, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. However, a subsidiary of the U.K. arm of the American company Lockheed Martin, UK Seabed Resources, has two permits for exploratory mining.
No need to worry about environmental issues… Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. I wonder how many opponents of offshore oil & gas drilling will be all for deep-sea mining?
Are You Psyched Up for Asteroid Mining?
Opportunities in Asteroid Mining
Generally, asteroid mining remains hypothetical, mostly because of its exorbitant cost. While specific estimates of the cost of commercial mining remain unclear, similarities can be drawn between such programs and NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, which seeks to obtain samples from a near-earth asteroid named Bennu. Despite only being projected to return between 400 grams and 1 kilogram of material, the mission is projected to take 7 years and cost over US$1 billion. Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries were unable to finance themselves to meet such high development costs. Both companies were acquired by other businesses in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
Despite the high price tag, the development of asteroid mining technology may very well be a worthwhile endeavor due to the extremely valuable resources that asteroids have to offer. For example, Asterank, which measures the potential value of over 6,000 asteroids that NASA currently tracks, has determined that mining just the top 10 most cost-effective asteroids–that is, those that are both closest to Earth and greatest in value–would produce a profit of around US$1.5 trillion. There is also great potential for further expansion. One asteroid, 16 Psyche, has been reported to contain US$700 quintillion worth of gold, enough for every person on earth to receive about US$93 billion.Harvard International Review
Maybe the Psyche mission will save the day. Although, recent work indicates that the mineral treasure trove might be less than originally thought.
Better start rounding up the world’s best deep core drillers.
Meet the New Oil, Same as the Old Oil
Texas Sees Host of Oil and Gas Records
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Rigzone Staff
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Wednesday, October 18, 2023
Texas has seen a host of oil and gas related records recently, the Texas Oil & Gas Association’s (TXOGA) latest monthly energy economic analysis, which is prepared by the organization’s Chief Economist Dean Foreman, pointed out.
In the analysis, TXOGA estimated that, for the month of September, Texas saw its highest crude oil production rate ever, at 5.9 million barrels per day, and its highest natural gas production gross withdrawal figure ever, at 34.6 billion cubic feet per day.
[…]Rigzone
References
Cobalt – USGS Publications Warehouse. (n.d.). https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023-cobalt.pdf
Duncombe, J. (2022), The 2-year countdown to deep-sea mining, Eos, 103, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EO220040. Published on 24 January 2022.
Kireta, A. (2023, October 18). Copper Is Critical for America’s New Energy Economy. RealClearEnergy. https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/10/18/doe_is_right_copper_is_critical_for_americas_new_energy_economy_986948.html
U.S. Department of Energy, Critical Materials Assessment (2023). Retrieved October 19, 2023, from https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/doe-critical-material-assessment_07312023.pdf.
Yarlagadda, S. (2022, April 8). Economics of the Stars: The future of asteroid mining and the global economy. Harvard International Review. https://hir.harvard.edu/economics-of-the-stars/