Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-1-2020

Publication Title

Communications Earth & Environment

Publisher

Nature

First page number:

1

Last page number:

8

Abstract

Metal mining provides the elements required for the provision of energy, communication, transport and more. The increasing uptake of green technology, such as electric vehicles and renewable energy, will also further increase metal demand. However, the production lifespan of an average mine is far shorter than the timescales of mineral deposit formation, suggesting that metal mining is unsustainable on human timescales. In addition, some research suggests that known primary metal supplies will be exhausted within about 50 years. Here we present an analysis of global metal reserves that suggests that primary metal supplies will not run out on this timescale. Instead, we find that global reserves for most metals have not significantly decreased relative to production over time. This is the result of the replenishment of exhausted reserves by the further delineation of known orebodies as mineral exploration progresses. We suggest that environmental, social, and governance factors are likely to be the main source of risk in metal and mineral supply over the coming decades, more so than direct reserve depletion. This could potentially lead to increases in resource conflict and decreases in the conversion of resources to reserves and production.

Keywords

Mining; Mineral reserves; Renewable energy; Non-renewable metal

Disciplines

Earth Sciences | Geology

File Format

pdf

File Size

1.654 KB

Language

English

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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