Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Skylar Swinford's avatar

For commenters concerned with the author's and the IEA's use of net-metals, I recommend investigating the Material Flow Analysis Portal compiled and maintained by WU Vienna rather than going the 'Armchair Expert' route of trying to extrapolate rock-to-metal ratios (which can easily be off by an order of magnitude).

The MFA portal provides great context of global materials flows based on gross ore values. When put to scale, the critical minerals for the energy transition are a relatively small slice of minerals, even when scaled up as required to meet the IEAs mineral demand projections in the Sustainable Development Scenario.

https://www.materialflows.net/visualisation-centre/raw-material-profiles/

Material Flow Analysis Portal data is sourced from the Global Material Flows Database of the UN International Resource Panel.

The Global Material Flows Database technical annex provides detailed descriptions of the data sources and methods used. For example page 18 explains how gross ore is calculated for metals. “Estimation of gross ore from data on net-metal contents MFA standards however require that metal extraction should be accounted for on a run-of-mine ore basis, i.e., total ore extracted for further processing and concentration.” “in cases where only data on net metal content are reported, the application of factors to compensate for lose in recovery, as well as basic ore grades (metal concentration in ore), are required in order to transform reported net metal content values into gross ore equivalents.”

https://resourcepanel.org/sites/default/files/technical_annex_for_global_material_flows_database_-_vers_30_aug22.pdf

2019 Global Extraction Context (Gross Ore)

Fossil Fuels 15,882,230,265 tonnes

Copper Ore 2,682,164,417 tonnes

Gold Ore 2,101,223,327 tonnes

Nickel Ore 190,546,057 tonnes

Silver Ore 164,379,430 tonnes

Manganese Ore 56,588,591 tonnes

Lithium Ore 2,281,485 tonnes

I can provide a link of the data in a spreadsheet with a more detailed breakdown that includes biomass and non-metallic minerals, if anyone is interested.

Expand full comment
Philip Ward's avatar

Studies like the one from the IEA are all very well, but to me they indicate the need to keep resource use to a minimum required to meet the needs of everyone on the planet, which includes stringent efforts to protect the environment. This means not replacing every fossil fuel motor vehicle or other technology with its EV equivalent but looking to replace individual consumption with common or public provision. This is a political and not a technological question and requires removing the excessive wealth of a large number of people so that they do not continue to trash the planet and threaten the lives and livelihoods of the rest of us. Perhaps that can be best summed up as pursuing a path of degrowth.

I think this article underestimates the environmental effects of mineral mining. The link below says that mining creates 14 billion tonnes of tailings every year. This is the mass that should be comapred, not that of the final product. Some of the nastiest tailings come from aluminium extraction. It's odd that this article says than "aluminium is a metal, not a mineral". The same applies to cobalt, chromium, silver etc. and all metals except gold, silver, mercury, platinum etc. are not found in native form but extracted from minerals. To continue with aluminium as an example: it is extracted from the mineral bauxite and leaves very alkaline, toxic tailings. There was a devastating pollution incident involving them in Hungary a few years back. Extraction is also very energy intensive, requiring high temperatures and a lot of electrical energy. This raises the question of whether aluminium is put to good use or wasted on fripperies like soft drinks, whether production could be cut by rationing flying. This, is the kind of question that needs to be raised when challenging climate change and the biodiversity crisis. As I said above, this is about politics and only secondarily a technical issue.

https://globaltailingsreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GTR-TZH-compendium.pdf

Late correction: I found the link above in an academic paper and took the quote they gave of 14 billion tonnes of tailings as good coin. My bad - the figure (actually 14.9 bn tonnes) comes from copper mining alone, but is not tailings which are the waste AFTER extraction of the metal from the ore and are the most polluting part of the process. To quote "tailings are the waste materials left after the target mineral is extracted from ore. They consist of crushed rock, water, trace quantities of metals such as copper, mercury, cadmium, zinc, etc. [and] additives used in processing, such as petroleum by-products, sulfuric acid and cyanide'. This is often stored in large ponds like the one in Hungary mentioned earlier. Estimated annual production of tailings 8.85 bn tonnes, of which copper extraction generates about 40%

Along with tailings you have the amounts of earth and rock waste (72 bn tonnes annually), plus the ore-containing rock which is milled, 18 bn tonnes. The actual amount of ore that is then chemically/electrolytically treated is just over 10 bn tonnes.

I think the amount of earth/rock dug away should be a consideration when looking at environmental damage and biodiversity. I should add, that this is only for extraction of the commodities listed below. Left out are things like limestone, sand, aggregate and clay e.g. for cement, concrete, brick and glass production and for road building.

Commodities listed in the study above:

Copper

Gold

Iron Ore

Coal

Phosphate

Lead-Zinc

Nickel

Platinum Group Elements

Bauxite

Uranium

Chromium

Molybdenum

Tin

Vanadium

Manganese

Niobium

Rare Earths

Lithium

Expand full comment
23 more comments...

No posts