Electrification Gained’t Crash On Copper: Debunking Newest Claims

The April 2025 paper by Cathles and colleagues in SEG Discovery, Copper: Mining, Improvement, and Electrification, analyzing international copper provide constraints within the context of electrification and renewable power, is quickly turning into influential in business and coverage circles. You will need to carefully scrutinize its assertions and underlying assumptions, because it might inadvertently form future funding selections and coverage instructions in ways in which may impede quite than assist the worldwide power transition.

Why? It’s off by an element of 100 at minimal on copper necessities for power storage. It’s off by a much less egregious however nonetheless giant issue on copper necessities for electrical automobiles. It ignores substitutability of copper with aluminum and different supplies, and the zero-copper sodium-ion batteries more and more being deployed, and as an alternative leans right into a copper maximalist answer as if it have been the one answer. Then it underplays copper recycling by a substantial quantity as properly, maximizing the brand new mining required. Its conclusions aren’t remotely credible in consequence.

To start with, the authors assume electrical automobiles will at all times require round 80 kg of copper per automobile, positioning themselves on the excessive finish of present business utilization. Electrical automobiles have traditionally contained between 60 and 80 kg of copper, unfold throughout battery packs, wiring harnesses, and electrical motor windings. Whereas copper’s excessive conductivity makes it an apparent selection, it’s more and more clear that innovation and smarter design can dramatically scale back this dependence.

Oddly, in a 2024 paper he used 60 kg per automobile, but on this paper he used 80 kg. It’s clear he and his co-authors have been contemplating the completely worst case state of affairs, not a remotely reasonable one.

A spread of rising applied sciences and methods imply that electrical automobiles will push copper necessities as little as 20 to 30 kg per automobile, maybe decrease. As an example, shifting to higher-voltage architectures (800 volts or better) reduces the mandatory cable thickness, saving 6-10 kg of copper per automobile. Porsche Taycan, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, Lucid Air, and numerous upcoming fashions from GM and Ford all embody this.

Tesla and GM are already proving the viability of aluminum wiring, slicing copper use by 10-15 kg per automobile in wiring harnesses. The wires are lighter and cheaper, however barely thicker and barely much less environment friendly at conducting electrical energy, with the top consequence being a web total acquire.

Additional good points are achievable by built-in battery architectures, comparable to cell-to-pack or cell-to-chassis designs, pioneered by Tesla’s 4680 and BYD’s Blade batteries. These configurations get rid of intermediate wiring, lowering copper utilization by as a lot as 10 kg per automobile. Whereas the 4680s are prone to be a useless finish, BYD’s Blade batteries are very a lot on the street.

Superior motor designs, together with axial-flux motors or aluminum-based windings, additionally promise to slash copper necessities by as much as 50% in comparison with conventional radial motors, offering one other 8-10 kg benefit.

Busbar optimization is one other sensible lever to considerably scale back copper consumption in electrical automobiles. Main battery producers comparable to CATL, BYD, and LG Vitality Resolution are already deploying improved busbar designs, together with optimized geometries, enhanced thermal administration, and more and more, aluminum and composite supplies. These improvements alone can realistically get rid of 5 to eight kg of copper per battery pack, contributing on to lighter, cheaper, and sustainable electrical automobile manufacturing.

When coupled with larger energy-density battery chemistries, together with silicon-rich anodes and rising solid-state cells, the general battery pack measurement shrinks, additional trimming copper necessities. There are already 300 wH/kg LFP batteries in the marketplace, and 500 wH/kg is commercially accessible from CATL in the present day. That’s one other 5-8 kg per battery.

Changing conventional wiring harnesses with wi-fi communications programs inside electrical automobiles provides a sensible path to additional copper discount. Corporations like Aptiv and Bosch are already deploying zonal architectures and wi-fi management applied sciences that drastically simplify wiring. By eliminating intensive harnesses beforehand required to attach sensors, management items, and actuators, wi-fi approaches can realistically trim one other 5 to 10 kg of copper per automobile, streamlining meeting processes and lowering materials prices.

Improvements in thermal administration programs current additional copper-saving alternatives. Tesla’s Octovalve cooling design is an instance of this shift, utilizing aluminum and composite plastic supplies as an alternative of conventional copper-based cooling circuits. Such options, with superior supplies and optimized warmth switch applied sciences, can simply take away an extra 2 to five kg of copper per automobile.

These incremental improvements aren’t theoretical. They’re in automobiles in the present day, eradicating copper necessities. The extra copper is a constraint, the extra of those can be used. The answer to restricted availability of copper is excessive copper costs. The chances are high that copper per EV can be 1 / 4 or lower than Cathles et al. conclude.

That is earlier than we get to advances in labs, the place huge quantities of consideration is being paid to rising efficiencies, lowering prices, and substituting supplies. A latest advance in carbon nanotube (CNT) coil expertise developed by the Korea Institute of Science and Expertise might considerably scale back copper demand in electrical motors. By utilizing liquid-crystal–purified CNT coils that may energy a motor with none metallic, researchers have demonstrated steady rotational management in an precise motor, providing a light-weight, high-efficiency various to conventional copper winding. If this pans out, that might get rid of the 10-25 kg in electrical motor winding as properly, successfully eradicating copper constraints totally from the equation.

As a word on this, Cathles ought to perceive not less than the fundamentals of innovation. He’s been concerned in fracking his whole tutorial profession, and the advances in horizontal drilling, supplies, drill heads, management programs and the like that unlocked the shale revolution he desires local weather motion to rely closely on didn’t exist. In fact, most of these advances have been a lot smaller increments over for much longer intervals of time than electrification cycles permit, so he and his co-authors might imagine that discount of copper, if attainable, would take many years.

What are the authors arguing for as an alternative? Hybrid automobiles that proceed to burn fossil fuels. Options which burn fossil fuels, simply much less of them, are a characteristic of Cathles’ most well-liked answer set, making it a non-starter as an actual local weather answer.

The paper additionally makes unsupportable assumptions concerning the copper depth of renewable power programs, notably concerning grid-scale storage. Cathles’ eventualities envision huge arrays of lithium-ion batteries deployed globally offering 5 full days of power storage to handle the intermittency of photo voltaic and wind era, inherently a copper-intensive answer.

In doing so, the authors neglect sensible, lower-copper options like pumped hydro storage, thermal storage, and more and more subtle demand-response and smart-grid administration approaches. Pumped hydro, already comprising over 95% of worldwide grid-scale power storage capability, makes use of a fraction of copper per megawatt-hour than lithium-ion battery storage and has ample untapped international potential.

International locations worldwide proceed to quickly broaden pumped hydro storage exactly due to its cost-effectiveness and decrease useful resource depth. China is one of the best instance of this, in fact. It has 365 GW, seemingly about 14 TWh of pumped hydro in operation, in development in the present day or in plan to start out development by 2030. As I preserve noting, the ANU closed loop, off-river pumped hydro international GIS examine discovered 100 occasions the useful resource capability for all power storage globally.

Thermal seasonal storage is already a properly established answer in a number of international locations as properly, with aquifers beneath floor focused with the identical directional drilling that enabled fracking being injected with warmth in the summertime and chilly within the winter utilizing trendy warmth pumps to deice runways and supply business and residential warmth. Manufactured insulated reservoirs and section change materials are getting used for seasonal thermal storage as properly. An unlimited quantity of the power necessities Cathles’ et al. lean upon with their copper maximalist place is for warmth, and there are various approaches accessible for it.

The necessities for battery storage aren’t going to be the absurd 5 days they assert and gained’t even come near a day. Whereas a budget worth of battery power storage programs (BESS) means that they will be extra dominant as a storage answer than I anticipated in my first projection of grid storage necessities from just a few years in the past, the requirement is shifting to power, not energy, and that can favor programs which decouple the 2. To present them the advantage of the doubt, let’s assume that they’re solely off by an element of 5 when it comes to battery necessities.

The identical improvements which might be dropping copper necessities in electrical automobiles are already dropping copper necessities in grid battery power storage programs. China’s LFP BESS public sale in December for 16 GWh of storage closed at a mean of $66 / kWh for 20 years of put in, operated, and maintained storage. That was achieved by plastic wrapping cells with a easy bus structure excessive in aluminum dropped on prime of the cells. Thermal administration with LFPs is way much less of a priority than with lithium-ion, so as soon as once more decreased copper. A variety of the copper in EV battery backs, motors, and management programs simply doesn’t exist in BESS farms.

Sodium-ion battery cells stand out as an more and more compelling various for grid-scale power storage, primarily as a consequence of their inherently low value, ample uncooked supplies, and critically, their potential to get rid of copper totally on the cell stage. Not like lithium-ion chemistries, which rely closely on copper present collectors, sodium-ion batteries can comfortably use aluminum present collectors on each electrodes, successfully driving the copper content material near zero. Given these strengths, sodium-ion battery storage programs are poised to achieve vital market share.

Is there anything concerning sodium-ion batteries price contemplating? Sure, a number of producers are launched EVs with them, albeit at present brief vary ones. The chemistry has lots of benefits, and present power densities are prone to improve into the identical vary, round 250 wH/kg because the lithium-ion batteries Tesla makes use of in lots of its automobiles. As soon as once more, plummeting copper necessities from EVs.

Returning to grid storage, that leaves solely the copper within the BESS to be accounted for. With aggressive substitution of aluminum for copper all through your entire battery power storage system, the copper content material could be decreased dramatically, usually right down to lower than 0.2% of the full balance-of-system (BOS) mass.

What do Cathles’ et al. use?

10%, the norm for a lithium-ion battery which is already a minor case in grid storage. Off by a conservative issue of 5 in battery necessities and off by an element of 20 or so in copper necessities. That’s off by two orders of magnitude with applied sciences which might be confirmed, scaled, and deployed in the present day, not magic. The authors clearly weren’t in search of causes that they is likely to be mistaken, or reasonable eventualities based mostly on deployed options, however for an absurd worst case state of affairs.

As soon as once more, the answer to restricted availability of copper is excessive copper costs.

Whereas it’s inconceivable to type out the idea of the paper’s assumptions about copper necessities per energy plant kind as they don’t spell out how they arrive at them, the ratio of onshore to offshore wind copper demand leaps out. The belief I make is that they’re assuming lots of copper core HVDC and different transmission to carry the wind power to market. As soon as once more, they’re ignoring substitutability with aluminum. Trendy transmission makes use of carbon fiber cores with annealed aluminum conductors, not metal and copper, as a result of it’s lighter, warmth resistant, and doesn’t sag, permitting rather more energy with the identical variety of pylons. As a proof level, Pakistan with its excessive warmth has reconductored vastly extra of its present transmission and distribution infrastructure than North America or Europe has. TCS finds that new-build transmission within the developed world is cheaper with their trendy cables as a result of fewer pylons are required. The opposite multipliers for copper necessities are merely suspect.

One other essential assumption the paper underplays is copper recycling. The authors conservatively assume recycling charges will plateau round 35% by 2050. This assumption stands in sharp distinction to authoritative business and coverage forecasts. A number of revered organizations, together with BHP, the Worldwide Vitality Company, and McKinsey, have highlighted the rising viability and chance of considerably larger recycling charges in response to technological enhancements, regulatory incentives, and rising copper costs.

Recycling programs are steadily turning into extra environment friendly, notably in high-value industries like electronics and automotive manufacturing, with achievable recycling charges doubtlessly reaching 45% to 50% by mid-century. This larger recycling potential considerably mitigates projected main copper mining calls for, presenting a far much less constrained future than the authors recommend.

Once more, the answer to restricted availability of copper is excessive copper costs.

I didn’t hassle to evaluate the claims of copper reserves and sources. I think that there can be much more errors there that maximize the issue. I mentioned minerals availability at size with international main knowledgeable on the topic lately, Gavin Mudd, director of the centre for essential minerals intelligence on the British Geological Survey (half 1, half 2). We agreed that the pessimists have been mistaken and that whereas creating mines and maximizing recycling have been constraints, they weren’t remotely insurmountable.

It’s helpful to contextualize the first writer’s background when evaluating the paper’s assumptions. Lawrence Cathles is a revered geoscientist with intensive expertise in useful resource geology and fluid move modeling, sustaining a excessive tutorial popularity all through his profession. Nonetheless, round 30% of Cathles’ substantial publication file relates on to fossil gasoline extraction, together with hydraulic fracturing and shale gasoline growth.

He notably co-authored a widely-cited critique of Robert Howarth’s seminal 2011 examine on methane leakage from fracked pure gasoline manufacturing. Howarth’s analysis demonstrated alarmingly excessive methane emissions from shale gasoline operations, difficult claims that pure gasoline was considerably higher for the local weather than coal. Cathles, in response, argued that methane leakage was considerably overstated, a place that subsequent intensive empirical analysis has repeatedly known as into query.

Research since constantly discover considerably larger methane leakage charges than business claims throughout the worth chain from extraction to distribution to make use of, severely undermining the local weather credentials of pure gasoline. My earlier analyses have demonstrated the persistent sample of underestimating methane emissions in official business and authorities inventories, highlighting the extreme local weather dangers posed by widespread reliance on pure gasoline. My work with an EU-Canada dialogue on methane emissions reductions from the fossil gasoline business made it clear to me that the business has no clue how a lot methane is leaking or the place with out rigorous inspection and monitoring that they aren’t doing.

The above chart is the official illustration per US business information. There are a few factors to know about it. The primary is that by itself it eliminates the CO2 reductions of switching from coal to pure gasoline in america. The second is that it’s most likely mistaken for the USA particularly by an element of two. Norway’s numbers I principally belief as they engineered their programs to nearly get rid of leakage and venting from the beginning, and have rigorous monitoring and verification measures in place.

Cathles’ arguments middle on what he considers pragmatic useful resource utilization, advocating nuclear energy and pure gasoline as extra viable, resource-efficient paths than speedy, renewable-heavy methods. His place just isn’t outright anti-renewable; quite, he emphasizes warning concerning perceived useful resource constraints and advocates slower, extra measured transitions involving established fossil and nuclear infrastructure. That he’s mistaken doesn’t imply he isn’t honest.

Whereas affordable warning is certainly warranted concerning copper and different minerals, Cathles’ biases towards fossil gasoline infrastructure seem to overly form a few of his coverage suggestions. Pure gasoline, if methane emissions have been genuinely managed at scale, one thing not often achieved in apply, will certainly play a restricted transitional function, providing clear benefits over coal in emissions and air pollution discount. Nonetheless, given repeated empirical demonstrations of persistent methane leaks, advocating gasoline as a central local weather answer stays deeply problematic.

Cathles and colleagues selected to publish their paper in SEG Discovery, knowledgeable commerce journal sponsored by the Society of Financial Geologists. SEG Discovery is respected and credible inside the financial geology neighborhood however is explicitly not a rigorously peer-reviewed tutorial journal. This distinction issues tremendously. Educational peer overview usually challenges elementary assumptions like per-vehicle copper content material, recycling potential, and missed options comparable to pumped hydro or aluminum substitution, seemingly resulting in extra nuanced and reasonable eventualities. Whereas SEG Discovery’s business orientation facilitates speedy and sensible dissemination, it bypasses the extreme scrutiny and refinement peer overview would provide.

My assumption is that no peer reviewed journal would publish the paper and that it has a string of rejections as a consequence of its apparent failings. As such, they settled for a commerce journal publication that appears like a peer-reviewed one. It’s definitely being handled that method in discussions, which is unlucky. Nonetheless, they may even have selected to publish there as a result of it’s extra extensively learn in business and coverage circles, so their arguments and opinions would attain a broader viewers. It’s definitely getting much more consideration than it deserves.

Initially I believed this paper was higher than Simon Michaux’ extremely dangerous 275 pages of blatantly mistaken modeling of the worldwide power system and supplies necessities. The conclusions weren’t as faulty. I wrote about all of the dangerous assumptions and defective logic in that turgid mess a few occasions, most lately when the Finnish Geological Survey made the error of taking it from a weblog put up on their web site to publishing it of their theoretically peer reviewed home journal, giving it a veneer of respectability it merely doesn’t benefit.

Nonetheless, the extra I dug into the underpinnings of Cathles’ et al paper, the extra I discovered Michaux’ work being referenced as if it have been credible. Certainly, most of the assumptions within the underlying spreadsheet fashions are lifted instantly from Michaux’ nonsense.

“Determine 2E exhibits that the elevated mining could be 2.4 ATTMs per 12 months (twice the business-as-usual) if solely 30% of the noncarbon electrical energy era is nonnuclear and the wind and photo voltaic variability is managed by 5 days’ price of battery storage (nearly definitely woefully insufficient; Michaux, 2024b).”

The outcomes of the brand new paper weren’t as ludicrous mistaken as Michaux’ as a result of the authors constrained themselves to what they thought they may justify, which as I famous is totally mistaken, however they clearly agree with Michaux.

I spent extra time and power on this dissection of Cathles’ et al. as a result of it’s extra harmful than Michaux’ nonsense. He’s a long run doomer crank and sole writer, an knowledgeable on the mud from mining explosives with a historical past of crying wolf about sources. The three authors of this new paper have good observe information, and Cathles’ h-index of 49 lends him respect. Sadly, with this paper he seems to be destroying his legacy.

Cathles’ examine raises no worthwhile considerations about copper provide dangers and the dimensions of mining growth required for electrification. Policymakers and business leaders certainly want to acknowledge and plan for vital mineral demand development. The paper is off by an element of 100 on power storage copper demand and off by a lesser however nonetheless very giant issue on EVs. It overstates renewables copper necessities and understates recycling. It’s most likely utilizing lowball estimates for copper reserves as properly.

Coverage makers and business leaders must be ignoring this contribution from Cathles et al. It merely feeds the wants of the fossil gasoline business and the nuclear foyer, not knowledgeable resolution making.