Heavy Metal

Is an energy system transformation even possible?

All the copper ever mined — 700 million tonnes.

More than 7,000 years ago, humans first began mining copper. Since then, humans have mined more than 700 million tonnes. According to a fascinating study of the metals requirements of a net zero energy transition, the world will need to produce another 700 million tonnes of copper over the next 22 years.

~700 million tonnes of copper are implied by a net zero pathway over the next 22 years. That is equal to all of the copper ever mined over human history. Source: Geological Society of Finland.

The study, by Simon Michaux of the Geological Survey of Finland, does the math of “what a complete phase out of fossil fuels would entail” for metals production.¹ Here at THB we like it when people do the math — And, wow, the results are sobering about the massive scale of achieving net zero.

The Finnish study concludes:

The estimated total quantity of metals to manufacture one generation of renewable technology units to completely phase out fossil fuels (replace the existing system) is far larger than existing strategic thinking allows for. (p. 252)

What about the massive amounts of battery storage implied by a transition to large amounts of wind and solar electricity production?

Battery banks will not be useful for stationary power storage in large quantities, even though policy makers believe this is the most useful option to stabilize intermittent power grids (EMA 2020). The numbers presented in this study show that there are not enough mining production or mineral reserves to deliver enough metal to manufacture enough batteries to do this, where the majority of the metals would be needed to produce battery banks for power buffer delivery. . . To meet power grid stability requirements through season changes in solar radiance and the large swings of power production for wind power, a storage capacity of several months might be required, not just a few days. At the time of writing, there was no viable technology that could store such a large quantity of electricity for such a long time period. There may be no visible technology solution for viable long term power storage (Menton 2022), that could be constructed in the short term (the next 5 years). (p. 253)

The study is equally as pessimistic about pumped hydro and hydrogen as sources of backup to wind and solar. What does this pessimism mean for proposals to rapidly build out wind and solar?

This could mean that wind and solar power generation systems may not be viable in large networks with electrical engineering in their current form. This may change if the research being done in this area achieves a technology breakthrough. A useful breakthrough could be the development of an electrical engineering technology that can function with variable power supply. Variable frequency, current and voltage. (sic) If this was possible, then the requirement of a power buffer would be greatly reduced, or even removed entirely. That being stated, the outcomes of this study show that wind and solar are not viable to be the primary energy source for the next industrial era. It could be argued that batteries could be manufactured using something other than lithium-ion chemistry, with many substitution chemistries available (Corfe & Butcher 2022). Many of these substitution chemistries use minerals and metals that are genuinely abundant and are often found in industrial waste. (p. 253)

The image below shows the implied metals requirements for copper, nickel, and lithium, under different assumptions (the study discusses many more metals). In each panel the short black bar on the left shows total global mining production for 1990 to 2023. The bars to the right of the black bar show the metal requirements implied by different amounts of battery storage in a net zero energy system. Of the large blue bar on the right, representing 84 days of storage, the study says it “may well be still too small” to adequately buffer delivery of electricity.

Let’s have a deeper look at some of the study’s methodological details.

The study starts with the 1.5 degree Celsius pathway of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and proceeds to estimate what would be necessary to fully replace current global fossil fuel consumption and meet the future energy mix of the IRENA pathway. Michaux does not assess “whether the outcomes are practical or even possible.”

Of course, a similar exercise could be done with any proposed net zero pathway — and arguably should — to surface the real-world implications of typically opaque net zero proposals. I’d be particularly interested in the materials implications of a pathway that relies primarily on nuclear, rather than wind and solar.

The Finnish study explains that few net zero proposals consider the implied scale of the proposed energy system transformation (emphasis added):

Most the strategic documents to plan to phase out fossil fuels examined in this study, did not do an audit of the number technology units (cars, trucks, etc.), the physical work they did over a period of time, or the physical requirements to replace that capacity. There was no sense of the scale of the task before us to phase out fossil fuels. (p. 18)

A key starting point for the exercise is that technologies explored in the study need to either exist or expected to exist very soon:

A conceptual technology that is not yet viable but might be available on the market in 5 to 10 years’ time, was considered not useful. (p. 12)

An important implication of the study is that we simply do not at present have scalable technologies that would allow a net zero transition — despite frequent claims to the contrary.² Innovation and breakthroughs are necessary in many areas.

The task of quantifying the scale of the challenge is summarized in the very useful figures below for coal, natural gas, and petroleum.

The petroleum image above highlights its fundamental roles across modern society.

The study explains:

Most energy generated in a developed society is consumed in three basic applications: heat for manufacture (U.S. Department of Energy 2014), transport (ICE vehicles) and the generation of electricity. Electricity is to modern civilization what blood is to the human body (Schernikau & Smith 2023, Smil 2016a,b). Energy generation with the combustion of fossil fuels is very energy inefficient. More than 60% of the energy content is lost as heat in the energy generation process (Fig. 4). In Figure 4, the displayed efficiency is 38%, which would apply to the current coal station fleet of the European Union (where the current coal station fleet of United States is slightly more less efficient). However, natural gas combination cycles (efficiency of new systems >60%) and new technology coal plants (efficiency >45%) would have fewer thermal losses. (p. 20)

With respect to electricity, the study characterizes the additional electric power generation in the figure below.

The study, which has 296 pages, is densely filled with data and incredibly informative tables and figures.³ It is worth your time.

Bottom line: Always do the math — You might be surprised what you learn about what was previously assumed.

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1. Thanks to Leen Weijers, whose post at LinkedIn called my attention to the study.

2. I am happy to hear and even host at THB alternative perspectives that also do the math.

3. Among the many things I learned from the study:

• U.S. per capita gasoline consumption was ~1600 liters (~420 gallons), followed by Canada, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia.. China is ~80 liters, India ~18 liters (2018)

• The U.S. vehicle fleet was ~270 million, China ~230 million, and India ~29 million (2018)