Do you think this material will become more valuable than
gold and oil?
Copper is fluctuating today after reaching A7 month high on
Wednesday.
There was a very strong argument for copper prices.
So is copper the new gold?
We think if copper stops existing,
our future will be much harder and more expensive to
live in.
But it's not what you think.
Copper has always been playing a part in developing our
societies,
starting from the Bronze Age.
It happened because blacksmiths managed to forge out copper with
tin,
and now you can find copper basically everywhere in smartphones,
blenders and even cars.
But what's the reason behind its huge success?
Simple copper happened to be one of the most useful
and affordable conductors of electricity.
Not only that, but copper alloys are also used to
mix with other resources and create more robust materials.
But what makes it really stand out from all other
materials
is its ability to be reused multiple times.
Nearly all the copper remains in active circulation,
and as a matter of fact,
we don't even need to mine it.
According to the studies, only
12% of copper was mined throughout the world,
and it's enough to make practically everything.
But this image might change really soon.
What will happen if copper becomes scarce?
Will it have dire consequences on our economy?
Will copper become the new oil?
Back in May of 2021,
investment bank Goldman Sachs released a note calling copper the
new oil,
and they expect the prices of copper to jump from
$9000 to over
$20,000 per ton. Experts from Goldman Sachs are not far
from the truth.
Their opinion is based on the current trend of electrifying
and decarbonizing the world.
As we mentioned before, copper is one of the most
affordable conductors of electricity,
which makes it more appealing to green tech and electric
vehicle companies.
As large car companies like BMW and Tesla are producing
more electric vehicles,
they need significantly more copper.
And the more green tech companies plant solar panels and
wind turbines,
the more copper they'll need.
And we have numbers to back up this claim.
Let's look at this graph.
As you can see, a regular gas car needs 50
lbs of copper to be made.
But its counterpart, a full battery electric car,
requires a stunning 83 kilograms of copper because of more
rotors than its electric engine.
And EV companies are already looking to shorten their consumption
of this material.
Look no further, Elon Musk stated that Tesla is changing
the makeup of their battery packs to cut copper usage
in their E VS
first approximation that that means we need only about 1/4
as much copper
for in in the in the car as would be
needed for a 12 Volt battery.
Same with power grids. Each year,
countries around the world lay thousands of miles of new
power grids and replace the old ones.
If the trend of electrifying continues,
we'll need to use up 13 million tons of copper
by 20-30.
Unlike today's expenses of eight tons,
the power grid is an astonishing #1 consumer of copper.
If we want power grids to transition the renewable energy,
we must give more copper to the producers of this
energy.
For example, a single solar power plant needs
5.5 tons of copper per MW of power generation.
And the windmills? They can't generate energy without
4.7 tons of copper per MW.
As we move to a decarbonized world,
we're putting you to the sea in the periodic table,
and we need to pay a big price for it.
But what if we told you
we shouldn't be worried about it at all?
The shortage doesn't mean we're running out of copper.
In fact, we have plenty of it in reserves.
But it's the mining industry and recycling infrastructure that need
to accelerate their production and meet the growing demand for
this wonder material.
If they meet the demand,
the prices will go low like before.
But if they don't, we'll find a better alternative.
Either way, we humans will always find a way to
a cleaner future for the next generations.