There is Not Enough Copper for Net Zero

I love it when politicians pass laws without thinking about reality, the laws of physics, or the constraints of engineering. If you want to electrify everything - every car, every house - then you need a lot of copper. More than we have. Geologists doubt Earth has the amount of copper needed to develop the entire world

This is the conclusion of some university professors. That people embedded in academia are willing to say that perhaps the emperor doesn't have any clothes, when it comes to net zero and electric cars, should be some indication of the scope of the problem.

A recent study led by University of Michigan earth and environmental scientist Adam Simon, together with colleagues at Cornell University and the University of Queensland, takes a hard look at how much of the metal will be required over the next generation.

While copper is not the only bottleneck, we can start there.

How much copper do we produce? Let's look at current production as a baseline.

For context, global mines turned out roughly 23 million metric tons in 2024 – barely two percent of what the world will burn through over the next twenty-five years.

Well, that sounds like a lot. Is it?

The number climbs higher when the researchers layer green-energy targets on top of everyday growth. Transitioning every passenger vehicle on the planet to electric power using copper-based materials, along with the necessary grid upgrades, pushes demand to 1,248 million metric tons.

Relying mostly on wind and solar power bumps the requirement to 2,304 million metric tons. Building a grid that stores energy in large-scale battery packs sends the tally soaring to 3 billion metric tons.

Meanwhile, emerging economies have their own copper bills to pay. India alone will need about 227 million metric tons to expand power lines, hospitals, and sanitation systems.

And for the people who find math hard, 23 million is less than 1 percent of 3 billion. And that 3 billion may really be 4 billion. You will need to read the article for that.

So what does it all mean? Net zero by 2050 is a pipe dream. Except when politicians, who know nothing about engineering, and haven't taken a science class in 40 years, have pipe dreams, they tend to pass laws with no basis in reality. They won't suffer, because governments and bureaucracies will make sure to take care of their own.

This is the MGUY Australia video There ain't enough COPPER for this Net Zero madness

Battery storage and wind and solar consume vast quantities of copper and yet this is the path many countries are still taking towards net zero.

So what if we can't achieve the (stupid) goals set by politicians without regard to reality of mineral production? Will they change those goals?

Will the politicians and the decision makers read this? Will Chris Bowen sit down and think carefully about the facts presented? Will Ed Milliband? Of course not! They're much happier staying high on the smell of their own farts, than considering the effects that the failure of net zero - and it will fail, it's just a question of when - will have on the poor, long-suffering population when electricity becomes a luxury item that is too expensive for many to afford. We will then have truly regressed to the stone age.

The video is 8 minutes.