| Barton states that the world isn’t just facing a shortage of critical minerals, but also a shortage of the capital required to dig new sources of the stuff outta the ground. “The mining industry has reduced its investments significantly since the 2015-2016 period … We’re hundreds of billions of dollars below what we need.”
According to the International Energy Agency, the measure of critical metals required for each kilowatt of generation capacity has risen by 50% since 2010. And then there's electric cars, which require six times more minerals than traditional fossil fuel vehicles. Our ambitions to decarbonize and electrify everything that moves will likely require more copper in the next 25 years than has ever been produced.
Barton says the mining industry needs to build trust and work on its PR skills. He adds that Rio itself had “caused our own problems” in 2020 after destroying rock shelters considered sacred by Aboriginal communities, a move Barton described as “terrible” and “embarrassing.” |