A new report released today by Center of the American Experiment provides a stark warning that the minerals needed to achieve so-called net zero policies are either in short supply, made inaccessible by permitting delays and excessive regulations or controlled by our geopolitical enemies, especially China. Mission Impossible: Mineral Shortages and the Broken Permitting Process Put Net Zero Goals Out of Reach provides a sober assessment of the amount of minerals it will take to meet international, national and even local goals to get more and more of our energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar. Using data from a wide variety of sources including the International Energy Agency (IEA), the U.S. Geological Survey and the Electric Power Research Institute, the report “does the math” on the startling differences between supply and demand for the minerals necessary to meet net zero goals including copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth metals.
The data show that the minerals needed for electric vehicles and the lithium-ion batteries that power them are creating much of the soaring demand for minerals, calling into question the wisdom of the current push to completely electrify the transportation sector. According to the research, annual demand for electricity to meet the projected growth in electric vehicle use will increase from 11 terawatts in 2021 to 230 terawatts in 2030. However, permitting delays in building new electric generation capacity and transmission lines make it unlikely these power demands can be met.
Beyond electric vehicles, the report also discusses how the explosive growth of power-hungry artificial intelligence data centers and their demands for always available new energy will compete on a grid that is becoming less reliable due to the closure of 24/7 dispatchable power from coal and natural gas power plants that are being replaced by intermittent wind and solar power.
The report is co-authored by Debra Struhsacker and Sarah Montalbano. Struhsacker is a hardrock mining policy expert with over 30 years of hands-on experience with the environmental and public land laws and regulations pertaining to mineral exploration and mine development. She is a Certified Professional Geologist with the American Institute of Professional Geologists and a co-founder of the Women’s Mining Coalition. Montalbano is a policy fellow at Center of the American Experiment specializing in energy and environmental policy.
“It’s time for policymakers to recognize that the world cannot mine enough copper, the electricity metal, and other energy transition minerals fast enough to satisfy projected mineral demands making ambitious energy transition timelines impossible to achieve,” said report author Debra Struhsacker. “Government leaders need to reexamine their current energy transition goals and adjust them to fit minerals availability realities and fix the broken permitting process that is impeding domestic mining of energy transition minerals from the cleanest and safest mines in the world.”
One area of opportunity is the role Minnesota should play in supporting U.S. and global goals to achieve net zero because of northern Minnesota’s large undeveloped deposits of copper, nickel, and cobalt. Unfortunately, mining in Minnesota has been delayed by the Biden-Harris administration in Washington and Gov. Tim Walz in St. Paul.
“Leaders like Joe Biden and Tim Walz create these unreachable energy transition goals and then immediately sabotage them by denying permits and prohibiting mining on millions of acres of public lands,” added Sarah Montalbano of Center of the American Experiment.
The other major concern raised in the report the United States’ dependence on China to supply the minerals used in five key sectors that underpin every aspect of modern life: aerospace, defense, energy, telecommunications and electronics and transportation.
“The continued reliance on China for the minerals needed for our national security and economic well-being is both dangerous and unsustainable,” said American Experiment President John Hinderaker.
Key findings from the report include:
- Modern life requires mining: Each person in the U.S. uses more than 40,000 pounds of materials, minerals, metals, and fuels annually and over three million pounds during his or her lifetime.
- International, national and state-level policies based on the 2015 Paris Agreement are mandating changes in the composition of energy generation: The IEA’s Net Zero Emissions Scenario by 2050(NZE) adopts the Paris Agreement’s objectives to restrictglobal temperature rise to 1.5° C above preindustrial levels.
- The federal government and many U.S. states, including Minnesota, have enacted laws to try to meet the NZE objective: The U.S. is aiming to require 50 percent of all newpassenger vehicle sales be electric by 2030, and 100 percentelectric by 2050. Plans also call for replacing 24/7 dispatchable coal and natural gas powerplants with less dependablewind and solar energy facilities.
- Federal and state mandates to close coal and natural gas powerplants are threatening U.S. electricity grid reliability: Replacing always available power from coal and natural gas powerplants with weather-dependent and intermittentsolar and wind power systems has unwisely weakened thestrength and dependability of the U.S. electrical grid.
- A mandated energy transition would require numerous minerals: Copper is the linchpinbecause it is used in all electrical applications and renewableenergy technologies. Lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite areused to manufacture the lithium-ion batteries that power EVsand store energy. Rare earth elements are necessary for themagnets in wind turbines and EV motors. Solar panels use atleast eight minerals.
- The mineral intensity of electric vehicles is the largest driver of the skyrocketing demand for minerals: This isespecially true for copper because EVs use a lot more copper than gasoline-powered vehicles.
- Demand for minerals is also rising due to AI data centers: New pressures from AI data centers alongsiderenewable technologies are increasing demands for electricity and minerals. An estimated 115 percent more copperwill need to be mined between now and 2050 than has everbeen mined in human history just to meet business as usualdemands. Global vehicle electrification would require developing an additional 55 percent more mines than that baseline.The need for more mining is urgent and compelling.
- No form of energy comes without tradeoffs: All renewable and fossil fuel energy sources — wind and solar, hydropower, coal, natural gas, and nuclear — create environmental impacts. The impacts associated with renewable energy must be considered as a cost of meeting energy transition goals. These impacts include mining the minerals needed for wind turbines, solar panels, EV batteries, transmission lines, etc., and the enormous landscape footprints of utility-scale wind and solar projects that destroy plant and wildlife habitats on millions of acres of land.
- The U.S. is vulnerable because it is import-reliant for many critical minerals: Current tensions between the U.S.and China demonstrate the folly of relying so heavily ona potential adversary for minerals critical to U.S. nationalsecurity, economic prosperity, energy transition ambitions,the electric grid, and more.
- Mines in some countries exploit workers and cause serious environmental impacts: The Democratic Republic ofthe Congo, which produces 65 percent of the world’s cobalt,has mines where children work in hazardous conditions. InIndonesia, a major source of the world’s nickel, some minesemploy few if any environmental safeguards.
- Federal government policies stack the deck against U.S. mining and resource development: A recent array of rulesfrom the Biden-Harris administration’s Interior Department/Bureau of Land Management are creating serious conflicts between multiple uses of public lands and blocking morelands from consideration for natural resource exploration anddevelopment – including wind and solar projects. New Environmental Protection Agency rulesrequire coal and natural gas power plants to either employunproven and costly carbon-capture technologies or close,which threatens the stability of the nation’s electricity grid.
- Permitting delays slow down all types of important projects including the solar and wind, transmission line, and mining projects needed for the energy transition: Politicization of permitting decisions chills investment infinancing and building the infrastructure and mines requiredfor an energy transition.
- Minnesota is ground-zero for permitting hurdles: The Biden-Harris administration has obstructed timely development of two world-class copper, nickel, and cobalt deposits in Minnesota that could reduce the country’s reliance on foreign minerals and provide some of the key minerals needed to meet energy transition goals.
- Congress needs to enact permitting reforms: Lawmakers need to pass legislation to improve the permitting process so that proposed projects that meet all environmental protection requirements can be permitted more quickly and to limit obstructionists’ routine use of the judicial system to challenge agencies’ permitting decisions.
- Mineral shortages will make achieving Net Zero by 2050 impossible: Policymakers must take a more realistic approach to establishing energy transition timelines and goalsthat consider mineral intensity and how to use natural gasand nuclear baseload power generation as bridge fuels thatminimize CO2 emissions while maintaining reliable electricity grids.
- Minnesota and the U.S. have an important role to play in responsible domestic mining that can help provide the minerals we need for many purposes: Because Minnesota and theU.S. have stringent and comprehensive environmental protection and labor standards and regulations, they can producesome of the minerals needed to meet energy transition goalsand other uses from the cleanest and safest mines in theworld.
- Policymakers should assess ways to avoid and minimize the adverse impacts of an energy transition. This evaluation should take a hard look at whether it makes sense tocontinue to pursue the current scale and timeframe of theNZE energy transition, whether the transition needs to beslowed down to reduce impacts, or whether it should bepursued at all.
A copy of the complete report can be accessed here.