Future availability of non-renewable metal resources and the influence of environmental, social, and governance conflicts on metal production

• Published in: Communications earth & environment Vol. 1; no. 1; pp. 1 - 8
• Main Authors: Jowitt, Simon M., Mudd, Gavin M., Thompson, John F. H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01-09-2020; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 4014/159; 704/172; 704/2151/213/4115; Availability; Clean technology; Depletion; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Electric vehicles; Environment; Environmental governance; Mineral deposits; Mineral exploration; Mineral reserves; Replenishment; Reserves
• ISSN: 2662-4435; 2662-4435
• DOI: 10.1038/s43247-020-0011-0

Metal mining provides the elements required for the provision of energy, communication, transport and more. The increasing uptake of green technology, such as electric vehicles and renewable energy, will also further increase metal demand. However, the production lifespan of an average mine is far shorter than the timescales of mineral deposit formation, suggesting that metal mining is unsustainable on human timescales. In addition, some research suggests that known primary metal supplies will be exhausted within about 50 years. Here we present an analysis of global metal reserves that suggests that primary metal supplies will not run out on this timescale. Instead, we find that global reserves for most metals have not significantly decreased relative to production over time. This is the result of the replenishment of exhausted reserves by the further delineation of known orebodies as mineral exploration progresses. We suggest that environmental, social, and governance factors are likely to be the main source of risk in metal and mineral supply over the coming decades, more so than direct reserve depletion. This could potentially lead to increases in resource conflict and decreases in the conversion of resources to reserves and production.
Future availability of metals is likely to be constrained primarily by environmental, social and governance factors, according to an analysis of reserve, resource and production figures which show that supply has matched demand over the last 60 years