The Prospector News Publisher, Michael Fox speaks with Dave Lawie the Chief Geoscientist at IMDEX. It is well know that as the world moves to decarbonization, the shortages of copper to power the new Green Energy are going to become more acute. On the day that world scientist suggest that we may reach the 1.5 degree tipping point sooner than expected, Michael and Dave examine the headwind pressures that are preventing us from getting more copper into production.

Statistics suggest we will need to build out 10 more of the biggest copper mines by 2030 to meet the increased demand for copper, yet there are issues that are strangling this expansion in the crib so to speak:

We have an aging workforce in the mining sector and not enough is being done to recruit and educate young people into the Mining engineering and geoscience fields. Western nations are grossing lagging behind this curve where China has identified this need and are graduating students in the thousands.

Gov’t are slow to issue mining permits delaying projects. More urgency is needed in the permitting process. In the United States that is just the start of the issues as once a permit is issued groups opposed can step forward to litigate that the permits should not have been issued.

The Mining Industry need to work more closely with the environmental movement to show we are part of the climate change solution not another problem that needs to be protested.

New technological breakthroughs (such as sulphide leeching) need to be worked on in order to process more ore economically from existing operations.

As discussed in the podcast these issues and more need to addressed in order to meet the future copper shortfalls

IMDEX