There is something almost antiquated about the wiring on any contemporary wind farm or battery plant construction site. There is copper everywhere. Spools of it. With the same tools their grandfathers used, workers are pulling it through conduits and electricians are stripping it back. Copper has an oddly futuristic job ahead of it for a metal that humans have been hammering since about 8,000 BCE. In a way, a material that existed before writing is being wired into the entire green economy.
It’s becoming more difficult to ignore the numbers. In 2023, the world’s demand for refined copper was close to 26 million tonnes; under any realistic net-zero scenario, the most reliable estimates place that number closer to 40 million tonnes by 2040. Demand could essentially double by 2035, according to S&P Global. Typically cautious in its wording, the International Energy Agency has begun to warn of a primary supply deficit as early as this year. Analysts feel that the math just doesn’t close. The world cannot be electrified unless the metal carrying the electrons is doubled.
| Topic Snapshot | Details |
|---|---|
| Subject | Global Copper Supply Deficit |
| Current Refined Demand (2023) | Nearly 26 million tonnes |
| Projected Demand by 2035 | Could double to roughly 50 million metric tons |
| Projected Demand by 2040 (Net-Zero Scenario) | Around 40 Mt of refined copper |
| Estimated Shortfall by 2030 | Up to 4.5 Mt (≈20% gap) under NZE pathway |
| IEA Projected Supply Gap by 2035 | Approximately 30% |
| Average Time to Develop a New Mine | 10 to 17 years |
| Decline in Average Ore Grades | Down roughly 40% |
| Copper in a Modern EV | About 80 kg per vehicle |
| Copper in an Offshore Wind Turbine | Up to 24 tons |
| Copper in a Commercial Aircraft | Up to 7.5 tons |
| Data Center Copper Demand Growth by 2050 | Expected to grow up to sixfold |
| Key Drivers | EVs, renewables, power grids, AI data centers |
| Primary Risk | Slowed energy transition, higher electrification costs |
The copper supply isn’t reacting as markets typically anticipate, which makes this awkward. In terms of commodities, the increase in mined output over a three-year period was a mere one million tons. Regulatory approvals for new copper mines are at their lowest point in fifteen years, according to Goldman Sachs. Building a mine takes a decade or two. The copper wouldn’t arrive in time for the 2030 climate targets, even if every government in the world approved new permits tomorrow morning. The delay has already been factored in.
The quality issue is another issue that receives less attention than it deserves. Over the past few decades, ore grades have decreased by about 40%. In order to extract less metal, miners are excavating more rock, which results in increased energy, water, and emissions per ton. The clean-energy narrative is uncomfortably complicated by this kind of detail. Decarbonization requires copper, but extracting it is getting more difficult and dirty—almost as if the metal is paying for the shift ahead of time.
And the picture of demand continues to grow. A few years ago, EVs were the clear culprit—each vehicle contained about 80 kg of copper, compared to about 30 in a combustion vehicle. It’s data centers now. The demand for copper in data centers is expected to increase sixfold by 2050 due to the AI build-out, which hardly anyone had on their copper bingo card three years ago. As this develops, it’s difficult to avoid the impression that every new technology that Silicon Valley applauds eventually finds its way onto the desk of a Chilean mining company.
Recycling will be beneficial. It already does; a significant portion of demand is met by secondary supply, and the World Resources Institute consistently notes, quite logically, that copper is one of the few metals that doesn’t deteriorate when reused. However, this kind of gap cannot be filled by recycling alone. The amount of old wiring that can be harvested is limited.
It’s genuinely unclear what will happen next. Prices will increase, most likely significantly. Research on substitutes, such as carbon nanotubes in some applications and aluminum in others, is progressing, albeit slowly. Similar to how they handle rare earths and lithium, governments are beginning to view copper as a strategic mineral. The question that no one really wants to address in public is whether any of that arrives quickly enough. It was always going to be difficult to make the change. It appears that copper may be the component that determines whether it occurs at all.
