B.C. mining and the uncertain clean energy transition

Mining companies are currently taking more metals and minerals out of the ground than at any other point in human history. That demand is in a large part due to the clean energy transition, which will have a big impact on the supply and discovery of critical materials, with an influence that will be felt for at least the next three decades. But while experts are confident that metal and mineral use will increase, there are a large amount of unknowns in the mining industry — including what deposits will actually be required. 

B.C. is Canada’s largest exporter of coal — a commodity with declining demand as more economies shift to non-fossil fuels — as well as a leading producer of copper, and the country’s only producer of molybdenum. Also mined are significant amounts of gold, silver, lead, and zinc, and more than 30 industrial minerals including gypsum, magnesite, limestone, and dimension stone. The majority of B.C.’s top mining companies, though, concentrate on metal and mineral digging outside of the country — like the Vancouver-headquartered China Gold International Resources Corporation, Filo Corporation, and Teck Resources — meaning that the B.C. sector is beholden to international mining trends as much as its domestic necessities.

“In a person’s lifetime, they’ll use products that require 381 kilograms of lead, getting on for more than half a kilo of lithium, five-and-a-half-thousand tons of phosphate, quite a lot of gold, quite a lot of copper, and so on,” says Simon Jowitt, director of the Ralph J. Roberts Center for Research in Economic Geology at the University of Nevada, speaking at Vancouver’s Association for Mineral Exploration (AME) Roundup conference. “This is just the minimum intensity of everyday life. The things we consider routine these days are very mineral and metal intensive, and that intensity is just going to increase further as we move toward the energy transition. Some of these commodities, they’re getting on for 10 or 20 times more than we mined in the 1950s.”

The Province of British Columbia is currently in the process of attempting to develop a critical minerals strategy, which it says will help mitigate climate change, grow the provincial economy, and ensure resilient supply chains to partner nations. What that document ultimately lays out, however, will be influenced by a number of unknowns. 

Across the world, shifting uncertainty over politics and policy, as well as changing national leaderships, will lead to different climate or tech agendas. Green technologies themselves are subject to change — one particular method for generating clean energy, for example, might unexpectedly take off around the world, or there may be yet-to-be-imagined technologies which become integral to day-to-day life which are metal and mineral intensive. Forecasters must also contend with the fact that the composition of components like batteries are not consistent. Plus, different countries and regions place more stock on some materials over others.

While Jowitt suggests that if he knew what minerals and metals would be needed to secure the world’s future he “would be living on a tropical island somewhere” rather than teaching at a university, he highlights a number of factors that forecasting entities like the B.C. government should consider.

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