600 billion dollars a year just to renovate the global electricity grid.
This is the optimistic estimate that results in being able to “connect” the demand for new, increasingly energy-intensive electrical equipment with the “supply” of energy coming from renewable production networks, especially wind and photovoltaic ones.
Furthermore, to produce electricity with sun and wind, more and more materials are and will be needed: copper, zinc, manganese, steel, aluminium, silicates and rare earths; these elements are found in mineral deposits.
A further challenge and problem will be to expand existing deposits and open new ones, with processes that can last up to fifteen years. The mineral intensity of the so-called ecological transition is in fact very high.
For a single megawatt of wind production capacity, for example, three to six tons of copper, about 5 tons of zinc, 800 kilos of manganese are needed. Not to mention the tons of steel and aluminum needed for the infrastructure.
A 10 megawatt wind tower can contain up to sixty tons of copper; analyzing the objectives of the 2030 agenda, which calls for increasing wind energy production capacity to 300 thousand megawatts, the resulting calculations lead to a request for 1.8 million tons of copper! And without counting the rest (networks and secondary support infrastructures).
How do countries position themselves in this critical scenario?
Energy Monitor examined which countries effectively exercise a certain degree of control over the mineral resources necessary for the transition, through their own companies that process strategic materials (copper, cobalt, lithium and manganese), internally or managed externally to their country of origin. origin.
It turns out that in addition to China which makes history in itself, the countries with the most control of mineral resources are, in order: Canada, USA, Great Britain, Australia and Mexico.
Overall, mining companies based in the four English-speaking countries control critical mineral production
equal to 1.62 billion tons per year!
The European Union is far behind, both because it does not have sufficient mineral reserves in its territory, and due to financial weakness and investments in these sectors carried out by a few noteworthy mining companies.
To conclude, a McKinsey report estimates the turnover to achieve zero emissions goals by 2050 at 276 trillion dollars (9,200 billion per year). This is more than double the global GDP (104 trillion).
We are talking about a sea of money that we will directly or indirectly be “forced” to shell out.
So what to do from this perspective?
While waiting for certain energy objectives to be reviewed and corrected as critical issues such as those listed emerge, we believe that the recovery, reuse and renewal of used industrial machinery and equipment can help in these years of transition so as not to lose, especially in our Country, that industrial fabric made up of SMEs and artisan businesses with limited budgets.
Our mission is precisely this: to facilitate and facilitate the needs of these companies in their production needs.
