The race to net zero emissions largely relies on the electric vehicle movement.
But with adoption of electric vehicles surging in the United States, there is one important piece of the puzzle that is often overlooked: copper.
Electric vehicles require incredible amounts of copper, whether it’s for energy storage, charging infrastructure or the production of new vehicles.
And it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find. Which means Majuba Hill Copper might be in the right place at the right time.
Context:
- The demand for copper is growing significantly faster than new supply is being produced on a global scale
- This imbalance has placed new found importance on existing copper discoveries, as bringing new mining discoveries and operations into production is a lengthy process
- Recent research from McKinsey predicts a copper shortfall as large as 50M tonnes by the end of this decade
Why it matters:
- The energy transition simply can not happen without copper and there is a enormous dislocation between supply and demand
- The United States Department Of Energy recently declared copper as a new critical material due largely to its importance in getting closer to net zero emissions
- In the absence of being able to rapidly scale up copper discoveries and producing mines, it is likely there will be a significant shift in copper prices as demand begins to ramp up globally
Going deeper:
- If the world wants to get to net zero emissions by the stated timeline of 2050, then there needs to be more copper mined in the next two decades than has been mined so far in the history of the world
By the numbers:
- On average, electric vehicles use about 4x more copper than fuel powered vehicles
- A Tesla Model S uses one full mile of copper just to connect the battery to all the electronics in the vehicle, and over 80kg of copper in total
- For Tesla to reach their production targets they would need roughly 9% of the world’s copper production per year
The intrigue:
- Majuba Hill sits just 120 miles northeast of Tesla’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) Gigafactory in Nevada
What’s next:
- Majuba Hill is located in northern Nevada in a renowned area for high grade metals and minerals with private property claims that span over 9000 acres
- Their latest technical report indicated that their initial exploration target may contain between 50M-100M tonnes of copper
- Majuba Hill plans to begin drilling imminently on their initial targets in Nevada
