It’s no secret that the world needs more energy, and those needs will only grow, barring some cataclysmic event. The need drives a lot of people to seek out new and different energy sources, but this option doesn’t consider basic routing nor what’s required to transmit that energy from source to use. (Read: infrastructure. Specifically, wiring).
The energy infrastructure needed to transmit power is not keeping pace with production capabilities. Many energy projects are delayed or put on hold due to grid connection difficulties. In the Enspired newsletters, I’ve reviewed a few instances of companies circumventing such shortcomings by moving their power source closer to the end use or vice versa, but wiring is still necessary to physically carry the electrons from place to place. The material of choice for most of that wiring is copper.
Copper is also a material of choice for plumbing. Lead-lined pipes are obviously not ideal, and the negative relationship between micropastics and health are driving PVC pipes out of favor where copper is available.
Adam Simon, a University of Michigan professor of earth and environmental sciences, led a research team that concluded the projected need for copper falls far short of what is currently mined. Simon’s team examined two scenarios: what’s needed to continue the electric transition in developed nations and what’s needed to build infrastructure in the developing world.
To sum up the team’s findings (see sidebar), continuing the green transition requires more than 6 billion metric tons of copper. Bringing up parts of the developing world will also require just more than 1 billion metric tons of copper. Companies mined about 23 million metric tons of copper in 2024 – the math ain’t mathin’ in our favor.
Simon and his team aren’t the only ones looking at this problem. Liz Dennett, founder and CEO of Colorado-based mining startup Endolith, also realized this shortage and set out to use a combination of AI and microbes to increase copper yields from low-grade ores.
“The lack of available copper during the next 25 years is what is keeping me awake at night,” Dennett said.
And it’s getting worse. Not only is demand likely to increase, but ores are less dense in the minerals needed. “In the past 100 years, ore grades have fallen from 3 percent to 0.7 percent,” she explained. While many oil and gas geoscientists recognize it can take several years to shift from oil discovery to drilling, mining’s timelines are much longer.
“It typically takes 10 to 16 years from discovery of a new mine to first ore,” Dennett said.
Endolith started looking at lithium and copper, but they switched gears to focus on “squeezing every drop of copper out of existing deposits.”
How does Dennett’s team do it?
Typically, mining companies will pile and crush low-grade ores to extract copper. Endolith grows its microbes onsite and uses AI to continually monitor the microbes’ progress as they break down low-grade ores and recover copper.
“Our whole system is designed to be plug and play, where we grow the microbes onsite and are able to deploy them to get … between 30 and 90 percent more copper,” Dennett said. She added, “We’re able to then use AI for predictive optimization, and then couple that with some of the genomics pieces as well to really turn it into a flywheel,” referencing the company’s ability to select and deploy different microbes based on their biomolecular properties.
Endolith’s approach could enable the industry to get more out of existing resource hubs, which might mean potential for a big shift – similar to the way hydraulic fracturing and enhanced oil recovery changed oil and gas. It seems that it’s a lot more efficient to try to pull more from what we have than hunt entirely new areas to mine. I’m optimistic and hopeful here.
The company’s work has only been deployed in lab settings thus far, but Endolith has caught the attention of Australian multinational mining company BHP and the world’s second-largest mining company, Rio Tinto. Dennett’s team is working on getting out of the lab to launch its first field pilot.
Keep an eye on Enspired as I plan to follow this development and see how that pilot goes.