In this opinion piece, SRK Consulting partner and principal consultant Andrew van Zyl reflects on some of the most prominent topics discussed at this year’s Investing in African Mining Indaba.
Mining remains a vital part of a low-carbon future, a fact that was confirmed by the topics prioritised at the recent Investing in African Mining Indaba’s virtual conference this week.
The message was clear: mining is part of the solution as the planet addresses climate change through a range of renewable technologies.
The World Bank estimates, for instance, that production of minerals like graphite, lithium and cobalt could grow by 500% in the next three decades to meet demand for clean energy technologies.
A single 3 MW wind turbine requires 4.7 t of copper, while solar photovoltaic cells include glass, aluminium, silicon and even silver. The storage of this renewable energy in batteries is requiring increasing volumes of minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese.
For the rest of this column: https://www.miningweekly.com/article/opinion-decarbonisation-will-need-more-better-mining-2021-02-05