FROM Kennedy to Copperhead laser-guided munitions, Robert Friedland’s return to the PDAC Convention in Toronto was itself laser-guided in copper’s role in healing humanity’s ills, and the role of his companies in facilitating that.
Beyond the slick delivery and well-practised jokes which warmed the crowd, many of whom had experienced snow-related travel disruption, the message was a serious one, being focused on his efforts to bring technological disruption to mining so that it can provide the vast amount of metals "we need to dig ourselves out the hole we have created," he said. First, the sobering reminder of the war in Ukraine from a metals point of view: an estimated 11 million 155mm artillery shells were fired last year, with the total explosive power of all the ordinance fired greater than all that fired in World War II. "Each shell contains 5kg of copper in the form of brass that will not be recycled," said Friedland. Relishing speaking to prospectors and developers rather than the "bankers and wankers" of a February conference, Friedland invoked John F Kennedy's 1962 speech about sending a man to the moon, a mission undertaken because it was hard, a clear parallel to dealing with the climate crisis and decarbonisation."The copper shortage could derail the energy transition," he said.
"We need an explosion in copper mining to produce the copper we need. … Humanity has produced 700Mt of copper, of which 80% is still in use. Over 700Mt is needed in the next 22 years to maintain 3% GDP growth without the energy transition. … Renewable energy is absurdly metals intensive. "He pointed out that wind and solar energy were between 7x and 37x more copper intensive than conventional energy. However, the supply response relies on old, ever deeper and ever lower-grade mines. "Chilean mines are like little old ladies laying in bed waiting to die," Friedland said. Beyond the jibe to promote Ivanhoe Mines and its Kamoa-Kakula mine in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Friedland's message was one of disruption. He said protests and social challenges in Latin America made building mines there more challenging, particularly as Bay Street bankers use a 10-12% discount factor in their net present value (NPV) models because of these risks."It is possible to mine in these countries, you can create a reality distortion field, but bankers use a NPV model with a discount rate of 10-12%. The Chinese don't use NPV models because they have 1.2 billion people to feed. It is getting really getting hard to be a miner, and we need to burn the NPV model if we are going to go mine in Latin American countries," he said. Other Friedland disruption is coming via i-Pulse, his high-pulsed power company, which he posits as the biggest breakthrough in energy since Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse created alternating current."Pulsed power efficiently fragments rock. … For 1000 years, we have used compressive forces to crush and grind rock; we are using tensile forces to pull rock apart with 99% reduction in grinding energy," he said.
