EV Demand Is Driving Up The Price of Copper

But Environmentalists in Arizona Now Proclaim “NIMBY, NOTE and even BANANA”

And one clear indication of our future is electric vehicles. Well, you know what? The typical gasoline automobile uses about 65 pounds of copper, but electric automobiles use twice as much - 125 pounds of copper. So we need a whole lot of copper. Well, Arizona's got a copper mine, a pretty big one. It's 60 miles east of Phoenix and it has 18 million tons of copper in it. That's enough to build 275 million automobiles.

That's a pretty big deal. And it's important because Goldman Sachs says that our global demand for copper is going to exceed our supplies in just two years, which will cause prices of copper to double. So. Well, I'm really glad we got this copper mine in Arizona, because that'll help address this issue in a big way.

There's a problem, though. Environmentalists don't want anything to do with that copper mine, and the government is shutting down the mine so that 18 million tons is going to remain underground. We are not going to have access to it. We're not going to build a couple of hundred million cars based on it. This is a continuing trend. You've heard of NIMBY, right? Not in my backyard. Well, NIMBY is now giving way to something else because you could argue - wait a minute, nobody lives in the desert of Arizona. This thing 60 miles east of Phoenix in the middle of nowhere. So whose backyard is anybody worried about? Well, NIMBY (not in my backyard) is giving way to NOTE (not over there either).

Well, wait a minute. Not over there either. There's no “there” over there. That's still in the middle of nowhere. And what do you care if you don't even live in the state of Arizona? What if you live in Europe? Why are you complaining about this?

That's giving way to something called BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone). So I don't care what you're talking about, no matter where it is on the planet, the answer is no. And as long as this kind of political wind is prevailing, we're going to have a challenge meeting the needs of our economy and our human resources. It's going to be a challenge for the future as we politically duke this out.