The mining industry globally is responsible for significant energy consumption, and is an important source of greenhouse gas emissions. Considering that future mineral demand is likely to increase and that the final energy consumption per unit mass of mineral extracted (energy intensities of mining) is also forecast to increase as a result of a decrease in mineral resource deposit qualities, the mining industry’s final energy consumption will increase in the future. But the scale of that future increase remains unexplored. In this study, we (i) provide the first bottom-up assessment of the mining industry’s final energy consumption globally (1971–2015), (ii) use 1.5°C consistent socio-economic scenarios to conduct an exploratory study of future possible pathways for the mining industry’s final energy consumption, and (iii) review the extent to which such energy consumption is considered in energy-economy models.

We find that the mining industry is currently responsible for approximately 1.7% of global final energy consumption. However, the mining industry’s final energy consumption is likely to increase significantly, by a factor in the range 2–8 by 2060, depending on the future economic trajectory, on the evolution of energy intensities, and on future recycling rates. We also find that mineral material flows and their associated energy requirements (including the mining industry’s energy consumption) are insufficiently covered in many energy-economy models. Our work suggests that the limited representation of material flows and associated energy requirements is currently an important blind spot in energy-economy modelling and may hinder the efforts of the community to build consistent energy transition pathways.

全球采矿业消耗大量能源，也是温室气体排放的重要来源。考虑到未来矿产需求可能会增加，并且由于矿产资源储量质量下降，预计单位开采矿物的最终能源消耗（采矿能源强度）也将增加，采矿业最终能源消耗未来还会增加。但未来增长的规模仍有待探索。在本研究中，我们 (i) 对全球采矿业最终能源消耗（1971-2015）进行了首次自下而上的评估，(ii) 使用 1.5°C 一致的社会经济情景对未来可能的路径进行探索性研究(iii) 审查能源经济模型中考虑此类能源消耗的程度。

我们发现采矿业目前约占全球最终能源消耗的 1.7%。然而，到 2060 年，采矿业的最终能源消耗可能会大幅增加，增加 2-8 倍，具体取决于未来的经济轨迹、能源强度的演变以及未来的回收率。我们还发现，许多能源经济模型没有充分涵盖矿物材料流及其相关能源需求（包括采矿业的能源消耗）。我们的工作表明，物质流和相关能源需求的有限表示目前是能源经济建模中的一个重要盲点，可能会阻碍社区建立一致的能源转型途径的努力。