第2794期:The emerging science of finding critical metals(1)

I was born and raised in Zambia, a country known for its rich copper mining history. Alignment of the stars meant that by birth and by science, I became a miner. Everything we build and use was either grown or mined. From the walls to the windows, the tables and the chairs, your phones, your computers, the stage, my copper earrings and maybe your jewelry.我在赞比亚出生并长大，这个国家以丰富的铜矿开采历史闻名。命运与科学的安排，使我自然而然成为了一名矿工。我们建造和使用的一切，要么是种出来的，要么是挖出来的。从墙壁到窗户，从桌子到椅子，从你的手机到电脑，从舞台到我戴的铜耳环，甚至可能还有你的首饰。

So today when we talk about building a circular economy, we mean we need to electrify everything. Our economies will have cars and trucks, robots, drones and aircraft powered by batteries. Our children will need computers in all schools with equal access, and we'll have data centers full of advanced chips to bring us AI, all sourced by abundant sources of renewable energy. The raw materials we'll need will be recyclable so we can become clean and circular. So that means a lot more lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel and others. So we need to build more than 400 new mines by 2040 for us to become circular.所以今天当我们谈论构建循环经济时，意思是我们必须让一切实现电气化。我们的经济体系将拥有由电池驱动的汽车和卡车、机器人、无人机和飞机。我们的孩子们将在所有学校里都能平等地使用电脑，而我们也会有充满先进芯片的数据中心来为我们带来人工智能，而这一切都将依赖丰富的可再生能源。我们所需要的原材料必须是可回收的，这样我们才能实现清洁和循环。因此，这意味着需要更多的锂、铜、钴、镍以及其他矿物。到 2040 年，我们需要建立超过 400 座新矿山，才能实现循环经济。

But before you can build a mine, you have to find the raw materials. The thing is, today's mining industry leaders are doing too little to advance our qualities of life. In other industries that rely on discovery for growth, like pharmaceuticals and technology, for every dollar they return to shareholders, they spend about a dollar in R and D. In mining, however, for every dollar returned to shareholders, less than a penny is spent in exploration. With such underinvestment, it shouldn't surprise you that the technology used in exploration and mining has barely advanced. In fact, we've gotten ten times worse in the last 30 years at making ore body discoveries.但在你建矿之前，首先必须找到原材料。问题在于，当今的矿业领袖们在提升我们的生活质量方面做得太少。在其他依赖发现推动增长的行业，比如制药业和科技行业，每返还一美元给股东，他们大约会投入一美元用于研发。然而在矿业中，每返还一美元给股东，用于勘探的投入却不到一分钱。在如此严重的投资不足下，你不应该对矿业勘探和开采技术几乎毫无进步感到惊讶。事实上，在过去 30 年里，我们在发现矿体方面的效率已经降低了十倍。

But there's good news. The vast majority of ore deposits are still out there waiting to be found. They're just harder to find. Of all the past mines we know of, they were easy because they were poking out of the surface and they were near the surface.但好消息是，绝大多数矿床仍然存在，正等待我们去发现。只是它们变得更难寻找了。我们已知的那些过去的矿山之所以容易发现，是因为它们要么直接露出地表，要么距离地表非常近。