J. Caers
Stanford University,
United States
Keywords: critical minerals, exploration, artificial intelligence
Summary:
The United States, Europe and its allies are strategically disadvantaged in developing a secure and resilient supply chain for its energy transition, in particular, for the upstream and midstream components, Benchmark Minerals has estimated that about 300 new mines will be needed during the next decade to satisfy the projected demand in the electrification pathway. Most of these mines require making new discoveries. In this presentation, I will cover how the current approaches to mineral exploration are insufficient in making these discoveries in the time framework needed for the energy transition. I will then present innovations in mineral exploration by vertical integration of fields of economic geology, geophysics, geochemistry, data science and artificial intelligence that can accelerate discoveries. Together with Mineral-X industry partner, Kobold Metals, this innovation is applied on four continents and 60 assets, leading to discoveries at an unprecedented time scale.