title: The future of copper in China--A perspective based on analysis of copper flows and stocks.
abstract: This study attempts to speculate on the future of copper metabolism in China based on dynamic substance flow analysis. Based on tremendous growth of copper consumption over the past 63 years, China will depict a substantially increasing trend of copper in-use stocks for the next 30 years. The highest peak will be possibly achieved in 2050, with the maximum ranging between 163 Mt and 171 Mt. After that, total stocks are expected to slowly decline 147-154 Mt by the year 2080. Owing to the increasing demand of in-use stocks, China will continue to have a profound impact on global copper consumption with its high import dependence until around 2020, and the peak demand for imported copper are expected to approach 5.5 Mt/year. Thereafter, old scrap generated by domestic society will occupy an increasingly important role in copper supply. In around 2060, approximately 80% of copper resources could come from domestic recycling of old scrap, implying a major shift from primary production to secondary production. With regard to the effect of lifetime distribution uncertainties in different end-use sectors of copper stocks on the predict results, uncertainty evaluation was performed and found the model was relatively robust to these changes.
authors.affiliation: College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, PR China.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, PR China.
authors.forename: Zhijian
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, PR China.
authors.forename: Jiameng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, PR China. Electronic address: yuanzw@nju.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Zengwei
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, PR China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D003300:Copper; D005544:Forecasting; D008669:Metallurgy / Q000639:trends*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D059027:Recycling; D035501:Uncertainty
chemical_list: D003300:Copper
keywords: Circular economy; Copper; Environmental management; Flows and stocks; Substance flow analysis