As the push for sustainability continues, Sandvik says the need for more mining will also increase, as the sector’s critical minerals play a vital role in a wide range of renewable energy technologies.
Sandvik’s representation of this was delivered through eNimon, an electric vehicle (EV) installation the company coined as the first made without metals or minerals, answering the question of ‘what happens if EV and renewable energy tech like wind turbines and solar had to be produced without resources from mining?’
eNimon, or the No Mine Car, is useless – Sandvik said that more than 90 per cent of an average EV consists of resources derived from mining, and answering the question it posed, the vehicle would be “completely transparent”, lacking all the factors that “make a car a car”.
Sandvik mining president Mats Eriksson said that without mining, there would be no EVs, wind turbines, or solar panels.
“Sustainable mining is the backbone of the green transition and fundamental to achieving global sustainability goals,” he said.
Sandvik added that eNimon showed a future with no access to mined metals and minerals, adding that current mining output cannot meet the rapidly rising demand for the minerals essential for clean energy technologies.
Lithium, copper, and nickel are crucial yet the supply of these resources falls behind the demand.
The goal of eNimon, according to Sandvik, is to spotlight the “essential role” of sustainable mining in creating the technologies that “define modern life” and drive the electrification of the world.
Sourced from the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) report on the role of critical minerals in critical energy transitions, Sandvik said that an EV itself requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional vehicle.
Also from the IEA, it added that an onshore wind plant needs nine times more mineral resources than a gas-fired plant, and that meeting net-zero goals by 2050 would require up to five times more production of lithium, nickel and cobalt compared to current-day levels.
The installation is now on display at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, with Sandvik saying that it offers a “thought-provoking” visualisation of what happens if these critical materials are no longer available.
“eNimon symbolises what’s at stake is the world fails to recognise and expand mining’s essential contributions to sustainable development,” Eriksson said.
“This installation challenges perceptions of mining, not as a dirty, outdated industry, but as a high-tech, innovative and essential enabler of the green technologies shaping out future.”